Trust in Mantle

It's been a while since I blogged, because it's been a while since I mantled. 

I've missed it.

Having said that, I spent much of the lunch break before said mantle session wondering whether or not I should just postpone it. 


My reasons:

1) My new class is largely Reception. They're very new to school, can't focus long and have never even slightly mantled before.

2) The rest of my class is Year 1, but have also never mantled before. 

3) I had four adults in the room, one of whom I had never met before and, it later transpired, was in fact a trained teacher *

4) It had been so long since I'd mantled that I wasn't sure I could remember how. Plus, I'd never mantled with Reception children. 

5) This is my first Reception class since 2012, so I spend a LOT of time questioning what I'm doing.


Despite all this, my wise and lovely teaching assistants said something along the lines of 'Let's see what happens', so we did. 

"What are we doing next?"

Something I've noticed is that children need to be taught to notice - last year's class became adept at spotting small signs but it took time. 

In this instance, my class shuffled happily into class and managed to sit on the carpet (an achievement), but they didn't notice the large pieces of cardboard I had organised in the middle of it. However, with a bit of help they noticed it and thankfully they worked out that there were spikes and it might be a hedgehog. 

I explained that we needed a hedgehog for the afternoon but I hadn't managed to make one.... I  had got this far (picture some spiky cardboard) and wondered whether the children could help.

Never, in all my mantling, have children agreed to help quite so quickly or so eagerly. Within maybe three minutes of looking at the cardboard and discussing ideas, they were off. Painting, cutting spikes, making a general mess. 


A hedgehog comes together
Somewhere in the middle of the mess I looked across the children and couldn't quite believe that, with so little effort on my part, they were quite so invested already. It was probably around 10-15 minutes before some of them started to wander off (an achievement with this age group) while some of the others continued making the hedgehog. 






At this point, I realised the soggy, over-painted cardboard mush I had was probably not going to be ready to be a hedgehog quite yet... so I decided we'd carry on the session later on in the afternoon. 

The joy of storytelling

As I've said before, the storytelling aspect of Mantle of the Expert is one of my absolute favourite things about it. 

Once the hedgehog took shape, and the children had tidied up, we all gathered around the hedgehog. I explained that this hedgehog had a story that I'd like to share with them. I told them the story of how she had woken up in the middle of the day to find her woodland home being destroyed. She had run and run until, exhausted, she curled up in the middle of a field. I invited children the children to become our hedgehog curled up, and they shared their feelings. I can honestly say every single child was participating in their different ways.

Then I said:

"Luckily, just as she was about to give up hope, she heard a kind voice above her."

The drama square and adults in role

Something I've learnt is that it's okay to be obvious with role work. It's okay to say, 'In a minute I'm going to represent....' or 'Watch carefully because Mrs X is going to show us...'

For today's new mantlers, I used masking tape to create a 'drama square.' This is a technique I saw used in a Reception class at Woodrow First School ** and it worked brilliantly. I explained that when she stepped into the drama square, my TA would become someone different. I placed  a soft toy hedgehog in it to begin with, to represent our hedgehog (ours was too big). One girl said 'It's just a toy' which was a perfect excuse to explain again how the drama circle would work - I moved the hedgehog so it was curled up, just like our hedgehog in the story.

My TA then stepped into the drama circle, picked up the hedgehog and talked to it kindly. The children all willingly talked to the adult in role established that this was Percy the Park Keeper (we'd been looking at the series of books the previous week) . Because I'd been explicit that Mrs X was going to represent someone else, there was no confusion. 

The children were all very keen to help Percy to care for the hedgehog, but that will have to wait for another day (maths, phonics etc).

Lesson of the day: put your trust in Mantle of the Expert. 


Notes:
* I have nothing against adults. I just find it intimidating teaching in front of those I don't know. Also, this visiting teacher was around for a lot longer than I'd anticipated. Also, I'd forgotten she was coming. 

** You should definitely visit Woodrow First School.