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How does Computer Science equip us for life?

Mr Ian Richardson, Head of Computer Science at WHS, examines the broader transferrable skills that pupils can develop in the subject, and how these can help pupils to prosper in life away from the screen.

Computer Science is a unique subject which is developing at an incredibly rapid pace. In many conversations with parents, it seems that everyone grasps the importance of understanding how computers work and of being able to bend them to our will. However, since the change from the Information and Communication Technology syllabi, a number of parents and colleagues are still unsure as to what it is we, as Computer Scientists, do in our classrooms.

The simple principle is that our pupils should be able to sit down at a computer and be presented with a problem. They should be able to start from nothing but a blank page and then design, implement, test and evaluate a program which solves that problem. The scale of the challenge is significant, whether at A Level or Year 7. The little victories and celebrations along the way are what get students into coding and make teaching the subject so enjoyable. In this article, I am going to look at what I think are the key transferrable skills for the subject.

Coding
Above: From Gov.uk

The Essential “Tools” for Computing

The curriculum for the subject is designed to promote thinking skills and metacognition. The first key skill with which pupils become acquainted is abstraction. A simple everyday example of abstraction at work is the map of the London Underground; the map does not depict the geographical placement of stations, but simply the connections between them. Abstraction is the skill of seeing the woods, despite the many trees that could obscure the view. By teaching our pupils the skill of abstraction, we can teach them to think beyond the details of a problem and to think about the patterns and the connections which in turn teaches them to make generalisations to help solve a problem.

Next comes decomposition; breaking a large problem down into increasingly smaller sub-problems until they can be solved easily. It is instinctive for most pupils, when presented with a problem, to worry about the entirety of it. It takes practice to learn to develop a structure, to work out the key parts of a solution and to build from there. Students learn to “Divide and Conquer” for success and this approach can help students to solve problems in any future learning tasks which require design skills.

Finally comes the programming itself. It can seem that there are simply huge numbers of confusing commands to learn within programming. However, it is the structure of the program which is of the greatest importance and in this respect there are relatively few things to learn. As a student continues, they may become familiar with subroutines, classes and modules but on the whole, it boils down to sequence, selection, iteration. Individual commands and keywords can be looked up in reference books, but the skill of structuring program takes time and practice to develop. It takes time to master (think Anders Ericsson and 10,000 hours) but encourages pupils to approach problems methodically.

As well as those all-important subject skills, Computer Science has the capacity to help us grow and develop as individuals.

Failure as a Stepping Stone to Success

Coding is a discipline which gives us unparalleled opportunities to conquer our fear of failure. It is often estimated that the industry average for errors is “about 15 – 50 errors per 1000 lines of delivered code.”[1]. It can be daunting to receive error messages when you first start to learn to program and it seems like you struggle to type a single line without making a mistake. Over time, pupils can learn to:

1 – Accept that they have made a mistake

2 – Accept that they have the capacity to put it right

3 – Analyse their own work to find the error (often as simple as a missing parenthesis or extra space)

Exposure to lots of low-stakes risk-bearing situations through programming and debugging can teach resilience, independence and curiosity. It also helps to develop patience and a sense of humour can go a long way too.

Creativity and Curiosity

Computing can be easily overlooked when thinking about creative subjects. Computer programmers use the tools at their disposal to solve challenges every day. Successful computing students learn to master the simple techniques at their disposal and begin to apply them in new scenarios. Over time, they start to think up their own projects and to investigate their own ideas. Perhaps they start to see ways in which a project in another subject might be enhanced with some automation.

Flow

Programming can become an all-encompassing activity. There is always one more bug to fix, or one further improvement to make. Along the way, there are also small moments of joy and times when a pupil can make a computer do something fun or exciting. Between the two extremes of frustration and celebration, it is easy to lose track of time. The ability to focus on details and to deliver with precision are yet more useful skills that pupils can develop through the subject.

