Learning & Loans

 
Conclusion: 69% (18) of 26 observations demonstrated links made by the teachers and students between the loans and previous knowledge: students made 60% of the links and teachers made 40% of the links. Links to students' previous experience should, as much as possible, be central to all supporting material in loans.

Key: A "user" is a school that allude uses the loan service. A "non-user" is a school that does not currently use the loan service.

Evidence of themed work links made by teachers: 10 schools
1. School A: User: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
Yes. Two of the loans were butterfly collections. Although the students had not focused on butterflies yet at the time of my visit, they were planning to do so in the coming weeks. They were going to hatch their own butterflies. They were already in the process of hatching their own chicks with 2 incubators on the go in the classroom.

2. School B: User: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
Yes. Some examples:
Student: "Well, first thing this is an iron and my great grandmother used to have one of them."
Student: "It looks like one of those things in olden times where they crushed things." (Teacher: "A pestle and mortar.")
Teacher: "When we did about the Egyptians… we used a special word for those things. What was that word?" (Student: "Artefacts.")
Teacher: "Can you remember the name of the special person who may dig up artefacts from the past?" (Student: "Archaeologist.")

3. School F: User: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
Yes. The students had obviously learned about the process of coal producing steam power. Here is an example of a Science link with the model of the traction engine:
Student: "It burns coal."
Teacher: "Which uses?"
Student: "Water."
Teacher: "Which produces?"
Student: "Steam."
Teacher: "Where does the steam go?"
Student: "Through a chimney."

Also one student made a connection between one of the model plough loans and Religious Education:
Teacher: "A Roman plough. How old is that?"
Student: " 2000 years. The Romans killed Jesus and he was alive 2000 years ago."

4. School H: User: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
The only link the loans made with the teacher and students previous knowledge was that generated by the general Ancient Egypt topic in which the loans were set.

5. School I: User: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
· The teacher linked the Abbey tiles with those in the local church which the class visited.

· The students identified different materials in the loans, linking them with what they had learned in their previous topic "Materials".

6. School J: User: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
There were at least 3 occasions when the teacher linked the model vehicles with other aspects of the students' experience to make a point clearer. One student made a personal link between the tram and a visit to Disneyland:

· Teacher: "But some people still use carriages like this. who uses them now? One person who uses a carriage lives in London or Windsor.
Student: "The royal family."

· Student: "It has an Evening News advert."
Teacher: "Do we have adverts on our buses?"
Students give various examples.
Teacher: "The buses in London have huge adverts over them..."

· Teacher: "...What can you see?"
Student: "Large wheel."
Teacher: "Can you see that it connects to cogs. Do you remember when we did a dance as cogs?"
Student: "Big wheel, small wheel."

· Student: "There are little handles inside."
Teacher: "What are these for?"
Student: "In Disneyland they had trams and we had handles so we could hold on to things.

7. School L: Non-user: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
· One student made a personal link between the model of Stephenson's Rocket and the musical Oliver Twist which they had watched some weeks earlier:
Student: "I saw a model like that in the video of "Oliver"; we watched it before we produced our own musical of Oliver.

· The teacher linked the name of the inns that mail coaches (model) would have stopped at - "post house" - with the current names of hotels and pubs across the country:
Student: "The horses couldn't have gone all the way."
Teacher: "That's why they had post houses. A lot of hotels and pubs are still called the post house - have you heard that name before?"
Students: "Yes."

8. School N: Non-user: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
· Yes. The whole context for the teacher's use of the loans was a week's trip that the class had taken to Cornwall to look at the beach as a habitat. The shells, gull, and seaweed collection could be compared and contrasted with the wildlife discovered at the beach in Cornwall.

· A link with a student's own reading:
Teacher: "If we'd gone out further would we have found coral?"
Student: "Maybe in the Mediterranean where there's warm water. Some of them eat fishes."
Teacher: "Have you seen a program?"
Student: "I read it in a book."

9. School X: Non-user: Secondary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
The teacher made a link between the stylus that a student was exploring and the picture of a Roman lady holding a stylus on the front of their textbooks.

