Pendraken forces invade the classroom !

[Sunray]

Some of you may have noticed the remarkable thread by Blaker in the 20th Century forum.  He reports that he has middle school kids using BKC rules and painting/basingand playing wargames in the classroom.

I have opened this thread as I firmly believe that this development needs to be explained, explored and ...if possible replicated.

Blaker, the forum is yours.

Sunray QRT and standing by.

[Luddite]

Link to Blaker's thread in question would help?

I can't seem to find the one you're referring to.   

[Techno]

Link to Blaker's thread in question would help?
I can't seem to find the one you're referring to.   

I can't find it either.....But that doesn't surprise me, knowing my awesome lack of skill in finding things anywhere.
Cheers - Phil.

[ronan]

Link to Blaker's thread in question would help?

I can't seem to find the one you're referring to.   

this one :
http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,6370.msg62957.html

[sdennan]

To my shame my year 10 students playtested FOW in my classroom. Our saving grace is we got rid of the medic rule.

[rexhurley]

To my shame my year 10 students playtested FOW in my classroom. Our saving grace is we got rid of the medic rule.

Err what medic rule sure you havent got yourself confused with Bolt Action?

[Hertsblue]

There's a medic rule in the Vietnam addendum to FOW.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Think this was pre first edition?

[rexhurley]

Think this was pre first edition?

Nah it'll be vietnam which I havent played, I was involved with pre first edition beta work and was never there

[sdennan]

This was pre first edition.

I got offered to be on the back cover looking Dad like but lost the job to a model.

[Nosher]

I had a brief discussion with Blaker about this by email when it was first discussed - very inspirational stuff which relied very heavily on a lot of tender negotiations with the 'powers that be' to get in embedded within the children's learning.

I definately think there is a model there worth replicating and in the current climate (and with some clever marketing linking the learning outcomes to todays curriculum) it could very well be a niche market.

I remember from my own experiences of working with young people that there used to be a number of games clubs in schools in Suffolk. They were not allowed to be called 'war'games and with all but one exception they were all Warhammer or WH40k clubs purely because the young people didn't get any exposure to historical games. They were all after school clubs too - so depended upon a teacher giving up their own time to stay on and supervise. Of the ones I manged to get a nosy at only one of the teachers was a gamer themself.

The difference with Blakers 'club' was that some of the games were within lessons and some were part of holiday clubs.

I gave quite a bit of thought to trying something similar but got put off by the holiday club idea as from experience a high proportion of young people 'ditched' at holiday clubs don't always want to be there and can become quite disruptive as a result. there would need to be other activities happening alongside to give young people with no interest in wargaming other options.

Sadly I deleted the email ages ago

[nikharwood]

I've exchanged comms with Blake about this over the years too - IIRC each of the young people get an introduction to the period of history and they then move on to paint a starter army which they then battle with and get to keep...brilliant 

Like nosher, I'm familiar with games clubs in UK schools - and, in previous roles, I even ran a few [we secured contracts when the "Extended Schools" agenda had money attached]; the ones I ran were all after school and focused on 40k & WFB to start with - but then I soon got them widening their interests into historical: pretty easy to do once the price differential became obvious!

The educational focus [and therefore the selling point to schools] rests on both the literacy [more specifically, getting young men reading] and numeracy: if you can explain those to the teaching staff, you're away. The clubs I ran ended up spilling into the wider games club I ran at my youth centre which at its high point was getting something like 30 young people gaming together three times a week 

[ronan]

(...) games club I ran at my youth centre which at its high point was getting something like 30 young people gaming together three times a week 

Great job !


I ran games  with young boys (it was DBA, some years ago) but it was a one-shot-convention. I don't  know if they're still playing. They DID like the historical games.  "Asterix the Gaul" is very well known ! 

[Blaker]

Thank Pruneau for fixing the reply button for me.

Thanks Sunray for starting this thread, I am humbled that so many are interested in what I am doing with school kids.