Independence

Whilst the theory aspects of the subject can be taught in a more traditional manner, the practical elements of Computer Science have to be learned rather than taught. Whilst individual students require more or less scaffolding to come to an answer, the PRIMM model for teaching (Predict, Run, Investigate, Modify, Make)[2] encourages independence of thought and a structured approach to tasks and trains the student to analyse and learn from what is presented to them, rather than expecting a teacher to impart knowledge.

Evaluative Thinking

One of the key skills that pupils are taught in computing is to evaluate. It is one thing to know how to understand or to build a program, but quite another to be able to compare two different algorithms for completing the same task.

Pupils are taught to look at algorithms such as “Bubble Sort” and “Quicksort”, to understand the differences between them and to make judgements as to which is best in a given situation. As they continue to study, they learn formal language for explaining the comparisons, as well as how to spot patterns in code that may lead to inefficiency.

In addition, given the impact of algorithms on everything from advertising to politics via driverless cars, it is also crucial for students to be able to articulate the ethical arguments for and against the use of technology. Students of the subject learn to understand the potential and the limitations of computers and have the potential to lead the debate in the future.

Conclusion

There is more to studying Computer Science than people first think. Students can equip themselves with a whole host of transferrable skills ranging from abstraction to patience, all of which will positively impact their school studies, their further education and beyond. To assume that Computer Science is simply about computers would be wrong.

REFERENCES

[1] S. McConnell, Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction, Microsoft Press, 2nd Edition June 2004, p521

[2] S. Sentence, J.Waite and M.Kallia, Teachers’ Experiences of using PRIMM to Teach Programming in School (Author Pre-Print),[website], January 2019, https://primming.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/pre_print_teachers__experiences_of_using_primm_to_teach_programming_in_school.pdf,  (accessed 31 January 2020)

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Gender Discrimination in Sports

Martha, Year 8, discusses gender discrimination in sports and outlines recent developments that have helped to move the industry towards greater equality.

What is the issue?

Gender discrimination in sports has long been a controversial topic due to inequality regarding wage, audience viewing numbers, and the overall range of opportunities that exists between men and women in the arena of competitive sports. Gender discrimination is still an issue in the 21st century; more people still will watch men’s football than women’s, and women’s football is rarely discussed in the media.

Above: Sport vector created by macrovector 

Why do people consider women’s sports as less deserving than men’s?

Many people think that if there was to be more media coverage or sponsorship of women’s sport it would be more popular with audiences. The media says that if women’s sport generated more interest in the first place then they would invest more time and money into it.

Most people agree on what it takes to make a sport successful: commercial appeal, interest from the general public, and media coverage. The fact is that sponsors are less likely to promote teams or individuals who don’t have lots of media exposure, and not many women in sports do. The Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation found that in 2013, women’s sports received only 7% of coverage and a shocking 0.4% of commercial sponsorships[1].

This is a vicious circle, as viewers want to watch sports at the highest professional standard, and sponsors want to be associated with the best athletes. Because of the lack of sponsorship many female athletes, even those who represent their countries, have to fit training around employment. Many male athletes, however, would have their sport as their profession and as such would not need to divide their training regime with other work. Women who are paid usually earn less than their male colleagues; the Professional Golfers’ Association, for example, offers 256 million dollars in prize money; the women’s association offers only 50 million[2]. This inequality also happens in pay for coaches of women’s teams compared to male teams.

What is happening now?

Things are changing, and there is energy behind equality for the industry. The English women’s cricket team became professional in 2014, signing a two-year sponsorship deal with Kia after winning many Ashes contests. The Wimbledon Championships started awarding women the same amount of prize money as men in 2007[3]. Most importantly, the opinions of sports fans seem to be changing: 61% of fans surveyed by the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation said they believed top sportswomen were just as skilful as their male equivalents and over half said women’s sport was just as exciting to watch[4].

The road to equality is not an easy one, and there are many different aspects to achieving this; pay, opportunity and recognition. Lots have been done in more recent years to address aspects like equal pay, but there is still more to do to gain full equality. When the Women’s World Cup has as much excitement, sponsorship and audience engagement as the Men’s World Cup, then we are nearer to having achieved equality in sport.

