Poss Stick project

In this cross-curriculum project students from Priory Woods School, Middlesbrough worked with Preston Park Museum’s Learning Officer and author/illustrator Holly Sterling to use just one object as a focus for creative learning.

Find out all about the project in this film: how two weeks’ English lessons turned into weeks of work in many different subject areas from creating characters to Technology and Enterprise.

Teacher Maisie Johnson explains how the project worked and the huge amount of purposeful learning that students got from exploring the poss stick and soap. Priory Woods even made their own poss stick so they could do some washing the old-fashioned way. Maisie also reflects on how working with an object and an author has inspired how she might teach in future.

Meet Learning Officer Joanne Rowcliffe from Preston Park Museum and Grounds who talks you through what a Literacy Loan is. Whether you teach in mainstream or Special provision, Key Stage 1, 2, 3 or 4, the ultra-flexible format is the same. Each Literacy Loan is planned to fit your needs and circumstances to maximise the impact on students’ learning and develop their enthusiasm for writing.

Take a look at these lovely photos to get a real feel for how the project worked.

The school borrowed a ‘poss stick’ from Preston Park Museum. A poss stick or posser was used for ‘possing’ laundry – either pumping it up and down in a dolly tub or mixing laundry round when it was being washed by hand.

Along with the poss stick, the school borrowed a large block of carbolic soap. Carbolic was invented in Victorian times and is slightly antiseptic, although it can also irritate skin too, so student needed to be careful when handling it.

As the poss stick was an historical object, students could handle it carefully but not use it in water. The school made their own version of a posser so that students could explore how it worked.

To really get students thinking about the poss stick and how it was used, they met Jo Rowcliffe – one of our Education Officers. She led an online session in which she posed lots of interesting questions and students had to think hard about what they could see, feel and smell.

Usually all our sessions are online but for this project, the first writer session was in school. Students met Holly, the author and Jo from Preston Park in person.

Holly shared stories about her family as well as all the books she has illustrated and written.

Students liked her books about emotions, but the ballet and karate ones were especially popular.

Holly worked with the students on developing characters in her two online sessions. Their teacher was amazed at the wonderful characters they created.

When they weren’t busy writing, students got to have a go at some good old-fashioned washing with their replica poss stick.

They even grated their own soap.

By this time it was getting close to the Christmas Fayre and Ms Johnson cleverly realised that she could use the students new-found skills with soap in their Enterprise lessons.

Students designed and made their own soap, with different perfumes and colours.

Then they sold the end result at the Christmas Fayre. Perfect!