Today I spent the morning with Primary 4 at Stenhouse Primary in Edinburgh. I got to take a group of 6 children and chat to them about their school and classroom.
I asked them about technology in the classroom and asked if they would all like to have a laptop to work on and one girl said "No, they use too much electricity". I thought this was brilliant coming from an 8 year old.
They all said they would love to have more outdoor learning and wanted to have a garden to grow potatoes, carrots and tomatoes and then what they grow could be used for their lunches.
They also realised that even although they would all want a big, comfy office chair on wheels, they would probably not get any work done, so the chairs they have now are more suited to the classroom environment.
The classroom had lots of interactive displays, like the sweetshop sentences display. This display could be used at any time if any one of them was struggling to remember how to construct a sentence.
There was also topic stations around the room. These were tables with objects, books and work that related to what they are learning in lessons. The children, when finished the class work and have spare time, are allowed to go to any of these stations and play with or read any of the material at these stations. This helps to reinforce what they have been learning that week and this stations chance every two weeks.
This is a small section of the stone work on the outside of the main hall, which was built by member of the foundation.
The foundation is full of very creative people, this gate is just one example of the skills they have.
I loved this quirky, cute building used for meditation.
This was in the garden of their arts centre, which is completely off the grid, and it is to attract wildlife and insects into the garden.
