I’ve heard about the many virtues of having inspired children as Digital Leaders (DL) from fellow tweeters and teaching blogs over the past 6 months and was really keen to get on board. I wanted to do the research prior to implementing it at my school in order for it to have the maximum impact possible.
On Monday I put up posters around the school advertising vacancies for DL. Qualities required were given, benefits to apllicants were given and brief descriptions of role were given. I planned to take the KS2 assembly to do my best pitch! Ideally I would want 8 children from the current years 3,4 and 5.
Today was the assembly, 240 children sitting agog (not because I was taking an assembly!!) but because they had all seen the posters and were keen to find out more. I did my spiel and talked in full about what I had planned and how excited I was about this project. Reciprocal learning was the message – of course I didn’t use that phrase but ultimately that’s what it is. I explained the role in more detail, talking about commitment, collaboration, teamwork, patience and fun!
My final message was that an application form needed to be completed and returned to me by next Monday. I would be giving out the forms at lunch time, outside my room. Lunch time duly arrived and no 5, not 10 BUT 77 children were gathered outside my classroom. All eagerly awaiting my arrival (I was on PPA) to collect the application forms.
By the end of lunch time, 39 forms had been returned. I’m anticipating that many children wanted a little longer to fully consider their reasons for applying…
I am completely gob-smacked by the level of excitement and keenness to be part of an exciting project that will be the beginning of our journey together. The next step is to shortlist (once the deadline has arrived) and interview the applicants – I can’t wait!
Original DL logo used and adapted with kind permission from http://www.kristianstill.co.uk
nickynewbury 