Virtual College - 'Gaming' project
posted on: 28 May 2010The Virtual College is a Pupil Referral Unit in Birmingham for year 10 and 11 students and is an alternative to mainstream education. Students are taught both in their own homes and at various locations throughout Birmingham. Some of the students have been out of mainstream school for long periods of time.
Virtual College wanted to explore: ‘How can working with a creative practitioner help unlock teachers and students’ creativity in Key Skills and Cross Curricular learning?’
Virtual College worked with Stan’s Cafe over a week long period, devising human board games, which involved pupils working collaboratively with tutors and practitioners. They also had to focus on their maths skills, and literacy, specifically around communication and developing ideas. They were also able to increase their ICT skills, working with the computer programme ‘Comic Life’ which they used to create narrative work and images.
At the end of quite an intensive week, the students were tasked with sharing their games with tutors and members of the Bright Space team. It was their role to explain the games to the game players as well as ensure the rules were being followed.
All students attended the week-long session, (one had to leave due to sickness) which was a huge achievement in itself. They were also able to develop as a team, with each other, practitioners and their tutors.
There was also an enormous sense of accomplishment at the end of the week, seeing their ideas come to fruition. Added to that there was the obvious enjoyment of seeing individuals take part in games they had devised.
A Virtual College student said: ‘Working on the project was really enjoyable but quite hard at times as it was quite intensive and we were learning loads of skills. I’m really glad I stuck with it though. One of the best bits was actually seeing our games working with people from Bright Space and Virtual College. Everyone had a lot of fun which was great!’
Matthew Gough, Personal Tutor at Virtual College added: ‘It was great to see the students use problem solving skills throughout the week long project. Their resilience really shone through and helped them complete a project that had its fair share of challenges. They really came together as a team which was brilliant.’
