Thursday 21st June saw students from Beeston, Garvestone, Beetley, Scarning, Yaxham and Toftwood Schools visit Northgate for a joint Literacy and Numeracy project day, based around a theme park. Organised and run by Mrs Woods, Head of English and Miss Theobald, Lead Intervention for Maths, the day consisted of a number of workshops using various numeracy and literacy skills.
Each team of 3 students was supported by a Year 7 buddy over the course of the day, there to support, guide and help the team in their decision making.
First up was the brief: teams had a plot of land and had been granted planning permission to build a theme park. With a business loan of £5 million the first session involved working together to plan out their theme park on a scale map according to certain criteria. This took careful thought and planning not only ensuring it would potentially attract visitors but also stay within budget.
Session 2 allowed teams to create a mini brochure to promote the theme park. They had to think about information to include, how to persuade visitors to come, the names of their rides or attractions, how other features such as food outlets could be detailed in their brochure. The brochure worked on skills of writing, illustrating and persuasive features with students working collaboratively.
Then it was time for a quick break and a chance to taste the school’s yummy biscuits!
Session 3 was back to some numeracy work and it was time to think about the running costs for the theme park. As a group, they had to look at the staffing costs per day and who might need to be employed, maintenance costs for the rides and attractions to stay safe and functional, electricity costs, stock for the food outlets, insurance costs and more. Teams had to budget for two weeks of operating costs out of their business loan, hopefully after that the theme park would start making a profit.
Session 4 involved trying to work out appropriate entrance fees for the theme park and who their target audience might be. How many adults and children would they expect to visit each day? Will this affect what they charge? How much should be charged so they are able to make a profit but not turn people off so they don’t visit? Lots of questions to consider throughout this session.
Then it was time for lunch. Edwards and Blake kindly provided a buffet lunch. It was a chance to reflect on progress made so far with the different tasks set.
Session 5 was aimed at marketing. Not only looking at budgeting for various forms of marketing such as advertisements, poster campaigns, radio, television etc but also looking at key features of different forms of advertising and creating the advertisements themselves. Some pupils headed to the computers to create their newspaper advertisements. Pupils also had to think about the content included, how they could encourage people to visit, their persuasive language, what key information to include and more.
At the end of the day teams had the chance to present to each other some of their work. Miss Theobald and Mrs Woods presented all students with a medal and certificate for their fantastic work. Overall winners of the project based on their team work, collaboration, ideas and superb numeracy and literacy work were Sophie, Gracie-Mai and Millie-Paige from Scarning. They were presented with a mini trophy to take back to their school.
All in all, it was a great day. We asked the Year 5s what they thought of the project and here’s what they had to say:
‘It was awesome!’
‘I liked making the brochures and adding up the prices.’
‘I would definitely recommend this day to all of my friends, they learn and experience new things.’
‘I’ve learnt so much more today. Also it’s helped me get better at teamwork.’
‘Our buddy helped us be more confident with our Maths and speaking aloud.’
‘Our buddy helped us when we calculated things wrong and most importantly made us smile and laugh’
‘It was so much fun.’
A big thank you to the Primary Schools for allowing their students out for the day to work with us, to the Year 7 buddies who did a great job and to Mrs Woods and Miss Theobald for putting the project together. We look forward to working with the Primary Schools again in the future.
