c.s.p.e action project

Shadow Lady

Hi, I started teaching c.s.p.e for the first time four weeks ago. I'm teaching two really difficult classes of third year boys, so I have to do the action project with them. I could really do with some advice on this, if anyone out there could help. I was told that while they are the ones who are supposed to contact the organisation themselves that it would be better if I did so first to check everything out. I rang a few places trying to get a visit or guest speaker booked in enough time for the students to have enough time to write up their reports to submit. I have very little idea of how to go about the planning of this week by week. I've organised charity fundraisers with a class before, but they were a very cooperative group of girls and it wasn't for their junior cert.

If anyone could help advise me on the practicalities of this I would be so grateful. This is just one of the things keeping me awake all night and giving me nightmares about this new job.

Thanks

sitstill

Shadow Lady wrote: »

Hi, I started teaching c.s.p.e for the first time four weeks ago. I'm teaching two really difficult classes of third year boys, so I have to do the action project with them. I could really do with some advice on this, if anyone out there could help. I was told that while they are the ones who are supposed to contact the organisation themselves that it would be better if I did so first to check everything out. I rang a few places trying to get a visit or guest speaker booked in enough time for the students to have enough time to write up their reports to submit. I have very little idea of how to go about the planning of this week by week. I've organised charity fundraisers with a class before, but they were a very cooperative group of girls and it wasn't for their junior cert.

If anyone could help advise me on the practicalities of this I would be so grateful. This is just one of the things keeping me awake all night and giving me nightmares about this new job.

Thanks

An easy one to do is organise a trip to the Dail. You can just email one of your local TDs and they basically sort it all for you. Yes, technically the kids are meant to do all the contacting but with weaker groups its easier for the teacher to do it and in the report they can just tell a white lie or two. After that you can give them jobs like one has to collect the bus fare, one has to make permission slips, another has to make a list of questions to ask the TD, another has to organise a thank you card etc etc

dambarude

Based purely on experience as a pupil (and of other pupils), many if not all of the people I know who did their 'action' project on inviting a guest speaker failed to get an A.

There is no 'action' involved in it, and tbh I think it completely misses the point of the whole subject. I've written here before about people who wrote about how they cleaned the windows or swept the floor as a job on the day the visitor came, or the person whose job was to thank the visitor on arrival, or another person whose job was to thank the visitor on his departure. Nothing against the OP but it's no wonder everybody thinks the subject is a waste of time when 60% of it goes on writing about cleaning a room before the local councillor arrives. And what the teacher decides to do makes all the difference here.

Shadow Lady

Thank you for the replies so far. They've been helpful. We've decided to do the project on an animal welfare organisation and I was originally hoping to have a guest speaker in and/or a visit out to the place, but also to hold a fundraiser for the organisation. Is this too ambitious? How long do these things typically take to organise? I only have the classes once a week and they are quite weak and uncooperative.

spurious

They will be more cooperative if there is a trip out on offer, rather than a speaker coming in.

Boober Fraggle

Only 15 of the 120 marks are going for the descriptions of an individual job, so I wouldn't mind that too much, dambarude.

I would say if you've got a topic that the kids are interested in, you are onto a winner. I wouldn't try to organise too much with the students you have described, but I would say the fundraiser would be essential if you are planning on taking up the time of a charity organisation (just my own opinion there).

I would ask them whether they want someone to come in to talk to them, or whether they would like to go out to the organisation... if it's their own idea they are more likely to be co-operative.

Most of these organisations are very used to dealing with action projects, and know how to deal with awkward teenage boys when they ring them!!