Session 15 - Walliston Primary School Year 5 - HASS Natural Disaster Management - Jake Bamford (Creative) and Kirsti Harris (Teacher)
Session 15
DATE - 28/08/2025
The CREATIVE PRACTITIONER is to complete this document after each session. It is a tool to use weekly with your teacher to ensure you are reflecting and documenting the process. Please ensure your weekly reflection has been completed on Google Drive prior to submitting your invoice for that session as it is part of the payment.
90-minute session in the classroom:
Warm Up (one photo)
As this session was the playtesting showcase with parents and school staff, we didn’t have time for a warmup or reflection activity. |
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Main Activity (one photo)
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First Board Game Playtesting Session, Featuring Parents and School Staff - Kirsti invited parents and wider school staff down to our session today to help the kids playtest their first board game prototypes. The kids had spent plenty of time throughout the week building their prototype games and writing up rules to use during this playtesting session. Their worksheets also had a page with a broad range of feedback questions for them to discuss with the playtesters (parents and school staff). The turnout of playtesters was better than expected, with more than 10 parents/grandparents/guardians/staff in attendance, and eagerly rotating around the room to play and provide feedback for the games. Students wrote down plenty of good ideas that spawned during the playtesting, some of which were provided by parents, and some by their fellow classmates. There were a few games that struggled, partly due to unfinished/unrefined rulebooks, or not enough time put into the designing of the game. It seemed though that the playtesting helped to reveal many flaws or successes in the games, and so I’m greatly looking forward to seeing the refined versions of the games at a later date. Some students struggled with taking on the feedback - to be expected, but this was still a good opportunity to practice this much needed skill. |
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Reflection with the students (one photo)
We had planned to run the Creative Communities reflection activity with parents for this session, but unfortunately we ran out of time. |
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After the session:
Planning with the Teacher
(refer back to your original Term Plan document, discuss successes, explore challenges and make changes.)
We had adjusted the order/schedule of this term's project to prioritise this day's collaborative playtesting. There was a degree of challenge for the students when teaching their games, but having their written rules helped keep the games on track. |
Working with students
(what is emerging, what is engaging them/not, what’s making them curious.)
Seeing their games in action and teaching them to the parents was both exciting and challenging for the students. The process tested their written rules, and their focus/attention towards explaining the important rules, or overexplaining irrelevant rules. |
Ideas moving forward
(ideas for next session, future lessons, discussed with teacher, do you need the teacher to do anything before you return.)
The students will consider all the feedback they received from the parents and implement relevant changes to their games in time for a second round of playtesting later in the term, which I'm hoping to attend. |
Resources
(do you need anything, who will source it?)
Potentially more boxes and general prototype craft materials to support the students’ redesign of their prototypes. |
How can you share learning outcomes/stories of transformation with the wider school community (e.g. Connect newsletter, staff meeting, school newsletter, school social media platforms)
We will think of additional ways to show the games to a wider audience. |