References

[1] https://www.womeninsport.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Womens-Sport-Say-Yes-to-Success.pdf

[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/golf/2018/12/17/top-ten-women-golfers-earn-80-per-cent-less-men/

[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/11/despite-equal-grand-slam-tournement-prizes-tennis-still-has-a-pay-gap.html

[4] https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2014/07/27/why-professional-womens-sport-is-less-popular-than-mens

 

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Friday Gem #4 – ‘Do Now’ Starter

This idea comes from Nazlee, who shared it with the assessment and work scrutiny working party this week. It’s a quick but powerful way to start a double lesson with some low stakes retrieval of prior learning in order to strengthen long term memory.

 

What is it?

  • At the start of a double, put on the board three to four short questions/activities.
  • They should require pupils to recall prior learning from last lesson, last week, last term and last year.
  • They questions should be quick to complete and quick for the teacher to check in class.
  • This should take no more than 10mins in total.

 

This is effective because…

  • Interleaving and spaced retrieval practice are both proven to strengthen long term memory. Increasing storage strength is really important for our bigger, linear GCSEs and A Levels. Here are two great articles from the ‘Learning Scientists’:
  • Studies show that low stakes testing deepens learning: assessment as learning.
  • Routine knowledge recall produces better organisation of knowledge/concepts for pupils. Powerful schema are built in the pupil’s memory.
  • Immediate feedback allows teacher to quickly put right any misunderstandings (shown to be important in consolidating learning) and it identifies gaps in understanding to be addressed.

Examples from Nazlee (Maths) and Mary (Chemistry):

Maths Year 7:

 

 

 

 

 

Maths A Level:

 

 

 

 

 

Year 11 Chemistry:

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Do table top role playing games have a place in the classroom?

Mr Rob Dunn, Head of Physics at Wimbledon High School, known to some as Fyro, the half-Orc Bard, discusses the place that table-top RPGs (role-playing games) might have in schools generally and in supporting learning in the classroom.

I am proud to say, I’m a nerd. In the past, that term was defined as someone who loves ‘uncool’ things such as Physics, Maths, Computers, and of course Dungeons and Dragons. But now, thanks in part to the popularity of The Big Bang Theory, The Witcher, and Stranger Things, the nerd has become cool, and along with them, everything that they were associated with.

As educators, it can often seem that we are competing for the attention of our students with the influences of pop-culture, so when pop-culture directs their attention to us it would be missed opportunity not to capitalise on it.

Dice
Above: A d20, the most commonly used die in table-top role-playing via Wikimedia. 

For those readers who are unfamiliar with how table-top role-playing games (RPGs) work, they are simply a structure and set of rules that allow players a space to live in a shared imagination. This shared imaginary world is curated by one player known as the ‘Game Master’ or GM. For beginners, this world usually based on published source material, such as the ever-popular Forgotten Realms of Wizard of the Coast’s Dungeons and Dragons. However, once the basics of gameplay have been grasped the only limit is your imagination, or perhaps a handful of dice that seem determined to kill you!

You play all sat around a table together with the GM at the head. You’ll debate with your fellow adventurers over who needs to do what next to solve the seemingly endless torrent of problems that are being thrown at you, you’ll be running a constant string of probabilities through your head as you try to decide if the chance is glory is worth the risk of another throw of the dice, you’ll socialise with your friends, and above all, you’ll share in the telling of a story that is unique to you and your group.

Playing RPGs develops a player’s imagination, creativity, storytelling, confidence, and the depth of social interactions. These are all skills that as a teacher I long for my students to show in the classroom, regardless of the curriculum I am trying to teach. In Physics particularly being able to think outside the box to solve a tricky exam question is often the difference between an A and A*, so if we can teach just a little of that in an activity that the students voluntarily commit to, then to me that is a ‘critical hit!’

Above: Nikolai Telsa in his laboratory in 1899

Other topics we teach in Physics can be very abstract and difficult for some students to engage with. Perhaps if we could immerse the students 1880s New York and the electrifying battle between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, we might make the often opaque world of transformers a little less mystifying.

