ENG-2-Local Community, Local Discovery

English Summary
KS3 Cycle Curriculum Pack

Project two – Local Community, Local Discovery
Page 2.1
Teachers
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Local Community, Local Discovery

summary
For this project, students will write a survey to work out the
attitudes of the school community, and possibly the local
community, to transport issues.
• They will design their own survey, considering the pros and cons
English. KS3 Cycle Curriculum Pack. Version 1. January 2009
of different question styles

• They will consider the importance of changing the tone and style
of language according to the intended audience
• Using information and communication technology (ICT), they will
present their surveys to a good standard, considering the impact of
font and layout
• They will then use the data collected to write an analytical report
on the local views and habits regarding transport
This project is a great way to raise the profile of transport issues within
the school and possibly even the community. The results of the survey
can be ‘published’ in the school newsletter, on a noticeboard or in the
form of a letter to the participants in the survey. In this way the students
feel that their work has a ‘real life’ purpose, which does engage some
who might otherwise feel unmotivated.
English Teaching delivery map
Page 2.2
Teachers
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teaching delivery map
Areas within the Key Stage 3 (KS3) Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA)
scheme of work – KS3 strategy
Subject Unit summary
Writing • Form their own view, taking into account a range

of evidence and opinions
• Organise their ideas and information
• Take account of the understanding and needs
of the reader
Information and communication • Be aware of the impact and effect of font, layout
technology (ICT) and colour in printed text
• Use ICT to enhance the purpose of their writing
Areas within a School Travel Plan (STP)

Section of the STP How does the project link to the STP criteria?
Part 1 – Tell us about your school Students research the attitudes and practices within
their school.
Part 2 – What are the issues Students analyse the transport habits of their
at your school? contemporaries and summarise clearly.
Part 3 – How has everyone This project involves including staff, students and
been involved? possibly parents.
Part 4 – What exactly do you As part of the evaluation process, students will be
want the plan to achieve? expected to make recommendations.
English Teaching delivery map
Page 2.3
Teachers
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teaching delivery map
Areas within Every Child Matters (ECM)
Objective How does the project link to the ECM objective?
Be healthy Health and fitness will be an area of consideration at
the planning stage of the project.
Stay safe Safety will be a key concern.

Make a positive contribution Students will be producing a document to inform and
advise the local and school community.
Areas within Healthy Schools (HS)

Core themes In what way does the project link to the HS core theme?
Personal, Social and Health Considering the reactions of their audience allows
Education (PSHE) students to put themselves into another’s shoes.
Physical activity Hopefully, the benefits of using our bodies to travel
will be identified by student groups.
English Teaching notes and
KS3 Cycle Curriculum Pack lesson plans
Page 2.4
Teachers
only

lesson plans
Lesson 1
Transport questionnaire
This lesson is an introductory lesson, which introduces the students to the
techniques needed to write good survey questions. They prepare the rough
draft of their survey.

Lesson 2
Survey and letter
This lesson is spent perfecting the student surveys on computers. The
information sheet guides them through the lesson, which requires them to
lay out their surveys clearly with appropriate spacing, and work together to
improve their work. They will also write a letter to their audience, asking
their permission to deliver the survey and explaining its aims.
Lesson 3/4
Data collection and analysis
This lesson is spent delivering the survey to the target group. The students
will work in groups to deliver the survey, collect it in and conduct initial
analysis and data collection. As this process will vary in length according to
the circumstances, it may run over into two lessons. A flexible approach is
important to give the students time to get the most out of the experience.
Lesson 4/5
Planning your report
This lesson allows the students to prepare a formal report for the target
group, containing the results of the survey and any conclusions reached.
This is good practice as it allows the students to see their work ‘published’
in a real context. If the surveys are delivered within school, these reports
can then be used as the basis for discussion or reply by other classes,
especially within the English department.
Page 2.5
Teachers
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lesson 1 – structure
Transport questionnaire
Slide 1 – This lesson introduces the students to an unusual text type
which is not often covered by English.
Slide 2 – It is obviously crucial to ensure that the students understand the

