… But you can download copies from here. Sorry for the terrible pun.
Again we’ve been amazed by the response. We had so many orders within the first week that since then we’ve restricted it to one copy per teacher. But really, you only need one copy to run the activity with a class, so no-one should be too inconvenienced. You may want to laminate the cards for durability in teenage hands.
Thanks to everyone who’s ordered one. And all who’ve given us fantastic feedback on them. It does give me a warm glow to know that so many teachers and colleagues in the field see what we are trying to do with them, and think they really work!
A quick note on how this kit differs from the last one
Teachers gave us some great feedback on the first kit (thanks everyone!), but when we asked if there was anything they didn’t like they raised the following issues:-
Some felt the cards could be a little more durable
We have therefore printed this second set on heavier stock. There’s a limit to what we can do within the budget though, so I would recommend laminating the cards if you are concerned about this.
Most liked the design but some suggested they should be more colourful
We have jazzed up the design of the cards slightly but not made too many changes.
A couple of teachers suggested the cartoons were a bit young for the intended age group and suggested more sophisticated ones or photos
For various reasons we decided not to go with photos, however, we have gone for more ‘adult’ looking cartoons for the characters. (Not adult in the X rated sense…)
One teacher pointed out that characters might raise personal issues for some students (i.e. one character was a cancer patient), or for younger students (the teacher reported that her year 8 students were embarrassed by having to play a lesbian couple), and that flagging these possibilities to teachers would be helpful.
We recognise that this was an oversight on our part, as busy teachers may not read all the cards before the activity and spot potential issues. With the cancer patient clearly hearing about this character might upset some students due to their personal circumstances. There may be occasions when teachers feel it is appropriate to miss out this character. If you also miss out one of the ‘for’ characters too this should not affect the overall activity.
Student awkwardness, on the other hand, isn’t a reason to avoid topics, but it may need to be recognised and perhaps addressed. We have made sure with this kit that we have flagged potential issues of any sort to teachers with a ‘guidance note’ so that they can be aware.
We think teachers themselves will be the best people to judge what their class (or individual students) might find difficult and how to handle that. Therefore we haven’t tried to tell teachers what they should do. But we will definitely in future flag all potential difficulties so they can be prepared.
A couple of teachers asked for more background info and perhaps definitions of terms used
We have expanded the background info for teachers, and divided this section up more clearly. However, we haven’t gone overboard – part of the point of the format is that a lot of information about the topic comes out during the course of the debate, from different characters played by students and not from the teacher.
We believe this makes it easier for students to assimilate as they go along and changes the classroom dynamic. As one teacher said about the IVF kit, “It made such a difference that we were finding things out together. And far more memorable for the kids.”
Some teachers felt the language used was too advanced
We’ve considered this, however, far more teachers said they thought it was pitched at just the right level. It’s not possible to write resources that will work for every age group and ability level. Sorry. Each character card has only approximately 100 words of text, if one or two of these are difficult then hopefully this can be an opportunity to expand the students’ vocabulary.
And finally…
I hope this is useful to you all. I will put more analysis of the teacher feedback up on the site later this month. I hope you all enjoy using the kits and they get your students talking as much as the first ones did.
