PRIMARY SCHOOL children enjoyed a lesson with a difference as they found out more about tornados – direct from Tornado Alley in America.
Pupils at Diggle School used cutting-edge Skype technology to talk live ‘in person’ with a tornado survivor in Oklahoma.
Via 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 in Oklahoma was struck by a massive tornado in 2013.
The natural disaster with peak winds of 210mph claimed more than 20 lives and destroyed entire neighbourhoods.
Diggle School deputy headteacher 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.
“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.
“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.”
Pupils spent an hour ‘Skyping’ with Heather as she described what it is like to be in a tornado and explained all the steps that are taken to protect lives.
Heather, who is a former college friend of Diggle’s Year 5 teacher Kate Wilson, said: “It was a fantastic experience to help educate school children who are over 5,000 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?”
I wish they didn’t take down the pirate ship. I loved playing with Tom Brierly and Harry Rushworth. Then the new head came and spent all the money on some wooden signs saying be resilient and be resourceful and be respectful and then we couldn’t go to RobinWood…we had to go to PGL because she spent all our budget. So yeh, sad really.
On the plus side, I enjoyed speaking to someone in a tornado because it made me love geography and now I’m thinking of being a dentist when I am older.
Holy moly!! I just remembered that I used to think she was talking about the holocaust. After all these years. I’m in year 12 and that was year 5…WOW