Classes

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Over the course of our time in Alpedrete, we worked with three year groups. Years 7, 8 and 9. Each group came with their own set of challenges but all were very rewarding to work with. The Year 7s being the youngest, and subsequently the most the enthusiastic, were an absolute pleasure to work with, and because of that the work practically did itself. The same can be said for the Year 8s, although a little bit more patience was needed. The Year 9s were the biggest challenge, a small group that had been thrown together based on their collective. They were often boisterous and struggled with some of the concepts, and that threw us off and forced us to rethink our approach with them. While frustrating, in retrospect I believe that this challenge was the true experience. We were forced to adapt our methods to accommodate this group, and it took a lot of patience with them and each-other to figure out what to do with them each day.

We started each of these groups out by performing some Workshops that were unrelated to the material we later presented them, as a way to get them familiar with us and the concept of storytelling. We adapted the workshops format used by Fighting Words, an organisation I volunteer with back in Dublin. These went down a treat, we did an additional workshop with a class of Year 5s and they had an absolute ball.

For next years students, be as creative as you can with your lessons. We had some classes in the middle where we had the students just work on the worksheets we were handing out, and it drained their attention and it drained our enthusiasm. Follow all of Colin’s advice when it comes to using props and music and the likes, if classes get cut for school trips and sports day, actively seek out extra classes to fill lost time. Ask the teachers for advice if you feel that you are losing the students attention, due to the nature of the work placement, they tend to take a step back and let you do the work…but you’ll find they are often itching to help.