text type and its function. It would be wonderful to have some examples
in the classroom, but if this is not possible the rest of this lesson should
clear up confusion.
Slides 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 – The main development of this lesson is to illustrate

the challenges and pitfalls of writing survey questions. A series of examples
are given, which the students are asked to evaluate for clarity. Throughout,
emphasising the purpose of the text (to gather specific information) will
be important.
Slide 8 – This is hopefully the learning outcome of the lesson so far!
Slide 9 – Here is their brief. As a short extension for a more able class,
it is worth asking who would commission a survey like this and what they
might do with the findings.
There are other more challenging concepts that could be discussed, for
example how you can be sure that your survey has been filled in in good
faith, and how many people need to respond to make it a representative
sample. To analyse further the motive for conducting a survey of this nature,
a high-ability group could be asked to consider how their questions might
change if they were part of an organisation with a travel-based agenda, for
example a car company, a global warming charity or a bus company.
Page 2.6
Teachers
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Transport questionnaire (continued)

Slide 10 – Worksheet provided. Pre-planning the groups will pay off
here – a mixed-ability group will help every group to get off to a strong
start. Encourage each member of each group to make their own full notes,

as in the next lesson each student will need to lay out the survey on
a computer.
Slide 11 – A feedback and reflection plenary. This allows the group learning
to be shared and problems aired, ready for the next lesson.
Resources:
Worksheet Transport questions
PowerPoint™ Slide presentation
English
Local
Community,
Local
Discovery...
Handouts and worksheets for photocopying
Lesson 1
English Lesson 1
KS3 Cycle Curriculum Pack Worksheet 1
Project two – Local Community, Local Discovery Page 1 of 2
Page 2.9
Name Date
Class
Transport questions
1. In the box below, decide which question you can ask to find out what
kind of transport your audience uses.
2. In the box below, decide which question you can ask to find out why
they use this kind of transport.
English Lesson 1
Page 2.10
Name Date
Class
Transport questions
they look for in their ideal transport. (Tip: You may want to give them
some options to choose from.)

problems they have with transport.
English Lesson 1
KS3 Cycle Curriculum Pack PowerPoint 1
Page 2.11
Survey conventions
English Local Community, Local Discovery Lesson 1

Survey conventions
Objective –
To identify the conventions of a survey and

use them in your own work.
Curriculum Focus on Cycling 2008 Transport for London

Survey conventions
Starter –
What is a survey?
What would we use it for?

Survey conventions
I sent this question to a group of children

in a local primary school.
What is your favourite food?

A – Soup
B – Spinach
C – Fish
D – Carrots
What might I have done better?

I gave them choices, but what if
they didn’t like any of the foods?

English Lesson 1
Page 2.12
Survey conventions

Survey conventions
Would it have been better to write

the question like this?
What is your favourite food?
Why is this better?


Survey conventions
I also wanted to find out if they liked any

of these drinks:
Milk
Coke
Water
Juice
How could I write a question that finds out

which, if any, of these drinks the pupils like?

Survey conventions
I gave them this question:
What is your favourite drink?
These are the replies I got:

1 pupil said tea
7 pupils said lemonade
3 pupils said milkshake
2 pupils said coke
4 pupils said juice
How could I have made the pupils talk only
about milk, coke, water and juice?

English Lesson 1
Page 2.13
Survey conventions

Survey conventions
Would it have been better to write the

question like this?
Which of these drinks do you like? Please tick.

A – Milk
B – Coke
C – Juice
D – Water
E – Other (Please name)
What is better about this method?

Survey conventions
When you are writing a survey,

you have to be really clear about
what you want your audience
to tell you.
Otherwise you may end up with
useless information!

Survey conventions
We are now going to write a survey of

our own.
The survey is to find out about how

people travel. You must try to find out
the following things:
– What kind of transport they use
– Why they use it
– What they look for in the ideal form
of transport
– What problems they have with transport

English Lesson 1
Page 2.14
Survey conventions

Survey conventions
You will now be put into groups.
In your groups, fill in your worksheet with

questions that would make your audience
give you the information you need.


