Picture News Day
Friday 2nd July; the Picture News Education Team scurried excitedly into the office for this was no ordinary day, this was Picture News Day! Packs had been emailed, Teams links sent and presentations were at the ready. At 9.30am the day went LIVE and over 700 classrooms across the UK became connected; all learning together, sharing ideas and celebrating work.
The theme for the day was the fabulous ‘World Alternative Games’, a biennial event taking place in Llanwrytd Wells, Wales. The concept was born in 2012 to celebrate a huge year of sport (London Olympics). The World Alternative Games includes unusual, quirky events that allow everyone the opportunity to take part. Many spectators become competitors and for some, after visiting, they discover a new sport to take up!
As well as providing a range of engaging and exciting activities, linking to different areas of the curriculum, Picture News Day shared a special message, ‘We are all different. We like different things and we are good at different things. There are so many interesting and unique events at World Alternative Games, it can give people the chance to find something they enjoy and are good at that they may not have known!’
The Picture News Team were blown away by the incredible work, comments and questions shared throughout the day. Staff and children worked so hard to make it a success and we were grateful to receive so many positive messages too.
‘A huge thank you for a wonderful live event today. It was great receiving the PowerPoint but then also have the live aspect of someone explaining each of the tasks. We had a go at all of the tasks this morning. All good fun.’
‘The children were all really engaged in the day and we enjoyed it all. Very well organised and the resources were brilliant.’
The final classroom activity involved designing a World Alternative Game. It is very possible one of the fabulous ideas could feature at the Games in the future!
A live celebration closed the day, where a gallery showing some of the amazing work produced was shared. Challenges to extend the day even further by creating newspaper reports, writing to World Alternative Games and even hosting your own School Alternative Games were also suggested.
After being such a success (excluding a small snippet of audio discussing being muted when we clearly were not – ha ha!), the Picture News Team look forward to everyone joining them again for another exciting, enriching day in the future.