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Hello all,

Not really sure which part of the forum to pose this question.

I currently work in a secondary school (highschool to our colonial friends) and have been asked to look into the possiblility of constructing a new addition to the curriculum based upon the hobby of war gaming.
We currently have a smallish cohort of about 10 - 20 year 9 pupils who will not be accesing what would be called mainstream qualifications and are instead having a program ov vocatianal and evidence based assesment put together.

Several of these youngsters are already a part of my afterschool club and all have an interest in war gaming and modeling. My boss feels that with the correct frame work, lessons using the wargaming hobby could be made effective and be a way to keep these kids engaged in there learning.

now obviously we have a fair amount of maths, problem solving, art and design, team work and social skill that can be developed around the game.

I was wondering if there are any other gamers out there who work in the teaching profession who may have already tried a project like this or who might have advice on setting lessons/ actiivities.

Hope i can get this of the ground , mostly to help these kids leave education with usefull qulaifications and secretly because it'll let me play games at work and get paid for doing it!

Look forward to any replies or advice you may have to offer.
Thanks,
Steve

I've never seen wargaming used in this way, though I can see potential.

Perhaps use Mathshammer to get the kids to work out the best units for killing various targets?

I don't know what the Art GCSE/equivalent involves (I didn't take it and it was also a long time since I was going my GCSE's ), but you could look into seeing if you can do something wargaming related (looking at how artwork has developed, how models have changed, making a diorama, etc).

You could also perhaps use some business skills in looking at how products are made/shipped/costed and how online discount stores afford to stay open etc? Could also look at products that fail.

Can also look at creating various gantt charts etc to organize playing and painting time?

Hope you manage to put something together anyway.

sweet idea really if all teachers would rock like you i would almost like to go to shcool

i hope you will get somewhere with you splendid idea..

Welcome to dakka mate.

Some great ideas here. I know we have some other teachers here on Dakka, and I'm pretty sure I've read about something like this before.

I'd recommend starting a clearly-titled thread about it in the Dakka Discussions forum; you'll get more responses there than here.

Welcome to Dakka, BTW!

Be sure to read the Forum Rules and check out the Gallery for inspiration!

And don’t hesitate to send a Private Message to myself or any of the moderators whom you see logged on if you have any questions or problems.

Hello and welcome to Dakka!

That sounds cool! I really hope this idea of yours takes off. Also, welcome to Dakka!

Welcome! I wish I could have played wargames in school. You may even want to consider contacting GW with your idea...they may get behind it for the potential publicity.

Greetings!
Enjoy your stay on Dakka!

Hi,

Welcome to Dakka

I used to teach many moons ago & our school used to run a after school club & holiday club (half terms & summer hols).

Our head asked us the same thing, in theory it is a great idea but the kids will soon get bored as the problem solving becomes to difficult. We noticed attendance dropping so we went to standard gaming & the drawing board.
The plan we came up with was to keep the gaming element as fun as it should be. We made the range tables slightly more difficult, but not to the point where the kids would get confused to easily. We used the modelling side as the learning curve. This involved scratch building projects which used the following, tech drawing, maths, historical research & artistic skills for the final details.

We found by keeping the interest in the game the pupils were willing to put more into the building projects, which also gave them a huge sense of pride once the board was set up with 'their' buildings & 'their' vehicles on show.

I remember in the staff room one day a English teacher commented on one of her pupils had read out loud, something he had never done with ease before. When asked 'why' all the sudden he could stand & read so well he replied, "because of all the research I have to do for the war games club & I read the details of the subject matter to my dad who is interested in what I'm doing". Bonus! He went on to be a engineer & as far as I know still is.

Four of the ladz & one girl ( all grown up now) still game & once a year we get together & do a all dayer along with a load of other gamers.

I hope this is use to you.

Good luck with your project

I'm fairly sure statistics could be incorporated easily.

Hello, welcome to dakka!You defo should look into 'Mathhammer' statistic/probabailities is something kids (me included) have/had alot of difficulty learning. Wargaming also encourages some assertiveness and problem solving as you often have to make bold choices and cordially work out disputes. Also you can have the group organise their own campaigns, with you acting as game master.

The hobby side has ALOT to give; using the various tools and assembly techniques, priming, Artistic techniques such as highlighting, Varnishing, the encouragement of individualism in colour scheme, setting targets/deadlines, terrain building. Finally budgeting because Games Workshop Aint cheap! Obviously Most importantly it's great fun!

Sorry it's taken a while to get back to folks.
Thanks for all the comments and ideas, it's certainly got me thinking.

I agree with blakboar, lastthing i want to do is kill the fun aspect of the game by overloading them.

Looks like the project is getting green lighted so I'll keep folks posted.

Thanks again
Steve

Best of luck. Look forward to your next post.

Hi and welcome to dakka dakka sounds like a sweet idea you got there hope it turns out alright

Welcome to dakka!

Welcome to Dakka!

welcome

Welcome to dakka.
I was a member of an afterhours gaming club at school (primarily weekend, but it was boarding school)
Never thought to use it as part of the curriculum.