Survey conventions
Plenary –
Share some of your questions with the class.
What problems have you had when writing

these questions?
Try them out on each other. Can you make

any improvements?

Page 2.15
Teachers
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Survey and letter

This lesson is clearly structured on the worksheet, allowing
a teacher the freedom to assist the members of the group.
It is important that the students do not merely type out the
surveys with no thought. Here the use of ICT is essential in

making the surveys as clear as possible, and therefore is not
just a ‘prettying-up’ exercise but an important part of making
their work appropriate for its purpose and audience.
Try to discourage the use of ICT for purely decorative purposes (for example,
bright fonts and swirly backgrounds). An important cross-curricular ICT
objective is to encourage students to use ICT only in a way that is directly
linked to the purpose of the text.
After they have typed out their surveys, the worksheet directs them to
ask a peer to check their work. This stage is important so that potential
ambiguity in phrasing or layout can be identified. Encourage the students
to be constructively critical of each other’s work. It is equally as useless
to be thoughtlessly positive as it is to be thoughtlessly negative.
Page 2.16
Teachers
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Survey and letter (continued)

Logistics – Important
• Each member of each group must have identical questions on their
survey – otherwise analysis is impossible

• Each letter needs to be printed out so that the target audience can
be briefed before the survey
• Each group needs to have a printed-out version of each individual’s
survey. Depending on the size of the target audience, you may then
need to photocopy duplicates of each survey
• It is obviously easier to arrange the target group within the school, which
allows the issues to be discussed around the school. You may wish to
venture out into the community, but remember to get all necessary
health and safety clearance, plus permission from parents and carers
if you are taking students off-site
• Suggested target groups –
1. Tutor groups from other years
2. Teachers and staff members from your own school
3. Pupils from a local primary school
4. A local office, shop or street
5. The students’ own families
Resources:
Worksheet Transport questions (completed in Lesson 1)
Worksheet Your survey
PowerPoint Slide presentation
English
Local
Community,
Local
Discovery...
Lesson 2
English Lesson 2
Page 2.19
Name Date
Class
Your survey
In this lesson you need to produce two things:

• A survey
• A letter
Producing your survey

Type out your survey, using the ideas you wrote down last lesson.
Take the following things into account:
1. Use a clear title that makes it clear what your survey is for
2. Choose a clear, large font that can be easily read
3. Leave enough space around each question so that people do not
get confused
4. Leave space for the audience to reply to your questions – perhaps
insert lines or boxes where you want them to write
5. Spell everything correctly!
6. Read through your questions and make sure you will get the answers
you want
7. Thank your audience at the end for completing your survey
When you have finished, ask a classmate to read it and check that your
questions are clear and make sense.
Producing your letter

This letter is to ask your audience if they mind doing your survey. It needs
to explain what you want to find out. It also needs to be clear, concise and
polite – after all, your audience are doing you a favour!
Use the following sentence-starters to help you if you are stuck.
Dear
I am writing to request your help. I am researching
I would be grateful if you could
I am hoping to find out
Thank you in advance for your help.
Yours sincerely,
Page 2.21
Teachers
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Data collection and analysis

There are two parts to this lesson. As timings depend hugely
on the location and age of the target group, it may well be
that this lesson runs over two sessions.
Ideally, the students should go to their target group and hand out the
letters they have prepared, along with their surveys. It is a nice experience
for them to see their surveys being filled in. If this is not possible, the
teacher should try to have all the surveys ready for the class to analyse
at the start of the lesson.
When everyone is back in the classroom with the piles of surveys, there
is a PowerPoint presentation provided to help guide the students in their
analysis of their newly collected data.
Page 2.22
Teachers
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Data collection and analysis (continued)

