Melanie Scrim is a teacher at Maisondieu School, Angus. She is writing here in a personal capacity.
Introduction
A bit of background…
Maisondieu Primary was lucky enough have been involved in two separate MIE pilot projects, one in the infant classes, one at the other end of the school with P6 and 7. Both were highly successful and enjoyable for pupils and staff. We see MIE as a fantastic vehicle for developing literacy and ICT skills and are continually impressed by what our children can do, both in terms of analysis and film making – we’ve even won national awards for some of our work, although despite my best efforts, I can’t take any credit here!
Spread the love of MIE
Despite all of this, we haven’t been quite as successful at embedding MIE in practice across all stages as we would like. Those who love MIE, like me, embrace it fully, but for those who didn’t have the benefit of the support that teachers involved in the pilot project did, and who have heard others alternately rave about MIE on a good day, and curse it when things go wrong during the film making, doing much more than dipping their toes in the water can be quite daunting.
I myself have been involved with MIE since the start of the first pilot project and find it motivating and challenging, both for myself and my pupils. It is not the only teaching tool, but one of many that can make our curriculum come alive for children.
My MIE Story
I would like to share my MIE story this session from two perspectives. Firstly, as a class teacher, I wanted to move my own practice forward and extend my own skills in delivering and using MIE. Secondly, in my role as principal teacher, I also considered how I could develop MIE across the school to promote contextualised learning and support our literacy agenda, an integral part of our school improvement plan.
The rationale
In the classroom…
This session, I am sharing a P4 class with a probationer teacher, which in itself is a challenge as I’m new to this stage: I’d always considered myself as an upper stages teacher. As a principal teacher, I have also responsibilities in terms of driving forward teaching and learning and developing the curriculum.
Having not been class-committed last session, I really felt I had missed the buzz I’d had with MIE in previous years and wanted to share that excitement in a new stage, but I also wanted to develop my own practice.
It is not the only teaching tool - but one of many that can make the curriculum come alive for our children.
Using MIE as a vehicle
My intention was to use MIE more as a vehicle for teaching other aspects of the curriculum, my past projects having leaned more towards creating whole-class narrative pieces. Of course, I’d continue to use analysis as a tool for reading texts and as a stimulus for writing, drama, art etc.
I was determined that P4 children could make a meaningful artefact with a minimum of support. Whatever artefact the children were to create, it had to be manageable in my two days’ teaching time, using only one camera and one e-Mac.
Changing Technology
I was also determined that the children should have some understanding of how films are created and how film has developed. Our children are flummoxed by the concept of a cassette player or a video recorder. Looking at how film has developed could be one way to develop their understanding of how technology has changed the world we live in. They also need to learn to be discerning viewers and be critical of the media with which they are bombarded.