#PoundlandPedagogy, The Rise of a Phenomenon!

Having been lucky enough to attend the Bexley and Greenwich Teach Meet, ran by two amazing secondary teachers (@RachelSwinburne and @Sazwighead), I became introduced to the wonder that is #PoundlandPedagogy!

The essence of this concept is simple. Head into your nearest Poundland, scour the aisles for random bits and bobs, then bring them into school and create wonder within your lessons. These items can be anything from coloured paper to gardening tools! A few items I recently picked up from this amazing, bargain-filled place were;

• 20 character cut out shaped figures 
• One pack of 2 massive glasses
• 20 colourful, Easter eggs which open
• 3 spiky coloured balls, orange, red and blue.
• A first aid kit 

Ideas for these objects were plentiful when I shared them at a Teaching and Learning breakfast at my school. For the character cut out shaped figures ideas centered around using them in the classroom to create character profiles from novels, plays or poetry; creating revision resources for famous historical figures; mathematicians could use them for problem solving and PE for labeling different parts of the human body. The glasses could be used to view a topic through different eyes: change your perspective on something. Students will love the novelty of wearing them in a lesson, and will relish the idea of thinking about something in a different way to what they already do. The eggs were particularly popular with teachers as there were different colours in the pack. These could be used for differentiation, place questions inside these eggs and just throw them to the students once finished with a task with high order thinking questions on the slips inside for them to answer. The first aid kit can be a useful pack to provide students with support subtly around the classroom, if they need it. Lastly, the spiky balls were also coloured differently and can be used for bouncing questions around the room, learning about cell division within Science and planetary alignment. 

These were just a mere few ideas that I came up with, and I am sure there are many more things that could be done with these items. I hope I have inspired you to grab a couple of quid and make some fantastic teaching and learning within your classroom! As teacher and educators, we need to encourage students to become more independent within lessons, to take charge of their own learning, once we provide them with the right tools and allow time for our methods to work, independence is only a fraction away.