Moving image education

In 2006 Scottish Screen seconded one of its Lead Practitioners, Mairi Flood, with expertise in nursery education to develop a model of moving image education for early years.

A number of mysterious events have been happening around Angus. A small girl in a red cloak reported seeing a wolf at Lethnot School and three little pigs were seen boarding a miniature railway train. Meanwhile, news reporters at Maisondieu School were trying to unravel the mystery behind some lost puppets, involving a gang of pirates and stolen treasure.

Nursery pupils at Lethnot and Stracathro and P1 and P2 pupils at Maisondieu School have been involved in a moving image education (MIE) project. Over the past year the schools have kindly agreed to work in collaboration with Scottish Screen to trial some ideas for a model of MIE for 3–7-year-olds which is currently being developed.

Film detectives

Initially, the children became Film Detectives, watching films, discussing them and analysing them using the three Cs (character, colour, camera) and the three Ss (story, setting, sound). At Maisondieu this learning was then transferred through planning and creating miniature settings that were photographed and edited into short film montages with appropriate sound effects added.

During the spring term, pupils discussed their favourite films and television programmes to agree on a topic to plan and collaboratively create play experiences.

A mermaid’s bedroom

The P1 class designed puppets of their favourite TV characters, drew backdrops and built a puppet theatre. Other puppets were brought in from home and the teacher developed the context using storyline principles, resulting in a search for lost puppets that were eventually located on a desert island. They made ‘Lost’ posters, wrote postcards and invitations and created an island play area in the classroom.

Lightning McQueen from Cars meets Sporticus

from Lazytown After discussing and recording their views, the favourite film in P2 was Pirates of the Caribbean. The children researched, designed and made part of a life-size pirate ship to play in. They created pirate names for themselves and brought in toys, books, models, maps and drawings they had made at home to have pride of place on their pirate display. Letters arrived from the mysterious Captain Red and treasure to hide from the infamous Captain Whitebeard. Learning experiences were developed around this theme and the children explored genre and characters of their chosen film through developing their questioning skills. One Monday, when the children arrived to find there was a broken window, they provided very imaginative explanations, all involving Whitebeard and a treacherous parrot. After a request from Captain Red, the pupils even press-ganged some of the P1 puppets into a life on the sea.

Reporting the news

In the P1/2 composite class the children decided to look at the Deal or No Deal game show and the roles required for the show. They created the props and acted out the game in the correct sequence of events. This involved problem solving – how to create and cover boxes, investigating and writing large and small numbers, and taking turns in the various roles within the game. Next, they turned their attention to the news, watching and talking about the roles in these programmes and splitting themselves up into news reporting teams. Over the summer term the children watched an information DVD supplied by STV; then the individual news teams created title pages for their team, paying attention to the pictures chosen to convey their identity. We then worked on open and closed questions to develop reporting skills.

In the final term the pupils combined all the knowledge and skills they had gained to create short films. P1 used live action and animation to tell the story of the missing puppets, while P2 used the same film techniques to create a pirate tale of stolen treasure. The P1/2 class researched and created Maisondieu School News.

Making the films

Meanwhile, the children at Stracathro and Lethnot nurseries had decided to make films of The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood. These projects centred on the children’s interests and ideas, hence the piggies left home by train. Next, the children created group storyboards containing detailed drawings, collages and photographs. They discussed characters and drew costume ideas, researched photographs of wolves, and investigated different fabric to decide exactly how the main characters should look. Fabric and dressmaking patterns were duly bought and the children enjoyed looking at the pictures, letters and numbers on these. Locations were decided on and the children composed, typed and signed letters of request and they listened to the replies we received.

During filming all the classes had many opportunities to act out roles and operate the camera, discussing shot types and why we might use them. They became adept at putting up the tripod and placing the camera on it. At the editing stage they learnt to play selected clips, how to drag them onto the editing timeline in the correct order and to narrate the story.

Enthusiasm and purpose

There are 66 learning outcomes in A Curriculum Framework for Children 3 to 5 and we covered at least 58 during this learning journey. A similar number of outcomes were met from the 5–14 guidelines and all four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence were addressed. Handing over ownership of the experience to children injected enthusiasm and purpose to their learning and it was a meaningful experience for them because it:

• linked with their prior experiences and interests
• was delivered holistically with all skills, knowledge and attitudes interwoven as in real life
• developed their understanding of the media, enabling them to use it as a tool to communicate with others.

In conclusion, the staff involved noted that the children had demonstrated a high degree of motivation and pride in their work; they had worked collaboratively as teams, making sure that everyone was involved. Children who had previously been reluctant contributors became involved and found their voices, and some who had previously not been keen to write became keen and wrote more than before. Finally, handing over ownership of this holistic learning journey to the children injected enthusiasm and a purpose into their learning.

On Monday 25 and Tuesday 26 June 2007 the children celebrated their experience by showing their films to their families and invited guests; over 250 people attended this event. It was a wonderful evening and all our guests applauded the children’s achievements.