Slide 1, 2 – The students are to be provided with some techniques to help
them get to grips with the information they have collected. For higher-
ability groups, it is worth asking if they have any ideas of their own about

how information could be extracted.
Slide 3 – This technique should be fairly easy to grasp, as many will have
already become familiar with tally charts in other subjects. Some students
will need support at first.
Slide 4 – This is slightly more challenging. Give the students a moment to

try to summarise the sentences themselves before providing them with
the suggestion. This is an excellent reading skill to encourage.
Slide 5 – A sneaky way to get students to focus in on the essential part of

a sentence and not copy out the whole thing!
Slide 6 – This task will be challenging for many students. It demands

organisation and clear thinking. Let the students try to work it out for
themselves before you assist too much. If a group develops an effective
strategy (for example, taking roles of readers, leaders, recorders, etc) ask
them to share their method with the class. This is an excellent independent
learning task. If groups are becoming frustrated and distracted, intervene,
show them a method to help and then withdraw again. It will often be
something as simple as mixing up their surveys and forgetting which ones
they’ve already covered!
Slide 7 – Allow a discussion of the findings so far. It is far more meaningful

for them to discuss these issues now they have researched the matter
themselves.
Resources:
Copies Letters and surveys
English
Local
Community,
Local
Discovery...
Lesson 3
English Lesson 3
Page 2.25
Analysing our surveys

Objective –
To start analysing our surveys.


At the moment you have a pile of surveys –

it is difficult to analyse what they all say at once.
For each question on your survey, choose one

of the following ways to analyse the answers.

Technique 1 – Tally chart

Step 1 – Write out all the different responses.
Step 2 – Make a tick for every time someone says it.
Step 3 – Add up all the scores.
Step 4 – Now you know which is the most popular answer!
Question – Which of these drinks do you like best?

Drink Tally Total
Coke 4
Milk 2
Water 3
Juice 7

English Lesson 3
Page 2.26

Technique 2 – Summarising points

Step 1 – Read each response to a particular question.
Step 2 – Sum up the answer in one or two words.
Step 3 – See if there are any patterns developing.
Step 4 – Make a tally chart to help you see the most
popular answers.
For example: What is the worst thing about school dinners?

Answer – They never have what I want, and there are only
a couple of different meals, which are both yucky.
Sum up – No choice.
Answer – I have to wait for ages because there are so many
people there and the bigger kids might push in, so I’m really
hungry by the time I get my lunch.
Sum up – Queuing times.

Technique 3 – Quoting
Step 1 – Read through the responses.
Step 2 – Jot down interesting words or phrases.
Step 3 – Now you have a list of opinions that are quicker
and easier to read.
I would use a bicycle but my mum says bikes are too
dangerous on the road.
I like walking to school because exercise helps me wake up.
Quotes from survey
bikes are too dangerous on the road
exercise helps me wake up

In your groups, start to gather the

information from your surveys,
using the techniques to help you.

English Lesson 3
Page 2.27

Plenary –
Have any of your findings so far

surprised you?
Which form of transport seems to be
the most popular?

Page 2.29
Teachers
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lesson 4/5 – structure
Planning your report

Slide 1 – The learning focus here is to write clearly and formally.
Slide 2 – Make sure that the students understand what a report is –

an objective report on the facts, not a persuasive piece.
Slide 3 – The brief.
Slide 4 – Many of the students will find this a daunting task. There is a plan
here to help them, plus a list of sentence starters and prompts. Individual
students or classes may need more or less support than this. A worksheet
is provided to help them write their rough draft if necessary.
Publishing the work

It is seen as increasingly important that students write for a real audience,
and not just in the unreal context of a classroom.
It would be wonderful if the students were able to really send these reports
to the target group. If this is another class in the school, it might be a good
idea to get them to write a reply.
Selected reports could be printed in a school newsletter or put up on a
wall display. A group of students could present their reports at a school
assembly, or in their tutor groups.
It would be excellent if the reports could be presented to the head teacher,
or the member of the senior team responsible for the School Travel Plan
(STP). This raises the profile of the students’ achievement in the school,
and should make them feel suitably pleased with themselves!
Resources:
Worksheet Planning your report
English
Local
Community,
Local
Discovery...
Lesson 4/5
English Lesson 4
Page 2.33
Name Date
Class
Plan for your report
Introduction – Explain what your survey was about and what you wanted
to find out.
Paragraph 2 – Explain what kind of transport seemed to be the most

popular. Suggest a reason why this may be. You could use a quote here
from one of the surveys to back up your point.
Paragraph 3 – Explain what people thought their ideal form of transport was.
English Lesson 4
Page 2.34
Name Date
Class
Plan for your report
Paragraph 4 – Explain the problems people said they had with transport.

