Butterflies in my Tummy

What is it about?
project combines aspects of D&T and SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning). All materials can be freely downloaded and customised for use with your class, printed out and copied for use in your school or educational establishment. The resources can be downloaded HERE.

Aim
The aim of the materials is to promote innovation and risk-taking when children are designing.

Project rationale
The materials promote both the thinking and the feeling aspects of children’s learning. We know that for most schools making is better taught than designing, through focused practical tasks – food processing skills for a fruit salad or running stitch for making money containers. But there is little direct teaching of designing skills or opportunities for children to practise them before actually designing a product. In the worst case scenario, this can lead to a class making thirty five identical slippers, all fundamentally the same. Here children certainly go through the motions of designing, but with limited designing skills at their disposal it is more difficult for them to personalise their design ideas and come up with something original.

On the other side of the equation we have the feelings that accompany taking risks and being innovative. It may be that even where children have learnt a wide range of designing skills, the climate in the classroom is not conducive to risk taking. SEAL approaches create a secure environment and positive working relationships to address this.

The materials provide a set of activities to help children design more effectively using a series of SEAL approaches, with the goal of developing the skills and attitudes needed for risk taking and innovation.

Using the materials effectively
The simplest way to use the materials is to follow the tutorial PowerPoint which shows how they fit together and links to the SEAL approaches and designing activities. The materials have been written in such a way that they can be used without any additional training, although feedback from Birmingham City University and teachers has highlighted the benefits of working through the strategies and approaches with colleagues before using them with your class.