Spring 2022
Robinson worked with the Year 6 students at Montem. Montem Primary is Community school with a strong and supportive local authority
There are high levels of English as an additional language (70%). It is a richly diverse community (Somali 18%, Turkish/Turkish cypriot 9% and Bangladeshi 8%).There are High levels of children receiving Pupil Premium (58%) and high levels of socio-economic disadvantage; the difference between Montem’s pupil premium families and non-pupil premium families is small.
Children were introduced to:
ethnography – “Life-Writing” – writing (or drawing or filming) the deep “thick description” of the life-way of a person or group of people based on the field notation one has collected
Proxemics – We discussed how proxemics can be drawn out as a way of thinking of a social space differently, the closeness of people to one another in particular social spaces. We noticed that the closeness of people can explain a lot about the social rules in that space using again the classroom as a way of exploring this
The children pulled out all the stops for the photovoice project and produced some fantastic pictures. They also really discussed amongst one another the meanings of these photos and what memories they evoke – highlights included:
- a deep discussion about online learning and the differences in doing school work at home before and after covid
- PE and outside time
- Additional anecdotes about how the school has changed in the time they have been at Montem
What did you learn?
“I learned about how much like one photo says, like when you […] I think it was a computer you went into a really deep conversation about [Covid lockdown] from like one picture.”
“When you’re an anthropologist, you are never actually sure of something.”
“Being an anthropologist is quite easy and quite hard, odd, and you’ll need to have good memory” (Yr 6 Students,11-12yrs).