Recovery Curriculum Whole School Plan - Unit 1 Spring 2021 - The Great Realisation

Text: Unit 1: The Great Realisation by Tomos Roberts Outcomes • Consider pupils’ mental health and wellbeing.. Text: Unit 1: The Great Realisation by Tomos Roberts Learning Targets Found

Recovery Curriculum – Spring 2021

Unit 1: The Great Realisation by Tomos Roberts

Text: Unit 1: The Great Realisation by Tomos Roberts

Outcomes

• Consider pupils’ mental health and wellbeing Identify any pupils who may need additional support so they are ready to learn

• Rebuild a sense of community so that every pupil, parent and staff member feels safe and secure

• Assess where pupils are in their learning, and agree what adjustments may be needed to the school curriculum over the coming weeks

Overview

Despite the fact the pandemic has been happening for almost a year, it is still important that the children understand that the world has changed and that their lives have changed and will change again It is vital that the children know that they are not the only ones living in this situation

It is imperative that we give children the opportunity to discuss their feelings surrounding the current pandemic Even though we may feel more used to it now, it is important to revisit these discussions, especially when returning to school after another long absence

We need to help children to remember rules whilst in school, structure of the day and general systems and procedures such as behaviour policies Children need to have time to refresh their understanding of the changes around the school and how we can follow social distancing They also need to understand why this is important Children will have got used to being at home and will need support to follow rules and policies

Children have had a long time at home with their immediate families and interactions will have been limited, with much of their learning done on screen Children need to develop skills needed for play, collaborative learning, team work and communication The three prime areas in EYFS: CLL,PSED, PD are crucial to all children as they return

With the support of the text, children will learn about how to frame negative situations positively so that we can see the silver lining and look to the future

Children will be given the opportunity to be creative, innovative and expressive as they adjust into a new way of learning again

The additional activities below can be used to supplement learning both in the classroom and at home

Text: Unit 1: The Great Realisation by Tomos Roberts

Learning Targets Foundational

Learning

Essential Activities

To understand what has stayed

the same within our school and

community

Spoken Language

• Listen and respond appropriately to adults and their peers

• Ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge

• Use relevant strategies to build their vocabulary

• Speak audibly and fluently with an increasing command

of Standard English

• Participate in discussions, presentations, performances, role play, improvisations and debates

• Gain, maintain and monitor the interest of the listener(s)

• Select and use appropriate registers for effective communication

PSHE

Discuss how pupils feel being back at school Explore what has changed in the school (For EYFS/Y1 children this may

be extended as exploration of classroom) And what has also changed at home since before Christmas What has changed in the world? Recap any key rules associated with COVID-19 - what they can and can`t do at the moment and why Talk about how we felt at first during the pandemic and how we feel now If children need to, they may want to contribute confidentially by writing a note or telling a key person if they do not want to say in front of the class Remind children of basic skills for S&L (this is to carry on throughout all activities with additional support for EAL children or any children who have delayed speech or vocabulary skills) Create (or if you have one in place, review) a safe charter for your classroom This could then feed into a whole school charter- having Y6 run a virtual

assembly Have the class charter as part of a new display within each room to remind children of the rules Reading

Share the poem/video together and talk about what the book is about Make a mind map together of the positives from the poem KS2 children may want to take this further by discussing the theme of the book and how the concept that a negative experience can sometimes have a silver lining Explore the idea that even bad things can have good consequences Can children recall the positive aspects of the pandemic from the poem?