I wonder if this might work in other subjects as well. An English department might base a game in the world of the text they are studying, or a history lesson might take the students through the dizzying streets of medieval London. In Politics, students might develop their own systems of government for the world in which they’re playing, while the geographers draw topologically accurate maps that they can use in games that display the different land and rock formations they have studied. In Music, the composer Nobuo Uematsu, who wrote the music for the Final Fantasy game series, is a set composer at A Level, enabling pupils to study the link between music and gaming.

At Wimbledon High School we have a growing extracurricular Dungeon’s and Dragons club with 3 different campaigns in play, some written and run by the students themselves, and one even counting teachers among the party of adventures. We have a great time playing each Friday lunchtime, and as I head to afternoon lessons I can’t help but wonder if a little bit of that style of fun and social learning can find a place in my next lesson.

So I’m calling on teachers everywhere, join me at the table and let’s ‘roll initiative’.

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Friday Gem #3 – The power of Océane

This idea comes from Richard Bristow, who turned to Océane for support in navigating the depth and breadth of academic literature about ‘why arts should feature in STEAM’. She is a powerful researcher and was ready to use her expertise to help.

How did Océane help?

Richard said “Océane was brilliant in helping me to navigate this area, giving titles from our own library as well as sorting through online resources. She directed me to really interesting research from Universities concerned with this question, meaning I could focus my initial thinking before going off on separate tangents. The big problem I have when using an online resource like JStor is that I get easily distracted – there’s always another really interesting article to read – and before I know it a double free has gone and I’m no closer to answering my original question! By giving me targeted resources I’ve been able to format an answer to my initial problem and then go on to look at secondary materials.

I’ve since asked her to do the same for my Year 10 and 12 pupils on targeted research for the Baroque Period and French Art Music by Messiaen; she has produced beautiful and informative worksheets for me to use with my pupils helping us to have focused research. Thank you Océane!”

Think about how the brilliant Océane could help you. Once you’ve tapped into her expertise for the first time, she will no doubt become indispensable to you.

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“Vaulting the mere blue air that separates us”: History and connection

Ms Holly Beckwith, acting Head of History at WHS, looks at how history can connect past, present and future.

A true heroine left the world when Toni Morrison died last August. At university, I devoured her novels and vividly remember reading The Bluest Eye, Jazz and Beloved. They connected me to another experience and a different way of viewing the world. They enabled me to see the pain and disruptive effect of trauma on consciousness and identity and feel a deep sense of empathy for fictional characters and an understanding of their experiences that I had not and could never have. In her novels, we vault “the mere blue air that separates us” effortlessly.

History is all about vaulting the mere blue air. Through studying the stories of the past, we vault the mere blue air of time and circumstance to access another, often unfamiliar and distant, experience. We connect to the human stories of the places we live and the places we travel. One of the reasons for studying the past is to render the unfamiliar, familiar, whilst simultaneously understanding the distinct otherness of the past.

What I loved about reading Toni Morrison’s novels is the powerful way she set about disrupting what we think of as familiar. In Beloved, she confronts ‘national amnesia’ on the subject of slavery in America, invoking the genre of the slave narrative and disrupting it by bearing witness to the interior lives if the slave narrator, whose story was hitherto constrained and shaped by the Abolitionist cause. She disrupts the single hegemonic narrative, using the novel as a vessel through which to tell multiple stories. She urges us to seek new connections to the past but she also views the past as something that cannot be easily contained, its remnants multiply in memory and ‘rememory’ and ghosts.

As History teachers, one of our purposes should be to disrupt the familiar and received stories of the past that are propagated in the media and public discourse. One of my lesson mantras is that asking questions about the past is just as important as constructing answers to them. While the National Curriculum in England for History aims for pupils to “know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day” and a secure chronological grounding is important, it is fundamental that we don’t see the past as something that can be retold as a single story.