10. School Z: Non-user: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
Yes. The teacher made links between the loans and her own experience to encourage the students' understanding:
· Teacher: (with an Indian shoe) "My daddy has a pair like this."
· Teacher: "Would a baby be able to cope with this shoe? My baby wouldn't."

· Evidence of personal links made by students: 15 schools (7 schools repeated)
11. School C: User: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
Yes. One girl made the following comments while handling an Edwardian fishing buoy:
Student: "I saw one in Grand Canaria. In this submarine I saw under them and then on the boat I saw them on top of the water." She then wrote: In the olden days they had glass buoys in the sea. Nowadays they have rubber buoys.

The whole "then" and "now" comparative activity drew on the students' own experiences of the contemporary versions of their Edwardian counterparts.

12. School E: User: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
The students made a very interesting link between the loans and all their previous museum visits.

13. School G: User: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
· Yes. The two boys linked the WWII artefacts with their visits with families to Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam.

· One of the boys identified with the Welsh army button. On seeing the dragon on it he said "I'm a quarter Welsh. My grandfather is a Welshman."

· The other boy demonstrated previous knowledge of the armed forces in response to a question from his fellow student: Student 1: "What's a regiment?"; Student 2: " A section of the army like engineers, artillery, infantry…"

14. School K: User: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
Yes. One student told the class that her parent had come from Kenya - where the loans were from - while another showed their knowledge of the meaning of "kiwi", the subject of one of the carvings:

· Student: "My Mummy and Daddy were born in Kenya."

· Student: "How do you spell kiwi?"
Teacher: "Do we have a kiwi? Are kiwis from Africa or New Zealand?"
Student: "I think kiwis are from New Zealand. A kiwi is a bird and a fruit there."

15. School M: Non-user: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
One example of a personal link was a student who connected one of the artefacts with something he had seen on TV: "We think this is a tonsil clipper. I saw one on the Antiques Roadshow once."

16. School Q: User: Secondary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
The students made links with the landscapes in the prints and other places/images they were familiar with:
· Teacher: "Where is it a picture of?"
Student: "London."
Teacher: "Why London?"
Student: "Because of the river."...
Student: "It's probably Slough."
Teacher: "What's in here? A crane... It's a built up area."

· Teacher: (with another print) "Buildings again. What are the main colours?"
Student: calls out the colours
Teacher: "Raise your hand."
Student: "It's the leaning tower of Pisa."
Teacher: "Spot on, young man!"

17. School W: Non-user: Secondary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
Many of the students' comments were related to their understanding of fashion and films. For example, the comment relating the Native American moccasins to Adidas and the statement about the possibility of the cavalry shooting the man wearing the beaded jacket.

18. School Y: Non-user: Secondary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
One of the students related the medieval tile to a Victorian one: "I reckon its Victorian because of the brick that's used."

Also see:

• · School B: User: Primary
• · School F: User: Primary
• · School H: User: Primary
• · School I: User: Primary
• · School J: User: Primary
• · School L: Non-user: Primary
• · School N: Non-user: Primary
  

· No connections at the time of my visit: 8 schools
19. School D: User: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
Although the class had been doing a project on India and Pakistan, where many of the students were from, I did not hear any indication of making a personal connection with any of the artefacts.

20. School O: Non-user: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
No. The teachers did not see the links between the kingfisher/water vole and the topic of Rivers that they were covering; nor did they see the links between the narwhal horn/Egyptian artefacts and a stimulus for creative writing.

21. School P: Non-user: Primary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
I was not shown a lesson.

22. School R: User: Secondary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
I was not shown a lesson.

23. School S: User: Secondary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
Not explicitly but the questions asked were open in nature and drew on the students' own feelings and judgements.

24. School T: User: Secondary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
Not that I was aware of.

25. School U: User: Secondary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
I did not hear any links during my time in the classroom.

26. School V: Non-user: Secondary
Were meaningful links made by the teacher and the students between the loans and the knowledge that students had already accumulated?
No.