<%@LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> <%'option explicit%> Brunel 200: Education
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Brunel 200 Masthead Montage Registration Acknowledgements Visitor Information Creative Bristol
Brunel 200 Masthead Montage
Pupils' Showcase


On this page you can see highlights from some of the many educational projects that have taken place as
part of Brunel 200.

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Perry Court Junior School
Year 6 Perry Court Junior School pupilsYear 6 Perry Court Junior School pupils visit Brunel and the Art of Inventionat Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery. The group linked with creative practitioner, Toby Hulse to develop their own Brunel project in school. Toby commented: "The children had a fantastic morning at the museum, and got an enormous amount out of spending so much time focused on the exhibits."



Mounts Bay School
Mounts Bay SchoolBrunel's Great Eastern steamship laid the first submarine telegraph cable to Bombay. The cable reached Britain's shore at the beach in Porthcurno valley in Cornwall in 1870. Students at Mounts Bay School in Penzance have been swapping cultural information with a school in Mumbai (Bombay) and comparing life at both ends of the cable. During the summer term some pupils put on an Indian dance and play performance on the museum lawns.



Hannah More Primary
Hannah More PrimaryHannah More Primary in Bristol joined in the launch day celebrations for the 2006 South West Great Reading Adventure. The project used Jules Verne's exciting novel Around the World in Eighty Days to introduce children to the innovations in transport engineering brought by Brunel and his colleagues. A group of children from the school travelled between Bristol and Swindon, helping actors dressed as characters from the novel to hand out free copies of the book and give readings.

Steve Brice, a teacher from Hannah More, said: "Reading is a skill and it has to be encouraged - events like this really help." A pupil at the school, said: "It's been a really fun day and I've already read the first few pages and am looking forward to carrying on. This is a really good way to get involved with reading the book."

Visit the Education pages of the 2006 Great Reading Adventure website to download an activity pack and a children's version of Around the World in Eighty Days.

Photo © Neil Phillips


Sixth Sense Theatre Company
Sixth Sense Theatre CompanySixth Sense's touring production of Toad's Great Western Railway Adventure visited over 90 schools in Swindon and across Wiltshire as part of Brunel 200. Inspired by characters from The Wind In The Willows, it was all aboard for a new adventure when the mischievous Mr Toad gave up stealing cars in order to steal a steam train! As he ran riot through the railways of yesteryear, only brave Badger, resourceful Ratty and mindful Mole could stop the chaos and help Toad overcome his artful enemies - the weasels and stoats - and his greatest enemy of all... himself. In addition to seeing a marvellous show, with ingenious sets and a new musical score, all the schools were given copies of Around the World in Eighty Days.



Elmfield School
Elmfield SchoolHearing impaired children from Elmfield School in Bristol performed drama and poetry for parents and families expressing the many different aspects of Brunel they had explored during the summer term. The performance involved children of primary school age as well as older pupils who had moved to the new Fairfield School, thereby bridging the two sites. Themes included the 'unsung heroes' of Brunel's age and 'building bridges' in many contexts. The piece was performed again on stage at the Bristol Old Vic in September 2006 as part of the Brunel 200 finale.

Photo © Paul Box



Chester Park's Ships
Chester Park's ShipsChildren at Chester Park Junior School in Fishponds worked with sculptor Barbara Ash to create their own celebratory fleet of ships inspired by a painting by Samuel Colman called The ceremony of Laying the Foundation Stone of the Suspension Bridge. They constructed their ships using polystyrene covered with 'mod roc' plaster and made tiny figures from scrap materials forming a colourful cast of passengers on deck.

Head Teacher, Tony Phillips said: "Having Barbara in school to work with the pupils was a wonderful experience. Despite our cramped surroundings she inspired them to work as a team with great results!"

Photo © Paul Box



St Bernard's Primary
St Bernard's PrimaryChildren at St Bernard's Primary, Shirehampton followed in Brunel's footsteps creating working designs for amazing hybrid inventions. Toby Hulse and Pickled Image took the children on a creative journey through the design process and were surprised at the incredible projects that emerged. Teacher Joy Batchford commented: "Having a whole Brunel event gave a focus for the school and the children and the teachers felt supported and encouraged to develop first hand experiences to which the children really responded."

Photo © Paul Box



Clifton High
Clifton HighFiona Hamilton led a creative writing workshop with year 4 pupils at Clifton High in Bristol during the Great Reading Adventure. You can read here the collective diary the pupils wrote under the title Around the World in a Year and a Bit. The picture here shows the cover of Around the World in Eighty Days, which was created especially for the Great Reading Adventure by Aardman Animations.