Such epistemological concerns have been part of the debate among History teachers for years, but there has been a drive more recently to render our curricula more diverse. While our current History curriculum provision at Wimbledon High engages with multiple and varied narratives of the past (by, for example, exploring connections along the Silk Road in Year 7 or using Said’s Orientalism to question our way in which Year 13 perceive colonial encounters) there is always room for us to rethink how we can do this in new and interesting ways. This will be particular for us over the next few terms and why we are aiming to build up a wider conversation surrounding diversity and curriculum planning when we host a conference at Wimbledon this summer for History teachers within the GDST and at our partnerships schools.

Our study of the past should vault the mere blue air and seek new connections.

References

Tracy K. Smith https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/opinion/tracy-smith-toni-morrison.html

Toni Morrison The Origin of Others

 

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Can music impact our health?

Sophie, Year 9, asks if and how music can impact our mental and physical health.

Music is everywhere. Wherever we go, no matter where, there will be some sort of tune or melody coming from someplace or another. Virtually all species, from the most primitive to the most modern, make music. In tune or not, our species sing and play, or clap and drum. Music is a cardinal aspect of our lives. The human brain and nervous system are programmed to distinguish music, rhythm and tones from noise and other sounds. Is this a biological accident, or does it serve a purpose? There might be no definite answer, but one could suggest from studies that music may enhance human health.

 

Music has always been a source of expressing people’s feelings, venting emotions and communicating with others, through words and notation. The soothing power of music is well-identified – it can have a big impact on our mental health. It can also have a strong link to our emotions, and, as a result, can be a brilliant form of stress relief. Listening to music can be relaxing for our mind and bodies, especially slow, quiet classical music. This type of music has a beneficial effect by slowing the pulse and heart rate, lowering blood pressure and decreasing the levels of stress hormones. For example, studies[1] show that listening to music with headphones has reduced stress and anxiety in hospital patients before and after surgery. Listening to music can also relieve depression and increase the self-esteem of elderly people.

Music can also absorb our attention and can get rid of any distractions. This means it can be a focus technique as it keeps our mind from wandering. However, music with no structure and no form can have a negative impact on our emotions and can be unsettling and irritating. This is why gentle music with a simple melody is also more comforting. Familiar melodies bring a sense of calmness, awareness and it can be more comforting. The sounds of nature often are incorporated into CDs specifically to target relaxation. The sound of water or leaves or birdsong can be soothing for some. It can help picture calming images and help our minds slow down.

As well as calming, and being a stress relief, music can be a source of happiness. It has the ability to make people of all ages feel cheerful and energetic and could even lift the mood of people with depressive illnesses. A recent study[2] announced that scores of depressive symptoms (extending from 0-60) improved on average 4.65 more with the music therapy than standard care alone. In 2006 a study of sixty adults with chronic pain found that music was able to reduce pain and depression[3]. In 2009 there was another study stating that music assisted relaxation can improve the quality of sleep in patients with sleeping disorders[4].

Some skilled composers manipulate our emotions by knowing what the listeners’ expectations are and controlling when the expectations may (or may not) be met. Composers also change their music to fit our emotions. They will use specific techniques to make us feel a certain way. These techniques could include; tempo (a fast tempo could provoke an energetic feeling, whilst a slow tempo might induce feelings of sadness or tiredness), tonality (major linked to positive and minor negative), dynamics (forte – loud – may portray bold or confident, whilst piano – quiet – could be more subtle).

Some of these factors may cause the listener to maybe start swaying side to side or tapping our feet or nodding our head. This is connected to the dopamine drug which is linked to the pleasure of music. Neuroimaging studies have proven that music can activate the brain areas typically associated with emotions. The deep brain structures that are part of the limbic system like the amygdala or hippocampus as well as the pathways that transmit dopamine (for pleasure associated with music listening). The relationship between listening to music and the dopaminergic pathway is what is behind the ‘chills’ that people claim to experience whilst listening to music[5]. These chills are physiological sensations, like hairs getting raised on your arms, goosebumps down your leg and ‘shivers down your spine’ that is linked to chills.

Whatever your musical preference, understanding that music has a significant impact on our mental and physical health is central to knowing more about the immense power this art has on us. As Napoleon once said, “music is what tells us the human race is greater than we realise.”

