Queen Elizabeth High School, Northumberland

 JANUARY 2010

Hi, we are C.A.N.S.E.E. (Charlie.Alex.Nathan.Sarah.Emma.Eleanor.) We put this name together by taking the first initial of each of our first names and seeing what word/s we could make out of it. We got to know each other and play a few name games, then we discussed what we would be doing and got started.

The first activity we did was the treasure hunt through town. We talked about the main walking routes taken to school by students and then planned a walk that we would go on to find what we needed. Once we had set off we took out the camera and began to take pictures of certain sights that could be changed to make walking to and from school easiler and more pleasant.

We took photos of dog faeces, damaged pavements and roads, broken bins, cars parked in bus stops, graffiti, litter of different varieties, over flowing bins, badly sequenced traffic lights, broken/not working lights and more. The treasure hunt went very well and althougth we were working hard we still hard loads of fun and chats.

Once we were back, our images got printed off and we sorted them into differwent catergories. For example, graffiti, litter, people, information, damage... We debated different catergories that the different pictures could go into and decided what the main problems were. As well as pictures, we also used our own knowledge of the students and school routes to come up with problems and ways to improve them.  

We had a very useful map of Hexham which we drew on to show the positive and negative points of Hexham, after drawing on the map we wrote down on a chart where that certain thing was stationed and what the problem was

 For the presentation, guided walk and poster we divided the six of us so that we could do three things at once and so that it wouldn't get too crowded around one task. Two people worked on the presentation, two on the guided walk, one on the poster and one for the presentation talks.

We all agreed that this was a very good idea and would help progress.

Presentation: We made this by putting groups of images on the presentation and improvising on the speech side of it. We had a set of different slides pointing out different problems and safety issues that occur in Hexham. We didn't focus on the look of the presentation, we focused on the content and the information that we could add.

Guided Walk: By using the treasure hunt route that we walked on earlier, we could decide which places would be a good show 'n' tell location with a lot of variety of negative points that we wanted to show. We had an hour to do the presentation and the walk so we had the time keeping to be aware of. We typed up some information cards so that we could read them out at the places chosen. We provided maps of our route to give to the guests to keep track of the time and area of hexham which was in fact the main route to walk to school.

Decisions were a key factor in the Walk 'n' Talk process, they were made throughout the duration of the task, individually and as a group. One decision was the order that we would do the Walk 'n' Talk.

We came to a group decision that we would do the introduction and the presentation first because the guests would have come with a focused mind and wanting information. We thought that after they had sat in a conference room for a while they would want some fresh air which was the reason for doing the walk after the talk. Finally there was the delicious food and drink which we had after the walk before ending the Walk 'n' Talk.

 Media coverage of the Walk 'n' Talk event

watch this space for more QEHS activities!