Camelsdale First School, email project

By Veronica Carter

Background

Camelsdale First School in West Sussex has used email to support learning for the last three years, most notably in a Y4 class which has used the web www.epals.com to make contact with school children from a variety of places around the world.  This has usually proved extremely worthwhile although we have learnt to make initial contact early within the time period in which the work is due to take place in order to avoid problems with different times of school holidays in different areas of the world.

Last year a Y3 child was absent for three weeks due to an accident.  During this time, regular email correspondence took place between him and his classmates and, as a school, we began to realise a little of the potential of such school/home communication.  In the first newsletter to go out in the new academic year we asked parents to let the school have an email address, if they have one. In my YR class, named the Pandas, this has developed into quite a project and has proved extremely enjoyable and worthwhile.

Communicating, Language and Literacy

All emails received by the class have been read out to the whole class and have been replied to, providing an opportunity 'to demonstrate the use of language for reading and writing' and to help ‘children understand how text works' (Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage [CGFS] pp 46, 47).  Most children have received a message from a parent and then composed a reply which was typed in by an adult and then sent by the child.  This has worked particularly well as parents of four-year-olds know exactly how to talk to that age of child and are simply delighted to receive any kind of a reply from their offspring.  If an email address was supplied on paper then the child would initiate the communication.  The look of sheer delight on Emily's face when she received separate replies from both of her parents within half an hour of sending a message was quite memorable.

Often the parents would help the children to think of something to say in reply by including a question or referring to something that the child could comment on - their 'inside information' was invaluable in this.

One child came in to school with very good reading skills and was ready to move on from her early attempts at emergent writing.  Grace reads any emails from her family out to the class herself and also writes her own replies, sometimes with adult help and sometimes working independently.

This work has maintained Grace's interest over several weeks and she has now started to email me at home over the weekends too!  Every message is replied to with the result that, even though her concentration span is perfectly average for a four-year-old, she has continued to want to do this, providing many opportunities for doing 'real' writing and for opportunities to talk about her writing and the writing process.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World

This project has also provided a clear example of 'Using parents knowledge to extend children's experiences of the world', (CGFS p 85).  This happened with an unexpected, but welcome, development when a parent went away on a business trip to South Africa and wrote in from there.

We have now received emails from South Africa, Switzerland and Florida.  I always have a globe hanging in the classroom but have never before used it so regularly so early in the school year.  When the following message arrived from Australia one of the children immediately called out, "Show us where it is!" while swinging round to stare at the globe. 

There has clearly been a wealth of ICT learning.  There is a developing understanding of the process of emailing which I have described in terms of the creation of a message on our computer, the sending of that message to a bigger computer called a server, the collection of that message by the recipient when they check their email.  They have no more problem accepting this than they do with using a telephone to talk to granny.  A wealth of computer language has been introduced to them:  double click, select, scroll down, space bar, shift key, return key, Send and Receive etc.  The children have taken to adding strings of kisses to the end of their messages (very Early Years!) and so have experienced the fact that if you hold a key down it continues to repeat its action.  This will undoubtedly help these children with their early word processing as achieving just one output for each keystroke often proves quite a hurdle to be overcome.

Personal, Social Emotional Development

A child's first term at 'Big School' is an important milestone in their lives.  They need to quickly begin to feel safe, loved and valued in their new setting.  With this email project being family based it has helped these children to know that they are still being thought of by parents even when they are apart and that the school values and respects their families and existing relationships.  The children have been free to express their feelings both in words and by the addition of strings of kisses after their messages (see Grace's example above).

Adam's family was taking no chance of the class forgetting his birthday and helped Adam to send in a message from home.  He then emailed them from school to let them know that his big day was going well

Obviously not every family has access to email either at home or at work and it was important that the children knew that everybody would get a turn at sending and receiving messages.  We achieved this by sending emails within school either to the headteacher or to our Teaching Assistant who works some afternoons doing clerical work on a networked computer in the staffroom.  The headteacher also used this as a way of building on the experiences the children had had in assembly, listening to music or stories.

The emails from absent parents have been particularly helpful to the children, showing that Daddy is still thinking of them, and keeping them in touch during what can be a difficult time for the children.

In Conclusion

This project has evolved rather than having been tightly planned, but it has been well worth finding the time for within a tight timetable.  Benefits have been shown within three separate FS Areas of Learning.

Apart from the learning that the children have been doing there has been learning on the part of various adults as well.  One mother has now sent her very first email having decided that if her four-year-old can do it maybe she could too.  We received one email with photographs of the child embedded in the body of the message.  When I asked how this had been done I received a 'tutorial' by email the following day.

ICT moves on at such a rate that we all have to be open to continually learning more in this area.  With this project there has been clear evidence that the children, the parents and myself have all found opportunities to learn.

Veronica Carter is the Early Years Co-ordinator at Camelsdale First School in West Sussex. Pandas, the reception class featured in this article can be emailed at : pandas@camelsdale.w-sussex.sch.uk.