19 May 2009  

In the video we see a group of student teachers from the University of Northampton teaching THRASS at Oxley Park Primary School, Milton Keynes, England, which is a centre of excellence for the teaching of THRASS.   

The school has close links with the University and the THRASS project team often works with students during their placement at the school. For the students in the video it is only their third session of experiencing THRASS but they are doing incredibly well. 

The first students we see are working on Picture Location with the children in the reception class. They explain that they have decided to pick a trip to the THRASS zoo as their theme and to use the animals on the Picturechart; they have then organised their other activities around this theme. The visit starts with the children using their THRASS Picturecharts and they are really keen to tell us what animals can be found at the zoo. They then switch to the SING-A-LONG interactive book and sing about zebras and lions in ‘I had a teacher’ before going outside to look for model animals. When they return to the classroom, they are able to locate the animals on the Picturechart really quickly.

Other students working with another group of children have chosen a pirate theme and take the children out to hunt for treasure in the form of pictures of things that they can find on their Picturecharts.  They then play a treasure game in which they are shown various items of treasure that they have to locate on their Picturecharts.  

One of the students, who admits to being a poor speller herself, tells us what a good way she thinks THRASS is to help children spell.