Diggle school children enjoy a lesson about tornados
Tornado lessons – Year 5 pupils at Diggle School with their American virtual visitor, Heather McDown
Primary school children in Diggle enjoyed a lesson about tornados, direct from Tornado Alley in America.
Pupils at Diggle School used cutting-edge technology to talk live ‘in person’ with a tornado survivor in Oklahoma.
Using Skype – which allows people to talk online and see each other from anywhere in the world – the Year 5 children asked questions and heard fascinating first-hand stories.
The school’s virtual visitor was Heather McDown, 28, whose hometown of Moore was struck by a massive tornado in 2013 – the natural disaster had peak winds of 210mph, claimed more than 20 lives and destroyed entire neighbourhoods.
Diggle School deputy head Stephanie Moore said: “The children had a wonderful experience using Skype.
“Not only was it fun and exciting, it supported our curriculum and they learnt so much from speaking interactively with Heather.
“At Diggle School we work really hard to bring learning to life. We make our lessons as interesting as possible so that pupils thoroughly enjoy being at school.
“We received a ‘good’ rating from Ofsted last year, but we constantly strive to develop our teaching and learning.
“Lessons about extreme weather, such as tornados, used to be based on books, videos and finding information on the internet.
“Skype offered our children a personal conversation with someone thousands of miles away. It’s the kind of new technology that we embrace at Diggle School.”
Pupils spent an hour ‘Skyping’ with Heather, who described what it’s like to be in a tornado and explained all the steps that are taken to protect lives in Oklahoma.
Heather is a former college friend of Diggle’s Year 5 teacher Kate Wilson.
Heather said: “It was a fantastic experience to help educate school children who are over 5000 miles away.
“Their questions were really engaging, and you could tell that they would remember the experience for years to come. Technology is a fantastic avenue to fully explore teaching capabilities.”
Miss Wilson added: “This was the first time I’ve used Skype in the classroom and it was great. The session was completely child led and they asked questions that they were interested in and got truly honest answers. It really opened their eyes to what goes on in other parts of the world.”
Children wrote down their thoughts after the lesson, with comments including “awesome”, “amazing”, “the best lesson I’ve ever had” and “can we do it again please?”
Author: Jude Gidney - Editor
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