Students from Portlaoise Educate Together held their inaugural craft fair recently and raised a staggering €1,000 for school resources and the sports pitch campus fund.
The event saw Tim Stapleton’s 5th class students host the craft fair at Portlaoise Educate Together N.S. last week.
The children took old books and crafted them into various items of use, such as candle and pencil holders to name but a few. They also made hedgehogs, houses and various other creative items that were painstakingly done by folding the individual pages of old books.
The books were collected from their homes, second hand shops and old books in the library. The children took pre-orders and personalised items from the previous week and orders were completed and paid for by Tuesday gone.
Parents and guardians visited the fair between 8.15am -2.30pm where they had the opportunity urchase all the products on display.
The money raised from this event will be spent on resources and investment in the sports pitch campus fund.
Mr Stapleton was delighted with how the project went and said he was very proud of his students.
The students of 5th Class in Portlaoise Educate Together N.S. began their journey to hosting their inaugural Craft Fair almost two months ago.
What commenced as a simple English lesson about persuasive writing and advertising, evolved into a full scale business plan propelled by the enthusiasm and determination of the twelve girls and fifteen boys in the class.
The teachers involved said iIt was clear from the outset that the children were highly motivated and had a willingness to accumulate the learning they had achieved across all subject areas in order to develop their business idea.
This has been a child-centered process from the outset and it all commenced with a child protesting “why can’t we do a business for real?”.
It was a point well made and in order to achieve their goal of creating a business, the children were divided into groups to brainstorm business ideas and pitch them to their peers for feedback.
Once this process was completed the children used a range of English and Maths strategies to devise questionnaires to collate data from the other children across the school to attempt to establish whether their business idea was viable.
On completion of this task, the students analysed the data they had gathered and concluded that their idea was of interest to the children in the school.
Momentum was now building and the next challenge was to make use of the formal letter writing strategies they had learned and to write a formal letter to the principal, Sineád Ahern, to request permission to use the school as a venue for their business idea.
As a result, Sineád timetabled meetings with some of the children to determine how establishing and operating a business could form part of the children’s learning of the Primary Curriculum. Having successfully answered the principal’s questions through the use of their English oral language skills, Ms Ahern gave an undertaking to discuss the 5th Classes business plan with the school’s Board of Management.
After consideration, the Board of Management contacted the children and gave their formal support for the business.
Since then, the students have used a range of English, Maths, SPHE, Learn Together and Art strategies to produce a range of products made from old books.
They have taken these books and transformed them into a range of ornaments such as houses, candles and hedgehogs to name but a few.
Learning
“The learning process has been a greatly beneficial for the children as it has given them the opportunity to apply a range of skills they have learned at home and in school to create something that is uniquely theirs. They have contextually experienced the challenges and rewards real life has to offer but most of all they have learned the value of working together to achieve a common goal!” said their teacher, Mr Stapleton.
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