Barter Town is a block of work that the Year 6 children are taking part in during their Forest School sessions. First in class we set the scene for the next few weeks work. We talked about how traditional rural villages came about and how settlers provided for themselves before they had currency. This brought up some lively debate. They thought about how to best meet basic survival needs but also how to move from basic survival to a more thriving community. What skill-sets would be important and how those skills might be shared or used to barter for goods. How would you choose a location so you can have livestock and crops, then how do you protect them from the weather or potential attack. Where would they get water, gather food? Do they need defensive strategies? They made a list of the various jobs that would need doing, including; fence and weapon makers, builders, gatherers, strategists, designers, fire makers and more. They discussed what might be the best way to prioritise these tasks. Different groups prioritised differently so then had to negotiate how to keep harmony. They thought about whether a village leader was required, where and how they might live and how they should be treated, would it be a more dictatorial role or democratic, some children wanted to be marauders but would we see them ousted by the other villagers? Lots to think about and plan for but definitely there will be a need for flexibility and resilience.
Over the next few weeks they have begun to put their plans into action. It is an exercise in trial and error, how do you get the ideas in your head to become actuality, experimentation and adjustment are required. They had a rocky start, got a little distracted on the detail and on marauding. This quickly turned into frustration as they realised that nearly half way through the time they hadn’t really created anything. Too many people stealing or fixating on a certain object that they thought they needed, not enough understanding that without cohesion the villagers would never survive. They realised a regroup was needed to find out what was going wrong and what could be changed to try to become more productive. Some teams decided they definately needed some leadership, others changed their leaders. There was also some voluntary rejigging of groups as they could see certain relationships, though they may be fun are not necessarily condusive to prductivity. Listening to them try and work out how to solve the problems was very interesting. They soon realised a calmer more focused approach was needed.
We begin each session with a review about the previous week, a town meeting if you like. What went well, what issues can be worked through. This gives the children time to reflect and to ask other villagers for advice. These sessions link into the Year 6 topic of Peacekeepers. With a little guidence from the Over-lords, Miss Rowe and Mr McMann we are sure that the children will pull things around. This week saw that start of some robust shelters going up, some teams really progressing. They introduced a “holding cell” for trouble makers and started putting in some behaviour expectations for the settlement. Of course if any settlers really got out of line the rest of the village could send them to the Queen, Mrs Jennings, for final judgement.