 

References

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-33865448

[2] https://www.nhs.uk/news/mental-health/music-therapy-helps-treat-depression/

[3] https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/music-and-health

[4] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24441233_Music-assisted_relaxation_to_improve_sleep_quality_Meta-analysis

[5] https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/51745/why-does-music-give-us-chills

 

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Friday Gem #2 – “Categorise in any way you find interesting”

This idea comes from Claire Baty, who I saw use it in her Year 10 French lesson. However, I think it can be easily adapted to suit lots of different subjects.

 

What did she do?

  • For each pair of pupils, she set up a collaboration page on OneNote full of adjectives. Some adjectives were familiar, and some were new.
  • The instruction was for pupils to drag the words around the collaboration space and to group them “in any way they find interesting’.
  • She didn’t define what she meant by ‘interesting’, giving pairs the freedom to think independently, creatively and logically.
  • Pairs were immediately deep in debate as to first, what categories to use, and then how to categorise the individual words…some were not easily categorised!
  • There were lots of different interpretations of ‘interesting’: some pupils took a grammatical approach (grouping words by how they are used in a sentence); some a semantic approach (grouping words by their meaning); some a metacognitive approach (grouping words with whether they were new or difficult)…and some did something more personal and quirky! (see a couple of screenshots of this below)
  • She then showed the collaboration spaces to the class, with pairs explaining their approach.

 

Of course, you don’t have to be grouping adjectives. You could ask pupils to group anything, BUT it works best where there can be debate and flexibility about how and what to group.

 

This is effective because…

  • The task allowed for natural differentiation, with pairs choosing to group words in more complex or simpler ways (for a great article about differentiation by task rather than activity, read this https://learningspy.co.uk/english-gcse/building-challenge-differentiation-thats-quick-and-works/ )
  • It opened up rigorous, independent debate between pupils as they weighed up why words should be grouped in a certain way.
  • It recapped prior learning and allowed for independent exploration of new words (and the way they work within sentences).
  • It modelled a way to revise vocabulary – by grouping vocab in different ways to make networks/schemas of words and ideas. This is great for memory recall.
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How has history shaped the way we live today?

Anna, Year 9, looks at the links between the past and the present, exploring the differences and the way the world has developed.

When I sit in History lessons at school, I sometimes wonder how those famous historical events ever came to be. For example, why did the Battle of Hastings ever happen? In this century, in the UK, we most likely will never see something like that again. However, have our instincts developed into more sophisticated ones on their own, or have we evolved because of what has happened before?

 

Image from ResearchGate

The evolution of the human

Thanks to Charles Darwin, we now understand that the changes humans have experienced over hundreds of years are due to the natural occurrence that is evolution. This may link to the reason why certain historical events never repeat themselves. Psychologists have discovered a ‘warning signal’ in the brain that helps us make sure we do not repeat previous mistakes, meaning now in our daily lives we are able to learn from our failures and faults. This is a handy feature in our brains, as it means certain errors we make in our lives will most likely be registered and we will know that we must do our best to avoid it happening again. This will have developed over time through evolution, helping humans survive during the Stone Age. Also, the concept of ‘learning from our mistakes’ could be the reason behind the idea that ‘history does not repeat itself’.

Idealism and Utopia

Throughout history and our lives, people were and most likely always will be looking for ways to ‘improve’ the world. This idea of personal idealism (both good and bad) is a repeated concept throughout history, from the expansion of empires by Alexander the Great to the introduction of communism by Joseph Stalin. The concept of constantly trying to make the world a more convenient place for ourselves seems to recur, especially when the economy of a country or empire is involved. For example, when a battle or financially straining tragedy has happened in the past, it seems to affect a lot of people, therefore there has been a decline in the number of battles throughout the years.

