St Michael and St Martin RC Primary School

St.Michael and St.Martin RC Primary School has provided co-educational day schooling for primary age children for over 100 years. Originally opened in 1886 with only 35 children and one teacher, the School has expanded substantially over the years becoming a separate Infant and Junior school in 1904, and finally transferred to its current premises in February 1978. The school now meets the needs of approximately 500 children aged 3-11.

St Michael and St Martin has been particularly successful within the LSP training because of its total integration of ICT in the curriculum. All areas of schoolwork are supported by computers and they are available in all classrooms. The school has two fully networked computer suites, one housing 15 computers and an overhead data projector, the other four computers. In addition, there 15 computers in individual classrooms, 3 digital cameras and 5 scanners. The school also has 2 Intel Microscopes, a Sound Morpher and a Digital Video Camera.

ICT Projects

Like many schools, St Michael and St Martin has its own website and Intranet, which is extensively used for presenting pupils' work. The school has a policy of involving pupils in the production of materials and maintenance of the website. Year 6 pupils are currently being trained as web editors at the local Secondary School, St Marks City Technology College (to which most pupils transfer). These Year 6 pupils will, in turn, train their successors in Year 5, and so on thus providing for continuity in the school web site development.

Digital Diaries

Year 6 go on an annual residential camp at St Michael and St Martin and, like many other Year 6 pupils, keep a diary of their week's activities. This year, St Michael and St Martin' pupils are keeping a digital diary which involves sending digital photos of their day's activities and an email letter back to the school every day. These are put onto the school website for other pupils and parents to read.

Creative Writing

Each Year, Junior School pupils write stories for Infants using Storywriter Deluxe.

This is the front page of a 12 page story created by a Y3 child using Storywriter Deluxe. This programme enables the writer to include graphics and the completed item then becomes a book that can be downloaded to disc, printed off and have a voiceover added.

Technology

Pupils in Year 5 and Year 6 attended 'Technology Days' at St Marks CTC where they learned how to use the Lego programming software, paint programmes such as Paint and Fresco (part of the Granada Black Cat Toolkit package), digital cameras, and music software.

This is part of a travel brochure which includes a map of Italy and some beautiful photos.

This Roman soldier was created by a Y5 pupil using Paint. He has mastered using the drawing facilities on Paint and this is one of many end results.

Science

In Science lessons, pupils used the school's Intel Microscope to look at soil samples, and to examine the structure of a snowflake which they watched disintegrating through the microscope.

Music

In the Nursery school, pupils used a 'Music Mat' to learn about notes and sequence in music. A 'Music Mat' consists of a large squared plastic mat which is linked to a computer. Pupils stand on a selected square on the mat and a signal is sent to the computer screen. In this way, by moving from square to square, pupils can create simple tunes and learn about the relationship between sounds.

If you know of an aspect of LSP practice that you would like to see featured in Spotlight, please contact:

LSP-Web@open.ac.uk