I apologize for not getting here sooner, for the past 3 months I have been in banking hell with my ID having been stolen and all sort of craziness going on with my bank account and in the middle of all of this, my mom has been hospitalized. I have been out of town staying with her for the past 18 days!! Soo it has been very crazy here. Mom is stable now and will be moved to a nursing home on Monday but, I will be there for a few more days to get the routine down. So my computer time will be spotty at best.

Right, now getting to Pendraken forces invade the classroom bit :-)

I have been teaching wargaming classes for the past 17 years to school age kids ranging in age from 9 to 16.  Now first off, I am not a teacher by trade, however, I have been teaching gamers to play war games since 1977. That sounds like I should be the master at these games, far from it, my win loss record is heavily scored in the loss column    And mostly the students that are kicking my butt!!   

My classes are a part of several summer programs, they do not count towards any type of credit for school. My classes are tuition based, so the parents pay the school to take my classes and the school pays me to play wargames - pretty cool 

One of the private schools that I have my classes in were very gun shy about using the wording of "war gaming" in my class descriptions so, I have showcase my classes with the term "Playing with History".  Seems everyone is happy about that phrase, no mention of that nasty word "war".

Nik is right, the basic class is, Monday a history class about whatever we are playing, I even assign homework, for example, the American Civil War class, the homework is, research a battle, I give them a handout to fill in the blanks, name of battle, where it was fought, when it was fought, who were the generals on both sides, who won the battle and extra credit, list casualties.

Tuesday is army selection. claening the minis, priming the minis and gluing the minis onto popsicle sticks. while we wait for the primer to dry we discuss everyone's homework.

Wednesday is paint day and I talk about the rules. Sometimes everyone is finished painting by Wednesday so we start playing the wargame on Thursday if not, then they finish painting on Thursday and we have a sample game play.

Friday is a full class day of gaming and when class is over, the kids take home their minis.

The theory is that they will 1) buy the rule set we used,  2) game with their fellow students from class and 3) develop a gaming base in my neck of the wood for opponents   

The majority of my classes all use Pendraken minis for the armies.  Some classes are in 28mm, ie,Wild West, Starship Troopers, etc, and I do have one class which is 15mm Zombies.

Each class is 2 and a half hours long for 5 days. I have a morning class and an afternoon class. The public school program is 4 weeks long, the private school program is 7 weeks long.

I have rules writers send me their rules for me to preview and see if they would work for a classroom situation. I even use my classes to playtest some rules for the authors and send in feedback. Most of the 28mm classes, the minis are donated to the class, others sell to me at a discount. Pendraken has been a hugh support of my classes and I really appreciate their support for my classes.

Some classes, ie, Starship Troopers, is not a paint and take class, it is just a play class. I use my collection and the kids start playing on Monday all the way through Friday. They do not take any minis home from that class.

My favorite and many students, is the Battle Royale class.  This class is an alternative history class set roughly in the 1600s and it is exclusively League of Ratsburg minis. This is a hybrid class in that the kids use my painted collection but at the end of class on Friday, they get to take their command base home with them. Then if they take the class again, and bring their command base, they will resume command of that battle and at the end of class on Friday may take home a unit from that battle. Thus slowly building their army a base at a time, not having to paint anything and it gets them coming back to that class , I know, it is evvvvvvil   

But I have to paint lots of rats!!!  I run Battle Royale in the private school once in the 1st week and once in the 7th week. We call the class the Cheese Wars, each kingdom is fighting over the control of the cheese trade. The two factions are Blue and Red. The both the Red King and the Blue King roll dice to see which Lesser Nobles will join their cause and then roll to see what troops answer the muster call. So both armies have a basic number of units, the Lesser Nobles and the Muster Call is a form to unbalance the forces available so the battle is not a match forces game. I need to post some pictures one day when I figure out how to do that on this forum 

Anyway, thats it in a nutshell.  if any of you have questions, fire away.

And thank you for your interest and support!
cya
blaker

[ronan]

Thank you Blaker !
Very interesting !

( you may take some time for yourself, no need to hurry here ! we're only gaming)