Inspiring change through Inspiring change through enquiry at Jump Primary enquiry at Jump Primary

SchoolSchool

Year 4 investigate Year 4 investigate a Village in Indiaa Village in India

Where are Asia, India and Chembakolli?

Using globes and atlases, we located the UK first. From here we found Asia, India and finally Gudalur. We had a little problem…

Miss, we’ve found India, but we can’t

find Chembakolli, it must be too

small!

After much discussion we decided to use Google maps and Google Earth to find Chembakolli, we could spot it by looking for the Nilgri Hills!

We’ve found Jump, let’s see how far

away India is.

How do we get to Chembakolli?

Now we know where Chembakolli is, we need to get there! We took a taxi from Jump to Manchester Airport. Next we had to queue for ages to

check in for a flight to New Delhi and pass through security! It was a very long trip. When we arrived in New Delhi we were tired, exhausted and quite scared because we couldn’t read any of the signs or speak the

language. Our journey wasn’t yet complete…we still had to find out how to get to Chembakolli!

We packed our own

bags. Where do

we go next?

BEEEEEP!I’m not wearing anything made of metal!

How is Chembakolli connected?

Our journey continued…

We STILL hadn’t made it to Chembakolli and were stuck in New

Delhi. By analysing photographs and maps we decided to fly to the

south of India, catch a train to Gudalur, a bus to the outskirts of Chembakolli and finally a yellow

rickshaw.

We were really excited to get on a yellow rickshaw and worried about

where we might be staying in Chembakolli. The children asked lots of intriguing questions about what we might find on our final

arrival.

What’s a rickshaw?

How are we all going to fit on one?

What is Chembakolli like?FINALLY!! We make it to Chembakolli. It’s

beautiful! The scenery is like nothing we’ve ever seen before. We were all sent to a

different part of the village to see what we could find.

Finding lots of photographs at our different stations,

we chose one each. Discussed with our partners what we

thought might happen before and after then we had to draw our ideas!

I’ve drawn an elephant

wandering through the

forest. It’s the best drawing I’ve

ever done.

We were very proud of our display. Adding key words, questions, definitions and work as we progressed allowed the children to measure their progress.

Enquiry Time… Many exciting questions were asked about photographs showing

homes in Chembakolli. We discussed the landscape, what houses were made out of, why they were made this way and what it

might be like to live there. Our confidence using terms like I agree because and I disagree because has really improved. We are even

using these terms in our other lessons!

BUT…

The enquiry lead us on to many other unanswered questions…

- Who were the first people to live there?- How is this going to inspire us?

- What do people do for jobs?

Who were the first people to live in Chembakolli?

Suspiciously, an audio CD was left in the classroom by Miss Oglanby! She had recently returned from a trip to India and had brought us a present!

Listening to the CD we soon realised it was a little girl called Bommi…she was telling us all about the first Adivasi people of Chembakolli. This was amazing…a real person, with a real story!

Who is she? Does she still live

there now?

She sounds really happy, I wonder what’s

going to happen next. I can hear birds and trees

and water.

How did the Adivasi people change their lives?

After we had listened to

Bommi’s story we realised there was

more to the Chembakolli

story than we first thought. It

wasn’t just about a

different place. Something had

happened here…but

what?

Looking back at our

photographs closely we

spotted a few things we had missed! There

was a man here leading a

march…we didn’t know why…so we returned to

Bommi to ask her why. Soon, we realised just how the Adivasi

people had changed their

lives.

Changing our lives…

Discussing the changes which took place in Chembakolli lead us to think about how we might like our lives to change. We

had a short walk around school with lots of thinking time. On returning to the classroom we each wrote two things we

would like to change.

We held a class vote. The things we wanted to change were – Our behaviour, our attainment and our attitude to learning! (Very mature and grown up responses from a very poorly

behaved, poorly attaining class!)

So…we decided to write to our head teacher and let her know what we were doing! Maybe she would give us a reward for

improving…

What change can we make locally?

Year 4,Jump Primary School,

Roebuck Hill,Jump,

Barnsley.Dear Mrs Sykes,We are writing to you because Year 4 have decided to make some big changes! We would like some Nintendo DS’s with brain training. Our reasons for wanting these are to improve school children’s attendances, attitudes and behaviours. Hopefully, they could be used as a treat during morning challenge time for classes who have been the best throughout the week.

If you buy these, we think it will stop children from having to sit outside your office so much and misbehaving. This would give you some peace and quiet to get on with your work! The children would be very grateful and would try harder to be helpful and caring. We promise to take care of the equipment because we know that they are really expensive and we would be lucky to have them!

Finally, we are thinking of ways to help raise money towards the cost but would like your help with this!

We look forward to hearing from you soon.Year 4

Luckily…

Mrs Sykes has

agreed, I can’t

believe it!

We really need to change

now.

This is brilliant,

I’m coming to school everyday!

In the end, the children in year four made some very interesting decisions about their lives. We discussed thoroughly their reasons for wanting to change. Many children agreed that before we could

make changes to the world, we needed to make changes to ourselves. They saw their behaviour, attitudes and attendance as

key components for a happy, effective learning environment. Through enquiry the children have grown in confidence, self esteem and their speaking and listening skills have dramatically improved. I have seen many positive changes from the implementation of this

project, both within the children and within myself.