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Luke Arnott - Age 11 - Key Stage 3, Year 7.

I asked Luke to complete the worksheet and then fill out a small questionnaire about his experience.

Luke took around 5 minutes per page to complete the activity book, which is the time I was aiming for. He seemed engaged throughout and enjoyed the illustrations on the page. When he saw the word search on the page he expressed that he was looking forward to completing it . All of these outcomes were exactly what I was hoping for, I know that Luke personally doesn’t enjoy the subject of History that much and seeing him engaged and interested in a activity book based around History was certainly something I was pleased to see.

Lara Paynter - Age 10 - Key Stage 2, Year 5.

I asked Lara to complete the worksheet and then fill out the questionnaire following her experience.

Lara took around 7 minutes per page to complete the book. As Lara is a year beolow my target audience, I was expecting her to take longer than the 5 minute aim. Lara loved the little characters and commented on them straight away. Another thing Lara expressed was her excitement to complete the activities. When she was the “complete your own census return” she turned to me and said “Hey, I get to do my own! This is fun.” which showed me that she was enjoying the worksheet. In her questionair Lara expressed her enjoyment in all of her answers. When answering the worksheet, Lara found the questions a little difficult as she hadn’t yet learned about some of the topis. Something I had to take into account however was the fact the worksheet would be completed after attending a TNA educational session.

Daniel Arnott - Age 15

Megan Paynter - Age 16

I wanted to ask people slightly above my target audience age so that I could figure out if the difficulty was correct for the age range. I also figured I would get more detailed answers out of slightly older children, which proved correct. Interviewing older children allowed me to confirm that the spreads were rightly suited in terms of both illustration, layout and the way in which the questions were worded.

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Rachael Arnott - Parent of 11 year old

Michelle Paynter - Parents of 10 year old

Gary Arnott - Parent to 11 year old

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Charlotte Harding - Head of English - The Khalsa Academy Wolverhampton

Overall the feedback from Charlotte was really positive, as someone who deals with children from Key Stage 3 every weekday she knows their reading ability and how they learn and react to resources. One key aspect which really caught my attention was the fact that she mentioned schools would struggle to print in colour. As a result of this I think it would be worth printing out my spread in black and white when giving it to my target audience to test; and then show them the colour version on screen.

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To go with the theme of stickers and using simplistic illustrations, I decided to create some characters for the children to identify with when completing the activity book.

For my medieval spread, I will be using the king and knight as these relate to the subject.

For the Victorian spread, I will be using the male and female citizens dressed in Victorian attire.

For the World War 2 spread I will be using the solider.

Some of my characters will have speech marks giving “Did you know?” facts. This will add some more interest into the content of the page.

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Deciding which idea to move forward with

So far, I have two ideas which I have been developing. In order to fully develop one to the standard I wish, I need to disregard one of them.

For one of my ideas, I have a “Top Secret File” approach, making the child feel more engaged with the historical documents. The other idea is more based upon the questions being legible, adding creative elements such as stickers and illustrations.

Which one?

I personally feel that the idea based around the information itself has more potential. As I feel children may feel slightly overwhelmed by the idea of a Top Secret file. Although a child would feel engaged and interested, I feel that the use of a themed design for the entire spread, as well as the addition of pictures of historical documents could become a little overwhelming.

The idea based around the copy has potential to add even more simplistic illustrations, creating an overall friendly and welcoming aesthetic for children to feel invited and encouraged.

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Originally, I started designing by using an illustration based background as I thought this would create more of an interesting aesthetic to go along with the written structure of the book.

TAKEN FROM: http://gdes2014-tutor.blogspot.co.uk/

After getting to a certain point in the design process, I realised that there was far too much going on throughout the page and that this approach wouldn’t work the way I intended it to.

Getting rid of the illustration background gave more room for the rest of the page, to make things such as the recourse (key part of the activity) bigger, and give more space for the children to write their answers.

One element that I really wanted to include was an illustration of a pencil. I feel that using an illustration of something which encourages creative behaviour will help the children feel more engaged with the work.

After thinking about the use of illustrations to encourage creative behaviour, the use of stickers came to mind. The way in which children use stickers to decorate a piece using their own imagination.

To have each element look like a sticker would give a more friendly aesthetic piece to the spread, as well as still emphasising the creative mindset.

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“Top Secret” it placed onto documents which only autorised people have the rights to look at. Putting something like this onto my worksheet would make the children feel they have a sense of authority, as well as adding an element of excitement into the activity. Typically, children enjoy doing things they shouldn’t be doing and around the age of 10-12 can have a rebellious streak. Implementing this “Top Secret” element into my worksheets would make a child feel satisfied that they’re looking at something that they perhaps shouldn’t be.