Conclusion – Sum up what you found out from your survey. Make some
suggestions about how some of the problems could be solved.
English Lesson 4
Page 2.35
Writing clear, informative text

Objective –
To write a clear information text.


What is a report?
A report:
– Just gives the facts
– Is a formal piece of writing – no slang
– Has an introduction and a conclusion

You are going to write a report to give to the

people who filled in your survey.
It will tell them what the majority of people who

filled in the survey thought.
It will finish with some conclusions about how

the people who filled in your survey travel.

English Lesson 4
Page 2.36

Plan
Introduction – Explain what your survey was about and
what you wanted to find out.
Paragraph 2 – Explain what kind of transport seemed to
be the most popular. Suggest a reason why this may be.
You could use a quote here from one of the surveys to
back up your point.
Paragraph 3 – Explain what people thought their ideal form

of transport was.
Paragraph 4 – Explain the problems people said they had
with transport.
Conclusion – Sum up what you found out from your survey.
Make some suggestions about how some of the problems
could be solved.

Useful words and phrases –

I recently carried out a survey on…
One person wrote…
When asked about their ideal form of transport…
I was hoping to find out…
Many of the people I surveyed thought…
I think that…
It was interesting that…
However, not all agreed…
The reason for this may be...
Perhaps a solution could be…

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English Summary

KS3 Cycle Curriculum Pack

Local Community, Local Discovery

of different question styles

Local Community, Local Discovery

English. KS3 Cycle Curriculum Pack. Version 1. January 2009

Areas within a School Travel Plan (STP)

Local Community, Local Discovery

Stay safe Safety will be a key concern.

Areas within Healthy Schools (HS)

Local Community, Local Discovery

English. KS3 Cycle Curriculum Pack. Version 1. January 2009

Local Community, Local Discovery

Slide 2 – It is obviously crucial to ensure that the students understand the

Slides 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 – The main development of this lesson is to illustrate

Slide 8 – This is hopefully the learning outcome of the lesson so far!

Local Community, Local Discovery

Transport questionnaire (continued)

English. KS3 Cycle Curriculum Pack. Version 1. January 2009

English. KS3 Cycle Curriculum Pack. Version 1. January 2009

English Local Community, Local Discovery Lesson 1

To identify the conventions of a survey and

Curriculum Focus on Cycling 2008 Transport for London

English Local Community, Local Discovery Lesson 1

Curriculum Focus on Cycling 2008 Transport for London

English Local Community, Local Discovery Lesson 1

I sent this question to a group of children

What is your favourite food?

What might I have done better?

Curriculum Focus on Cycling 2008 Transport for London

English Local Community, Local Discovery Lesson 1

Would it have been better to write

What is your favourite food?

Why is this better?

English. KS3 Cycle Curriculum Pack. Version 1. January 2009

English Local Community, Local Discovery Lesson 1

I also wanted to find out if they liked any

How could I write a question that finds out

Curriculum Focus on Cycling 2008 Transport for London

English Local Community, Local Discovery Lesson 1

I gave them this question:

What is your favourite drink?

These are the replies I got:

Curriculum Focus on Cycling 2008 Transport for London

English Local Community, Local Discovery Lesson 1

Would it have been better to write the

Which of these drinks do you like? Please tick.

What is better about this method?

Curriculum Focus on Cycling 2008 Transport for London

English Local Community, Local Discovery Lesson 1

When you are writing a survey,

Curriculum Focus on Cycling 2008 Transport for London

English Local Community, Local Discovery Lesson 1

We are now going to write a survey of

The survey is to find out about how

Curriculum Focus on Cycling 2008 Transport for London

English Local Community, Local Discovery Lesson 1

You will now be put into groups.

In your groups, fill in your worksheet with

English. KS3 Cycle Curriculum Pack. Version 1. January 2009

English Local Community, Local Discovery Lesson 1

Share some of your questions with the class.

What problems have you had when writing