To understand what has changed

within our school and

community

To understand what has changed

within our families and lives

To understand what has changed

in the world

Reading

• Develop pleasure in listening

to texts

• Participate in discussions about the text

• Recall basic facts from the text

• Clarify the meaning of vocabulary (where appropriate)

• Infer events and feelings from the text (relative to year group)

• Sequence and summarise the text (relative to year group)

Writing

• Sit correctly at a table, holding a pencil comfortably and correctly

• Correctly form letters

• Use spelling knowledge to spell words correctly (relative to year group)

• Use capital letters and appropriate basic punctuation (relative to year groups)

• Write and construct sentences accurately (relative to year group)

Maths, Phonics and Guided Reading lessons to begin gradually from Week 2, going at

a pace appropriate to children’s

PSHE

NB: Before this activity is completed please be mindful if any children in the class have had traumatic experiences during the pandemic and, if they have, assess whether or not these are conversations the child or yourself would want to have with the whole class or if this would require a different level of intervention

Discuss children’s experiences of the pandemic, both negative and positive (or good and bad for EYFS) Gather the children’s experiences then work together to decide if they feel that they are a negative or a positive experience (acknowledge some could be both) Talk through what we could do in the tricky situations e.g if we haven’t been able to see our grandparents, how could we keep in touch Depending on the key themes that children may have been affected by, you may wish to build in an activity such as writing a letter, a postcard or drawing a picture to relatives who the children haven’t seen or someone who has helped them during lockdown You might want to use the positives we identified in the poem to help widen the discussion around the positive things that have happened, both to us and in the wider world

Reading

Share lockdown stories together focused on the great things ordinary people have done in the pandemic You could explore famous stories such as that of Captain Sir Tom Moore, or less well known stories, even from your own community Children could share the great things that they have done too Recall key facts and ideas from the stories they hear or read Where appropriate, older classes may want to engage in some inferential reading to discuss how those people, and the people they helped, feel Discuss together how we can make a positive difference

to situations like the pandemic Explore what you could do as individuals, as a class and as a school to make a positive difference at the moment

PSHE

Discuss the theme of ‘The Great Realisation’ Compare life before the pandemic, with life now and what we hope life will look like in the Summer Talk together about what children’s realisations have been Create a class display

of your great realisations during the pandemic You could also link this discussion to children’s habits, discussing positive and negative habits and deciding which habits and things about their current experiences we want to keep after restrictions end, e.g You may want to continue exercising, but cut down on your screen time Explore how we can help each other to keep our positive habits going and continue to avoid our less positive habits This could be developed further by engaging in a buddy system to help

Art

Art and creativity are essential ways to help children understand and accept what they have felt or are feeling Look closely together at the illustrations in the book and then encourage children to respond to the previous lesson on realisations to create their own art work You may want to give them a medium to work with or allow them to select their own This art work could form a central display and/or you could create a virtual art gallery for parents and the wider community

To understand how to keep

ourselves and others safe around

school (including new rules)

To understand how we can look

at the positives in any situation

and make a positive difference to

others

To think positively about the

future

Writing

Focusing on the positive habits and realisations children have made, discuss these further with children Children could write a letter, a speech or a diary entry (a genre they have been taught before) which shares their great realisation You could collate these as a school in a communal space or create a film exploring your collective realisations and share them with families (remembering all the good learning and linking to home that we have been able to do during the pandemic)

PSHE

Discuss the idea of looking forward to the future What are children looking forward to today, this week and after Easter when restrictions are eased? Children could make their own list and you could collate these into a class list

of activities you would like to do together before the end of the school year You could create a display of these and tick them off over time, to show children visually that things are improving If there are set backs, keep the lists and explore with the children about how far we have come and the next steps in returning to normality Turn the discussion to our wider hopes for the future linked back to the realisations in the poem What can we do to make

a positive change for good? You could explore any of the key global ideas introduced, e.g plastic pollution, nature, and work together to decide on actions you could take as individuals/as a class/as a school to keep that positive change going This could be a bigger project and could link back to units of work created for the Autumn term available at https://www.oneeducation.co.uk/resources/tags:Literacy/filt:COVID19%20Resources/sort:desc

