Shared Education Project with Newcastle Primary School

At St Joseph’s Primary School, we are proud to continue our long standing Shared Education partnership with Newcastle Primary School. Shared Education enables pupils from different school communities to learn together, build friendships, and develop respect and understanding. It provides opportunities for children to collaborate on meaningful learning experiences while celebrating each school’s unique strengths.

We have been delighted to work alongside Newcastle Primary School for many years, and this term, Mrs. Connor’s class from St Joseph’s and Mrs. Stewart’s class from Newcastle Primary School have begun an exciting new Shared Education project.

Focus for This Term: Animation and World War II

After a joint planning day, both classes decided to focus on Animation using Just2Easy (J2E), linking the digital skills work to their World Around Us topic on World War II. The project aims to combine creativity, technology, and historical understanding in a way that engages and excites the pupils.

First Shared Session – Hosted at St Joseph’s

During the first visit, pupils from both schools gathered at St Joseph’s for a day of learning and collaboration. To set the scene for their animation work, the children watched a Newsdesk video featuring a short film about children during the war who had to leave their homes and move to the countryside as evacuees.

After watching the film, the pupils took part in a thoughtful discussion about what it might have felt like to be evacuated—leaving home, saying goodbye to family, and travelling to an unfamiliar place. This discussion helped deepen their understanding of the emotions and experiences of children during WWII.

Storyboarding Their Animation

The classes then mixed together, forming new groups made up of pupils from both schools. Each group worked collaboratively to create a story board showing the journey of an evacuee leaving home and travelling to the countryside. The children sketched scenes, added captions, and planned out the sequence of their animation story.

This activity allowed pupils to:

• Build teamwork skills
• Develop empathy and historical understanding
• Plan creatively
• Prepare for the next stage of their animation project using J2E

The children thoroughly enjoyed working together, sharing ideas, and beginning the early stages of their animation. We are very excited to see how their projects develop over the coming weeks.