Rubber Stamps

To re-create the stamp effect I tried making my own stamps to see how they would turn out in comparison with typefaces already available.

In order to create my stamp I used an eraser and a craft knife to carve out my design.  I wanted to create a stamp which looked like a “top secret” stamp style. I really liked the way my stamps came out and felt that it was effective to experiment with them. I also feel that the use of this material is appropriate as it suits the theme of original materials.

Natural Materials

After looking at the “top secret” files, I noticed that they are usually made out of thin card.  Relating this back to my clients, The National Archives; they keep documents which are authentic and dated. I feel that using textures such as kraft paper and thin card will help me give across a message related to the documents. Making the worksheet itself feel like a document is more likely to get the children engaged in handling such artifacts.

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Medieval

-          Chertsey (also something we saw first-hand on our visit) Resources available:  Original map & transcript, map of 20th century Chertsey

-          Domesday Book Resources available: Pages from the book

Victorian

-          Mining disaster Resources available: burial registers, extract from newspapers, photographs

-          19th century people Resources available: Photographs, census return

-          Census detective Resources available: census returns

-          Past pleasures Resources available: Paper based adverts, poster, drawing, photographs

World War 2

-          Evacuation to Canada Resources available: excerpt from a radio, records, official memo, letters

-          Government posters Resources available: posters, photographs

-          The home front Resources available: posters, leaflets, info-posters, telephone call transcript

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Areas of Achievement:

- Great Drawings

- Detailed blog, got lots of there

- Lots of research

- Strong aesthetic

- Clear & Strong direction

Areas of Development:

- Digital development

- Explore colours

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Starting from the beginning, we discovered that babies learned using the five senses - taste, touch, sight, sound & smell.

This then develops into auditory learning (hearing), visual learning (watching) and kinesthetic learning (doing)

Expanding upon this, I discusses with a member of my class in what way they thought they learned.

My class member said that he felt he was a kinesthetic learner; that he remembers things through repetition and step-by-step instructions, knowing what to do and how to do it. When he was a child, he enjoyed playing with Lego, which encouraged the use of step-by-step instructions and doing things in order to come to an outcome. He felt that the worst way of learning was auditory as it was less interesting, and harder to take in.

After taking this into account, I figured that perhaps one of the better ways to engage my audience is through making them do stuff, rather than just answering questions. This will impact the way in which I go about my C question.

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Luke Arnott - Student

Q: What year of school are you in currently? A: I’m in Key Stage 3, Year 7.

Q: When a teacher hands out a work sheet, do you think they look boring or are they interesting? A: Yes, they tend to look very boring.

Q: Why do you think they look boring? A: There’s nothing fun about they way that they look, nothing sticks out to interest me.

Q: How would you like the worksheets to look? A: More pictures, more colours. This would help there not look as much text of the page.

Q: Is there anything to do with the questions that would make them more exciting? A: I really enjoy questions where it asks you to draw something, or fill out a timeline. Doing other stuff than just writing down an answer. Different ways of showing what you’ve learnt.

Lara Paynter - Student

Q: What year of school are you in currently? A: I’m in Key Stage 2, Year 5.

Q: When a teacher hands out a work sheet, do you think they look boring or are they interesting? A: I think they look a little boring.

Q: Why do you think they look boring? A: Theres just writing on the page, no colour, nothing fun to look at

Q: How would you like the worksheets to look? A: Pictures, fancy writing, colours.

Q: Is there anything to do with the questions that would make them more exciting? A: I really like doing stuff where you have to make something or draw something, something on the page that will make me want to do my work.

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Charlotte Harding - The Khalsa Academy Wolverhampton

Q: What age are the children you teach? A: I teach at a secondary school and mainly teach children in Year 7, 8 and 9 - between the age of 11 and 13.

Q: As a teacher, what would you like in a worksheet? How do you feel your students are best captivated? A: The key is having a clear, easy to read font. The reading age of students can range widely so it’s important to accommodate all of them. In terms of captivating them, having coloured boxes or splashes on the page is great as well as keeping the amount of text to a minimum and instead focusing on visual representation

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Entrance:

The National Archives has a beautiful entrance with a long walkway, leading up to the entrance which features an infinity pool. The setting really gives a powerful feeling and helps to appreciate how special the building is.

