Riverview Infant School in Gravesend Kent uses Discovery Education Espresso to engage and inspire younger learners. James Bernard, Year 1 Class Teacher, explains how.
SUPPORTING THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM
We’ve used Discovery Education Espresso for over five years. We were looking for a digital learning service which would support our teaching of the National Curriculum. We wanted something different which would fulfil curriculum requirements in a way that was engaging for children.
We use Espresso across every year group, in every subject. The video clips and games are great for starters or plenaries. It is good to know there will always be an activity, a game or a song linked to the area you are teaching.
PHONICS AND GRAMMAR RESOURCES
We use Espresso’s video clips, games and activities to support our teaching of Phonics, helping children to develop early reading and writing skills. The children love the animated Phonics characters! In Year 1 we use the resources daily as plenaries to our lessons and children enjoy the games and interactive elements which assess their knowledge. Our Year 2 pupils have been using the grammar videos recently to help them prepare for SATs.
MEMORABLE MATHS
In numeracy we use the animated Number Crew Clips to help younger children with counting. We also use Espresso resources to support independent learning in maths, with children completing activities on individual Chromebooks.
EXTEND LEARNING BEYOND THE CLASSROOM
As well as supporting core subjects, Espresso links well to our topics. Foundation Stage teachers recently used the videos as part of their ‘Animals’ topic. There are some good clips showing how different animals move on land, in water and in the air. We also use Espresso to teach about the news. We watch Espresso News Bites every week, sometimes as part of an assembly. The news section is useful, interesting and the children really enjoy it. The video clips are the right length for our infant children and are engaging and informative.
ENGAGING INTERACTIVE CONTENT
Espresso makes subjects more engaging and appealing for children. The resources are very child friendly and are the perfect length to engage children at Foundation Stage. Our pupils love the animated characters. They especially enjoy the musical story videos which we use at story time. Anansi the Spider and The King With Big Ears are favourites!
We find that Espresso has a wide range of resources for every subject. It has supported our teaching for over 5 years and is often used daily in every class. We intend to keep it for our pupils!
