Mark Cotter on a festive and slightly premature December meeting.
The last day of November arrived and we met in a busy cathedral refectory. Busy enough for a 'get here quickkly' message to be sent! Thankfully, a large table was requisitioned without too much trouble - a good job given the cutting and sticking that came later in the morning. Once settled with a cheese scone and a coffee, we were ready to begin.
And for the first time that I can remember, we did not start with words. The horror of change! Two texts from Jeni to get the creative juices flowing started proceedings - WInter Bear and an extract from NIck Acheson about winter in Norfolk. These gave us the impetus needed to write about the seasonal weather. Lin returned to Romney Marsh (as always) and I returned to Happisburgh (as always). Interesting how certain places cast a spell over our writing. The poem Sparkles by e.e.cummngs made us think of the small things that have sparkled in our lives this year. Some of us found this harder than others.
And that was it for writing. The scissors appeared, the sparkly pens, the paper: it was craft time. Now, being a Secondary teacher, I'm slightly ambivalnt towards such things; however, the ideas are perfect for Primary pupils and, let's be honest, I do quite enjoy doing things that I couldn't do with my students. I draw the line at glitter. Thankfully there was none. So, a pleasant time was had making hanging things to which we added our 'sparkles' from the year. Concertina books with pictures of the Christmas story as the binding between sections were shown. At times like this, we remember the fact that creativity should be at the core of what we do in schools. It's when engaging these parts of the child's mind that the real excitement of learning can take place, that children generate ideas, and engage with language and thought.
With Teresa's hand-made paper stars, and Jeni's December writing prompts, to take away, it was only when driving to Happisburgh that I realised that we didn't have anything from Dylan Thomas's family Christmas this year. To quote his namesake: 'the times: they are a changing'.