Workshop

We got the chance to experience a workshop that TNA would usually present to pupils in Key Stage 2/3. These are examples of the worksheets they used. I took these to see how TNA themselves use printed materials to appeal to children. Using a mixture of outlines from solid to dotted to create a hierarchy but also add diversity in the page to keep the pupils interested. Very minimal amount of imagery is used although the imagery that is used reinforces what the worksheet is asking the children to do. The “challenge” aspect is also outlined in a bright colour to catch the pupils attention and encourage them to partake in the activity. 

Our record, a prison book from the Victorian Era showing pupils how different crime and punishment was. The book also reflected on the living conditions during the era as people were often imprisoned for stealing objects such as a loaf of bread or other necessities showing that people struggled to gain basic materials.

Workshop - Other Materials Featured

These are some of the other records which were provided during the workshop, from eras such as Medieval, Tudor, Cold War & WW2. This gave us an insight into what topics TNA teach this age range as well as what resources are provided.

We also got to view the special collection of ‘Jack The Ripper’s’ - “Dear Boss” letters which were sent to the police. We were informed that these aren’t usually displayed to the public due to their value as that we were very privileged to be shown them.

Tour of The Archives

Staff showed us round the depositories in which they keep the records, showing us how The Archives work behind closed doors.

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The National Archives - Who are they?

TNA is home to millions of historical documents, created usually by the UK government. TNA have one of the largest collections in the world, housing over 11 millions records, some of these date back over 1,000 years. These records are accessible to the general public, most are easily viewed digitally although they also provide a unique experience where you can see the records first hand by booking them out and using them in the dedicated reading rooms.

Education Department

TNA also have an education department which is around 16 years old, making it well developed; where they provide workshops for school pupils. They engage children by providing them with physical resources to interact with. TNA focus on improving pupils inquiry skills by encouraging them to ask questions about the records and think deeply about aspects such as why the record was created and what use it had to the government.

We were lucky enough to visit The National Archives ourselves and be shown some of the amazing records as well as participate in a Key Stage 2/3 workshop.

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Key Stage 2

These books are targeted towards children from Year 5 to Year 6, aged between 9 and 11. The contents features detailed illustration unlike that which you would find in a Key Stage 1 book. On the cover of the page, they use the technique that I previously explored in which the text follows the wave of movement to engage the child. Within the content, they use coloured pages that helps children with dyslexia and visual stress. This is a key aspect that inspires my creative thoughts, as this would make my worksheet easily assessable to those pupils without the teacher having to go out of their way to print a modified copy. The typography used is still a basic sans serif, which looks like the typefaces Infant Gill Sans and Sassoon Primary. From this I gathered that although these pupils have moved on from basic imagery, they haven’t completely moved away from the basic typeface which helps them to read and understand the content; they now need more detailed and captivating illustrations to keep their attention. The pages also use different textures for questions which create a sense of hierarchy and help the children to focus on that part of the page and realise that it’s important.

These books are targeted towards children from Year 3 to Year 6, aged between 7 and 11. This is an example of an easily, cheaply printed worksheet which teachers would use. There is plenty of spacing between each sentence making it easy for pupils to read, as well as using borders for the questions to help pupils distinguish where each aspect of the page is located. The dotted line indicates where the children are meant to write their answer, also helping them to write in a straight line.

The illustration border is something that inspires my creative thoughts as this brings an element of imagery into the worksheet. I feel that this page is targeted more towards the younger side of Key Stage 2 although is still relevant to my research. To appeal to my target audience I would consider using less imagery compared to what is on this page. I also believe that the typefaces are a little difficult to read, as there are so many of them. Although this worksheet would capture the attention of a Key Stage 2 audience I feel that they would struggle to understand the content fully.

Key Stage 3

I feel that these covers are targeted more towards the lower age of Key Stage 3, which are at the top end of my target audience. The illustration used is highly detailed and more sophisticated to that of the early Key Stage 2 designs. To keep interest the titles use movement and displacement to make it unusual. At the same time although there is complex aspects to the covers, they don’t use too many colours so that the cover isn’t overwhelming.

 These covers really embrace the  use of white space.  Within the Key Stage 3 age range they slowly start to move away from illustration and into photography and more life like representation. They replace the high imagery with bright colours to still keep the pupil intrigued.

These are examples of the content within these activity books. Colour is slowly starting to become irrelevant and only used when creating hierarchy. Very basic highlight colours are used on the typography to highlight important words that the pupils need to recognise. The typography is also shifting away from the typical Primary typeface and into a more sophisticated typeface. Although still a sans serif, the typeface features higher contrast, which is more likely seen on a serif. As well as using more sophisticated typefaces, they also use less typefaces and instead use Italics and Bold versions of the same typeface, giving a more sophisticated appearance.