Blaise Primary's Bridge
Blaise Primary's BridgeLed by artists Paper, Scissors, Stone, Year 3 pupils at Blaise Primary in Bristol were inspired by Brunel's famous Clifton Suspension Bridge to create their own enormous bridge installation that dominated their school hall. The project was the result of a week of research and experimentation during which the children learned about different bridge designs and explored how bridges link places and people. They also created stories based on their bridge installation and 'animated' the structure with tiny figures and models.

Linda Trude the link teacher at Blaise Primary commented: "The creativity of the children was amazing and the making of their futuristic bridge was a spectacular highlight during our Brunel activities."

Photo © Neil Phillips



Marvellous Moving Mechanisms
Marvellous Moving Mechanismsss Great Britain held an exciting holiday workshop for children in May, which provided an opportunity to create animations and their own Victorian-inspired mechanisms. The workshop was run again in August when the ship's engineering consultant was on board to help and to give suggestions.



Tyning Hengrove
Tyning HengroveTyning Hengrove Junior School in Bristol celebrated the work of Brunel and his creative contemporaries in a Victorian-themed project that ran throughout 2005/2006. The project was full of activities that aimed to expand the pupils' knowledge and appreciation of the area in which they live and the school in which they study.

Among the highlights were: creating a Great Exhibition, going on a trip to Blaise Castle, joining the South West Great Reading Adventure, holding a Victorian Christmas fete, performing a music hall show, and re-enacting the dinner held for the launch for the ss Great Britain in 1843. The school also contributed to Bristol's Electric December, an annual on-line festival calendar offering 24 days of digital delights.

Paula Shears, the school's humanities coordinator, said: "The connection between a wide range of the curriculum and a famous local personality has presented us with a marvellous opportunity to link our children with their locality."



Dream Boats
Dream BoatsLuke Jerram, an international artist based in Bristol, ran a holiday workshop at the ss Great Britain in August. Local families worked as a team with Luke to construct beautiful, colourful boats that bore the families' hopes and dreams for Bristol. Each boat was about 1m long and was launched twice in the Floating Harbour: once during the evening and once at night, on which occasion they were illuminated by lights.

Photo © Luke Jerram



Embleton School
Embleton SchoolWriter Claire Williamson led a workshop at Embleton School in Bristol during the Great Reading Adventure in which the children wrote a series of country profile poems. You can read some of their poems here [add link to Egypt document]. The picture is of a Thomas Cook poster advertising trips to Egypt. This was included in the readers' guide to Around the World in Eighty Days that was used during the Adventure.



Blaise Primary's Brunel Comic
Blaise Primary's Brunel ComicChildren at Blaise Primary were involved in a whole fortnight of Brunel-themed activities ranging from theatre and art to technology and science. One of the highlights was a visit by the illustrator of the Brunel graphic biography, Simon Gurr, and Jim Freebury of the Travelling Man comic store in Bristol. Simon and Jim led an exciting workshop in which Year 4 pupils designed their own Brunel comic strip dramatising key incidents in his life through characterisation and dialogue.

Simon Gurr commented: "I was amazed by how much the children knew about Brunel. Their stories were full of interesting facts and great drawings of his ships and bridges."

Photo © Neil Phillips



Chester Park's Globes
Chester Park's GlobesWriter and drama practitioner Fiona Hamilton led a workshop at Chester Park Junior School in Bristol as part of the South West Great Reading Adventure. During the session, which was based on Around the World in Eighty Days, the children created world globes.



St George's
St George'sPupils from St George's school helped to launch the exhibition 'The Nine Lives of I K Brunel', which was held at ss Great Britain from April to October 2006. Here they are with actor Martin Williamson in the guise of Brunel trying out the Battle of the Gauges exhibit. St George's was among a group of ten Bristol schools that contributed to the creation of a life-size soft-sculpture of the famous chains of the Great Eastern. This was devised by installation artist Glen Eastman and displayed at the exhibition.

Photo © MCP



Travelling in Time
Travelling in TimeIn Bristol, Multi A commissioned a dancer (Laila Diallo) and a poet (Fiona Hamilton), working with a local engineer (Richard Ellam) and a sound artist (Loben Tatlow) to create and perform a piece with Year 5 children from Easton Road and Four Acres primary schools. The performances brought together poetry, dance and music to explore the fascinating history of the creation of the Great Western Railway. The children's research took them to London by train, stopping off at Swindon to see the railway village and STEAM, the GWR museum. They also visited the Didcot Railway Centre. You can read two of the poems they created here.



Woodstock Special School
Woodstock Special SchoolWoodstock Special School produced a wonderful large-scale snakes and ladders board during a workshop with Fiona Hamilton as part of the Great Reading Adventure, which was based on Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days.



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