Rolls-Royce

Entrant's address and contact details

School name:	Camelsdale First School
School/college address:	School Road Camelsdale Haslemere West Sussex GU27 3RN England

School phone number:	01428 642177
Number of pupils in school(s) - male:	88
Number of pupils in school(s) - female:	108
Number of staff in school(s):	20

Our team leader and our team

Name	Position (e.g. Headteacher, parent, etc.)	Organisation
Mrs Veronica Carter	Foundation Stage Co-ordinator	Camelsdale First School
Mrs Sarah Palmer	Head	Camelsdale First School
Mr Neil Wilson	Subject Leader for Science	Camelsdale First School
Dr Sue Mitchel	School Secretary	Camelsdale First School
Mr Sam Bayley	Chair of Sussex Moth Group	Sussex Moth Group

The key skills, strengths and roles of each team member are: (200 words)

Mrs Veronica Carter MSc
Foundation Stage Leader, responsible for development of learning outdoors, VC undertaking Forest Schools training this year. Her own deep interest in natural history inspires similar interest in her class. She will lead this project with her Reception class.

Mr Neil Wilson
Science Co-ordinator. He has led many innovations in our science teaching. He will oversee the project, planning how it will be built upon in years to come and with other age groups.

Mrs Sarah Palmer
Head. Is keen to develop our learning in innovative ways and will actively support this project, which relates directly to the School Development Plan.

Dr Sue Mitchel
School Secretary. With a degree in Botany and a postgraduate degree in plant pathology, followed by work with MAFF, she still maintains a keen interest in the environment. She is actively involved with the development of the school grounds and will support this area of the project.

Mr Sam Bayley
Chairman of the Sussex Moth Group. Will be taking the role of expert in our team. This fits with one of the aims of the Moth Group:

Our proposal

Topic area of proposal: Processes and Living Things - Life and Living processes

Briefly, the aim of our proposal is: (50 words)

As a development of existing practice in learning outdoors, the Foundation Stage children will use moths traps in a variety of situations, recording what they find using digital cameras and creating talking photo albums to share with parents on our VLE. They will use information books to identify some of the moths. Our expert SB will check our identifications, answer the childrenâ€™s questions and guide us in the further development of the school grounds to make them increasingly attractive to moths. The work will support learning in science (knowledge and understanding of the world), in mathematical development, communication and ICT.

Pupil type to benefit: All

Age range to benefit from proposal: 3-11

Learning outcomes from our proposal: (50 words)

To promote a sense of awe and wonder in the natural world.
To provide opportunities for our youngest pupils to work with information books and experts, based on genuine first-hand experience.
To involve the pupils in purposeful further development of our wonderful school grounds.

Our reasons for developing this particular proposal: (100 words)

This project addresses two priorities from our School Development Plan: to develop our forest schools approach and to make our curriculum as irresistible as possible.

Moths are ideal for hands-on work as they are sleepy during the day allowing children to handle and examine them at length. Children know little about moths so there is significant capacity for them to steer their learning, deciding what they want to learn. The work will provide a focus to our development of our Secret Garden and of our use of our VLE, to share and extend the work, involving parents in their childrenâ€™s learning.

Detailed description of our proposal: (300 words)

Last year we borrowed a moth trap and our the Foundation Stage pupils went from â€˜but what IS a moth?â€™ to having hands-on experience of many types of moths. This project will build on and extend that experience. We will use our own moth traps in different areas of the school grounds and beyond and at different times of the year, with the children using a digital camera to record what we find.
They will use Photostory3 to make an online album onto which they record their descriptions of and thoughts about the moths. This will be shared with parents via our school Virtual Learning Environment with pupils and parents invited to contribute to a discussion forum about this work. We will identify some of the moths using a range of information books and will contact SB, as our expert, who will check our identifications. SB will also answer any questions from the children. We will then work with SB to develop the schoolâ€™s Secret Garden (environmental area, or classroom without walls) to make it more attractive to the moths we now know that we have and to make it more attractive to a greater range of moths. In future years we would hope to see the impact when we revisit this area of work. When the children are familiar with a range of moths we will then set up our moth traps at our link farm with the children taking on the role of expert by showing and telling the farm manager (an ex-teacher) all about the moths we find in our traps there. As well as the science work within this project it will also be used to support mathematics work on symmetry and with developing speaking and listening and ICT skills.

Putting our proposal into practice

Outline of how our team would implement our proposal over a period of not more than 24 weeks: (300 words, bulleted lists accepted)

Weeks 1-2 (VC)

Reception Class, who will be undertaking this project will create a mindmap of \

Monitoring and evaluation

The monitoring procedures we will use during the project are: (200 words, bulleted lists accepted)

The in-school team will meet periodically (see timetable above) to review progress and plan the details of the next steps.
VC will feedback to the Leadership Team weekly on progress of the project in our regular Leadership Team Meetings. These meetings are minuted and so a record of progress will build up.
The Development Committee of the governing body will monitor the development of the Secret Garden which is part of this project. Minutes will be taken at their meetings.

The evaluation procedures we will use at the end of the 25 weeks to check the effectiveness of our project are: (200 words, bulleted lists accepted)

The mind maps created at two points during this project should show notable increase in knowledge about moths and in use of language to express ideas and observations.
Most assessment in the Foundation Stage take the form of direct observation and this will be used extensively in this project. Comments made while working with the moths will be noted together with general reactions, this will enable a judgement to made against our learning outcome of promoting a sense of awe and wonder. Written observations will be made while the children discuss the contents of the moth trap when we visit the farm. The farm owner will feign complete ignorance of moths and so the children will be using all their communication skills and moths knowledge when talking to her. Feedback from parents as to the impact of the project will be sought via the discussion forums on our VLE.
The success of our development of the Secret Garden will only be able to be measured over time when this work is repeated in subsequent years.

Budget

Itemised costs of putting your proposal into practice within a maximum budget of £5,000 or equivalent in Euros: