Model boats

Nottingham Girls' High School (Junior Department)

Year 4 pupils (eight to nine years old) at Nottingham Girls' High School (Junior Department) were set the homework challenge of designing and making a sailing ship of the type that would have been in use during the 1800s.

The children constructed their models from found materials, refining and improving their designs in the process. The individuality of the boats reflects the amount of creative freedom and ownership they were afforded. Pupils were also asked to write instructions on how to make their ship. For these to be effective, they had to provide sufficiently detailed and precise description of the processes involved.

This task was part of a half-termly project which took both 'The Fighting Temeraire' and Michael Morpurgo's novel 'The Wreck of the Zanzibar' as its central stimuli for learning across the curriculum. So inspired were some of the families involved in the project that they made a special trip to the National Gallery during half-term to view the original painting.