Wargaming in schools
Donation protected
Following a number of requests we've started a Go Fund Me page for our school wargaming and history club.
We provide education and support for pupils and families who have been let down by the mainstream education system. Pupils who can show great difficulties in behaviour and in socialisation who come from some of the most deprived areas in our community.
Although we provide the key subjects (Maths, English, ICT) as part of our curriculum we are limited by the needs of the children in how we can get them to access wider subject areas.
One of the ways in we have found is through engaging a number of our pupils in tabletop wargaming. We have been able to link this to areas of the curriculum based around AQA unit awards in history as well as the maths and literacy skills needed to play and the important social aspects of wargaming. as a result we have found we can ensure our students will be leaving us with certification in a variety of fields of history including WW1 and 2, dark ages, ECW, ancients (romans and greeks mainly) and medieval Europe.
Through using wargames (up to now Flames of War) we have been able to give our pupils hands on experience with representations of the peoples of the time and then built in educational presentation and involvement (which the handful of rules and sourcebooks I own has been really useful) as we play through the games. This has been especially useful in modules covering WW2, and we are due to be looking at modules on Roman and medieval warfare and conflicts in Europe (Napoleonic) as well as continuing the WW2 sessions as some of the pupils have requested we look at Bolt Action.
Unfortunately at the moment the number of pupils we can involve in the sessions at any one time is limited by my own collection as the pupils do not own anything of their own barring some Flames of War that was kindly donated by Battlefront, so I struggle to get more than two pupils involved at any one time which then has an impact on the engagement as we are limited to one session a week.
Because nothing ever happens unless you take the chance and ask, I thought I'd approach the community on behalf on of the school and our pupils as I've found the gaming community will often rally around projects like this, especially when it comes to working with children who we support.
We are seeing measurable improvement in the academic and social skills and behaviours of our pupils as a result of the limited gaming they’ve been able to take part in with improved relationships between their peers and a reduction in any negative incidents in free time as the children focus their attention on the game and stay later after school reducing the incidence of concerns in the community.
I appreciate you having taken the time to read over this post and fully understand if this is not something you can support, at the very least hopefully it’s a positive story for how wargames and our hobby is making a difference with our young people.
We provide education and support for pupils and families who have been let down by the mainstream education system. Pupils who can show great difficulties in behaviour and in socialisation who come from some of the most deprived areas in our community.
Although we provide the key subjects (Maths, English, ICT) as part of our curriculum we are limited by the needs of the children in how we can get them to access wider subject areas.
One of the ways in we have found is through engaging a number of our pupils in tabletop wargaming. We have been able to link this to areas of the curriculum based around AQA unit awards in history as well as the maths and literacy skills needed to play and the important social aspects of wargaming. as a result we have found we can ensure our students will be leaving us with certification in a variety of fields of history including WW1 and 2, dark ages, ECW, ancients (romans and greeks mainly) and medieval Europe.
Through using wargames (up to now Flames of War) we have been able to give our pupils hands on experience with representations of the peoples of the time and then built in educational presentation and involvement (which the handful of rules and sourcebooks I own has been really useful) as we play through the games. This has been especially useful in modules covering WW2, and we are due to be looking at modules on Roman and medieval warfare and conflicts in Europe (Napoleonic) as well as continuing the WW2 sessions as some of the pupils have requested we look at Bolt Action.
Unfortunately at the moment the number of pupils we can involve in the sessions at any one time is limited by my own collection as the pupils do not own anything of their own barring some Flames of War that was kindly donated by Battlefront, so I struggle to get more than two pupils involved at any one time which then has an impact on the engagement as we are limited to one session a week.
Because nothing ever happens unless you take the chance and ask, I thought I'd approach the community on behalf on of the school and our pupils as I've found the gaming community will often rally around projects like this, especially when it comes to working with children who we support.
We are seeing measurable improvement in the academic and social skills and behaviours of our pupils as a result of the limited gaming they’ve been able to take part in with improved relationships between their peers and a reduction in any negative incidents in free time as the children focus their attention on the game and stay later after school reducing the incidence of concerns in the community.
I appreciate you having taken the time to read over this post and fully understand if this is not something you can support, at the very least hopefully it’s a positive story for how wargames and our hobby is making a difference with our young people.
Organizer
Paul Sutcliffe
Organizer