Writing

Look at the Nationwide ‘In 6 months’ time’ messages that people have written and recorded for themselves Discuss what children would like to do in 6 months’ time and what they would like to say to themselves then Gather ideas together Look at examples of written messages together Children could write/film their own message to themselves Then, as a class, use the messages to create your own ‘In 6 months’ time…’ poem which shares your collective hopes for the future This again could be collated and shared with families

Some children, at the end of this week, may still need further support There are additional units of planning on

Text: Unit 1: The Great Realisation by Tomos Roberts

Possible Activities Linked to The Great Realisation by Tomos Roberts

• Learn and perform excerpts from the

poem

• EYFS – write a sentence to a family

member about what they have

learned/realised during this time

• KS1 – write a letter asking someone that

they know about what they have

realised during this time and sharing

their own realisations

• KS2 – Write a persuasive speech

encouraging their local community to

continue with their new habits

• Share the poem and other linked texts, e.g The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse; The Red Tree

• Retell the story of the poem

• Discuss and think about what people may have realised during this time – how may they differ?

• Compare realisations of others in the class and within the community

• Explore how children are feeling on return to school and the impact

COVID-19 has had on their lives Discuss how we can cope with negative feelings Explore how difficult situations can also result in positive feelings, such as children’s realisations – seeing the silver lining

• Consider the importance of exercise together Children could create a class leaflet encouraging people to keep up with their exercise after lockdown

• UKS2 – explore links to unhealthy habits, e.g smoking, drinking Create posters encouraging people not to return to these habits

• Take some time to exercise together in a green space, either onsite or in the local area

• Create a dance depicting the great realisation, and the concept of the silver lining

• Design a game to encourage teamwork and collaboration

• Use instruments to follow the rhyme

and rhythm of the poem

• Create a musical composition as a

backing track for the poem

• Create musical compositions with the

theme of realisation

• World in a bottle – one side depicting the world before and one side with our hopes for after

• Create dioramas showing our wishes for the world after the great realisation

• Story stones – paint story stones to retell the story

• Discuss the reasons why we still need to social distance, can`t hug and need to wash our hands from a scientific point of view (age appropriate)

• Explore the positive effects of exercise

on the human body

• Link discussions to the idea of time

• Explore what the future could look like, linking to STEM

• Create a stop motion animation focused

on the great realisation

• Create photo collages and videos showing the return to school

• Share work with other classes (and possibly other local schools) via video conferencing

Text: Unit 1: The Great Realisation by Tomos Roberts

Possible Activities Linked to The Great Realisation by Tomos Roberts

Geography and Nature History Parental Involvement Wider Community

• Discuss the positive impacts COVID-19

has had on the environment and nature

Children could choose a particular issue

to research and complete a child-led

project on how we can keep these

positive effects going

• Parks and green spaces have been

shown to be really important during the

pandemic Children could create a

campaign for additional green

spaces/improving green spaces in their

community

• Discuss how nature can help our

wellbeing Spend time in a green space –

how does it make children feel? What

can they see, hear, smell, touch? This

could link with previous units from

Autumn 1 available on

• Make links to other times of ‘great realisation’ that children will be familiar with, e.g The Great Fire of London, WW2 Children could make inferences about people’s feelings, writing in role or dramatizing key moments

• Research people who have led movements of realisation during history

• Send home the link to the book so it can

be shared at home

• Encourage families to create a ’10 things I’d like to do’ list of things they would like to do together when restrictions are relaxed

• Window Art Realisations

After sharing the book together, families could discuss their own great realisation and create a piece of artwork together

to display in their window A window art trail could be organised so children can share their realisations with the community

• Select additional activities from the list above, or your own ideas, to be completed at home Share with families

• Photograph the work produced in school and share online for parents to see and

comment on

• Encourage the children to write letters

or draw pictures and send these to the local community, retelling the story of the great realisation and encouraging the community to display their great realisations in their windows

• Invite community members to record a short video about their great realisations during lockdown and children could share these in assembly

• Create a community time capsule linking

to the pandemic and the communities great realisations