In an era in which money and teachers are increasingly scarce - and the pressure to do well in high-stakes tests, league tables and inspections is huge - it would be easy for primary schools to become boring, grey places. After all, how much time and energy is left to do something different when it is becoming so much harder to manage the basics?
Happily, it turns out that such a gloomy perspective does not take into account the sheer inventiveness of primaries today.
Last week, when the 13,400 followers of the #primaryrocks Twitter chat were challenged by teacher @MissGraceJ to “Share something amazing your school does that you think other schools don’t do”, the variety, ambition and utter joy of many of the responses showed why people love teaching.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy. For a tech business, it may be enough to install a slide or table tennis in the office to raise a smile among employees. Schools have to go a whole lot further to impress an eight-year-old.
But from pupils belting out Neil Diamond classics, to tending allotments, constructing giant cardboard models and handing out free ice cream, the evidence suggests they are succeeding. Fun and innovation in primaries is alive and thriving.
Singing and pizza
At Parklands primary in Leeds, headteacher Chris Dyson has decided to turn Friday afternoon assembly into a high-energy event with singing, sofas and free pizza, themed around a segment from Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway.
“We call it the ‘Best Seats in the House Assembly’,” says Dyson.
“It really sets everyone up for the weekend with singing and dancing. They all come into the hall singing the song of the week - this week it is Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline - and then we announce the eight children who have won the chance to sit on the best seats in the house.”
Those prime-positioned seats are two black leather sofas, donated to the 275-pupil school - where almost three-quarters of pupils attract pupil premium funding - by a local business. The chosen children, who are picked out by Dyson for doing something beyond their usual schoolwork, are given pizza and lemonade.
The assembly then continues with children from each class coming up to receive their Star of the Week, Writer of the Week or Times Table Champion award, amid claps and cheers.
Dyson also offers his staff something very valuable: time. “I insist all staff are out of the door at 3.30pm on Friday,” he says.
Playground ice-cream vans
There may be pizza in Leeds, but the “something amazing” for one teacher in Gateshead was a van with free ice cream parking up in the playground during the recent heatwave.
Food was also at the heart of the community cafe set up by the 29 pupils of Logie primary, near Forres in the north of Scotland.
“The four children from P6 (equivalent to Year 5) who run it have done the proper adult food-hygiene certificates,” says headteacher Helen Douglas. “It opens once a month from 12.30pm to 2.30pm and serves soup, tea, coffee and cakes.”
All the children have roles in the cafe. Some cook, some wait on tables - which are set up with tablecloths and vases of flowers - while others wash up or play with the toddlers who arrive with their parents.
There are also evaluation forms to help the children adapt their offerings. “They made green sponge cake once by putting food colouring in it,” says Douglas.
“The children thought it was fun, but adults didn’t want to eat it.”
The money raised goes to supporting school trips, and the school, which has an allotment, is aiming to grow its own fruit and vegetables to use in the cafe.
Setting up and running a cafe takes two days a month out of the curriculum, but Douglas says it fits with the Scottish government’s aim of developing the future workforce, as well as helping literacy and numeracy skills.
Constructing cardboard wonders
Back in England, Year 3 teacher Graham Andre shared how his 300-pupil Isle of Wight school, Lanesend primary in Cowes, also stops the normal curriculum for a day to allow pupils to take part in the Global Cardboard Challenge - in the process, creating dozens of giant cardboard models that fill up the school hall.
“Our school business manager collects up cardboard from different businesses,” says Andre. “We provide the Sellotape, so it’s relatively cheap. We get the whole school into the hall in the morning and talk about it, showing them examples on Google, then they do what they want.”
The Global Cardboard Challenge is coordinated by the Imagination Foundation, which fosters creativity in children. The not-for-profit US organisation was set up by filmmaker Nirvan Mullick and entrepreneur Harley Cross after Mullick’s film about nine-year-old Caine Monroy, who created his own cardboard games arcade, went viral.
Lanesend has run the challenge three times - creating an arcade, a dinosaur world and a display inspired by Roald Dahl’s books.
“The first year, we made this arcade and the next day the parents came in and paid money to play the games, with the money going to charity,” says Andre.
“This year, on the topic of Roald Dahl, we had a BFG, a chocolate factory and a giant peach. It is brilliant; it’s my favourite day of the year.”
Simple, but brilliant
But the “amazing” ideas did not have to be jaw-dropping to be effective: @samdaunt said that children arrive in her school to the sounds of film soundtracks on Fridays. “It brightens my day seeing kids march across the hall pretending to be stormtroopers,” she tweeted.
And @simonkidwell said that his school hired the local theatre for the annual Year 5 and 6 performance.
Others wanted to share highly valued skills: @goodman_ang tweeted: “We are fantastic at supporting vulnerable families.”
It was in 2010 that Robin Alexander published the results of a four-year study into the state of primary education; the educationalist concluded that, in a world perceived as divided and dangerous, “primary schools appear to be under intense pressure, but in good heart…For many, schools are the centre that holds when things fall apart.”
Since then, primary schools have continued to face challenges with a new curriculum, new tests, increasing pupil numbers and shortages of teachers. But they still do amazing things.
And the most amazing?
“*Whispers* school finishes at 2pm on a Friday,” @mrsgclass3 reveals. Which, as @MissGraceJ replied, is “the dream!”