 

Image from ResearchGate

Some examples

There are many examples of events in history that should not be repeated. For example, WW1 and 2 are both examples of devastating conflicts that have changed the world. It is strange to think that, although it had a horrifying impact on millions of people across the globe, without World War I, there may not have been canned food or air traffic control today. Some people believe that everything happens for a reason, so if the First World War really didn’t happen, how different would the world be today? Another example is The Great Depression. This was an event that ruined the economy in America. Again, although it changed a lot of peoples’ lives for the worse at the time, how different would our lives be now if it never happened? Would they be better or worse? Finally, this is the story of Annie Edson Taylor, an American schoolteacher who, on her 63rd birthday, became the first person to survive a ride over the Niagara Falls in a barrel. After her trip, she told reporters:

“If it was my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feat…”

 

Annie Edson Taylor, ‘The Queen of The Mist’ (Wikipedia)

I think this shows that we do have something to learn from what history has told us, and that what has happened before can change the way we live now.

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Connecting the Arts in the Primary Classroom through Ekphrastic poetry

Ms Beth Ashton looks at ways we can connect the Arts in Primary Education, arguing that the discipline of ekphrasis (connecting visual arts with poetic form) helps learners to develop creative expression.

The power of the visual image in relation to development has been extensively studied. Many of the skills of analysis used in decoding an image are also present in the analysis of text. Images are the way we first experience the world, and inspire immediate and emotive responses from students. I chose to explore the use of paintings as a stimulus for poetry writing with Year 6 students. This discipline of using visual arts in dialogue with poetic form is a discipline known as ekphrasis, and has been used by celebrated writers throughout literary history.

It is significant to note that simply using an image as a stimulus for poetry would not meet the criteria necessary to achieve true ekphrastic work – the intentionality of the artist is essential in order to create a dialogue between poet (in this case Year 6 girls), painting, and artist.

Research shows that when using a painting as the stimulus for poetry writing, children invent a context, story and message around the image. They are thus inventing their own story and interpretation of the artwork, and communicating truths about themselves in the process, through the meanings they project onto the painting. The poet is not simply writing a descriptive piece about the subject (i.e. the painting), they are using the subject as a way to communicate truths about themselves.

This process of exploring context and creating a message through creative expression is one which can, if we are not vigilant, fall by the wayside in the classroom. The National Curriculum focuses on the structural elements of writing, such as grammar and syntax. Whilst these are of course essential, they are not, and should never be, the driving reason behind the study of English Literature. Reading objectives and national assessments currently require students to interpret a text in order to locate an absolute, definitive meaning, which is not open to subjective interpretation. Anyone who has any experience of literature, from Shakespeare to Horrid Henry, knows that meaning is fluid and highly dependent on the context of the reader; this is what makes reading one of life’s great pleasures.

By engaging children in writing based on visual images and artwork, we are encouraging them to embrace the idea of ambiguity, and the possibility that there are many different ways to interpret artwork, whatever the medium. We are also teaching our students that the meanings we make are dependent on our context, and may change over time. These skills are essential, as pupils learn to grapple with difference and tolerate alternative perspectives to their own world view.

In order to explore Ekphrastic poetry, pupils studied Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott, analysing the image as a whole class and trying to predict what could be happening within the image. They then read Tennyson’s poem of the same name. The second intervention followed the same structure, with a different painting. This time, the pupils analysed George and the Dragon painted by Paolo Uccello in the 14th Century. Pupils then read an abridged version of the poem Not My Best Side, by U.A. Fanthorpe[1], written in the 1970s. Through writing in role as the characters in the painting, Fanthorpe produced a commentary on established gender roles. The inner personalities of the characters are revealed in first person, showing a subversion of the roles played in the painting.

Following analysis of the second painting and poem pair, the pupils were invited to choose a piece of artwork to bring to class, from which they would produce their own poem. Poems ranged from first-person diary entries, written in role as Ophelia, to reflections on Monet’s Waterlilies, writing in role as a lonely bridge, stretching over a pond.

George and the Dragon painted by Paolo Uccello

Ekphrastic poetry is a useful and engaging way in which to encourage children to take ownership over different art forms and begin to see the links across the curriculum. It is also an impactful and insightful way to create a classroom which values ambiguity and open-ended meaning making.


[1] See http://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/uccello.html for the full poem