The Fairytale Travel Company

Oh dear, the FTC are in a spot of bother this week. They have promised that whoever you are, wherever you want to go, they will get you there. It's a bit of a nuisance that a gnome called Wilf has asked to go to St Lucia. They don't usually go there ...

Well luckily, the employees at the travel company were up for a big challenge. They have been researching the country, but then decided they ought to fly over it to see what it was like. At a first glance, this is what they could see.

Meanwhile, we have had another message from Wilf. He wants us to write him an itinerary. I think we can do that and put it as an example in the travel brochure. He also wants us to tell him what to pack. I'm not sure that's our job! But maybe the other employees will decide that we can.

We have been checking the weather for Wilf though and comparing it to the UK. It's a bit warmer there! We've got to make sure we don't send him in hurricane season. He might not like that.




The manager is very pleased with our work so far, but he's a little grumpy because we forgot to take photos the last time we went and we need some good ones for the brochure. He said we could have a balloon ride for our hard work. It would be better as it's slower and we could get a better look. We could then add to the notice board.


Lucy has been hard at work in St Lucia creating travel videos to play in the shop. The voiceover doesn't work on one of them though. Someone's going to have to do that again.

KORC - Kinabatangan Orang-utan Rescue Centre

Animal mantles have proved very popular. Becoming a rescue centre lends itself well to creating tensions and dilemmas.

Collaborative work, planning where to put the new feeding platforms without disturbing the existing habitats and avoiding the pygmy elephant routes.

During one spring term, my 5/4 class became K.O.R.C. This was a registered charity based in Malaysian Borneo on the Kinabatangan River, which specialises in the rescue and rehabilitation of sick and injured orang-utans. K.O.R.C had been founded by Anna Caley six years previously and she had gathered many voluntary workers since. A team of newly qualified scientists arrived*, to conduct some research on the rehabilitation of the orang-utans. This has been an exciting event for KORC, drawing a lot of positive attention to the charity, including from the National Geographic Society, who filmed part of a documentary at the centre.

After being alerted by one of their voluntary workers, who was on holiday in Thailand, that 48 orang-utans were being kept illegally in a theme park in Bangkok, KORC got straight on the case to rectify this terrible situation. The poor creatures were being subjected to cruel conditions and trained to participate in kick-boxing shows. After a peaceful protest and the completition of many petitions, the Thai government invited K*O*R*C to present their case.

When K*O*R*C members presentations reminded them that it was against one of their own laws to keep endangered animals, the government had no choice but to intervene. K*O*R*C further persuaded them to donate money and help transport the orang-utans back to Borneo, to the rescue centre.

It was a tough job persuading the government to help - they were quite picky!

But the persuasive members of KORC manged to get the theme park shut down and the orang-utans taken to safety, ready for transportation to Borneo.

Once the orang-utans were safely at the rescue centre, we realised what a tough job it would be. There were not enough feeding platforms and many were too small, like this one. The team had to design and create new ones. Thorough health checks showed the poor condition of some of the orang-utans and tradgedy struck when one of the orang-utans died. An autopsy showed the terrible effects left from his kick-boxing days. The orang-utans needed a lot of medical care and love to help them become healthy and happy again.

Interview with an orang-utan
After the health checks showed how sick some of the orang-utans were, the volunteers at KORC got together to come up with a nutritious food supplement to make sure that the orang-utans got a balanced diet.

It seemed that a soon as one problem was
resolved, another one happened! Everyone
was shocked when a letter came from the bank
saying that the charity had no money left. The
quick thinking workers and volunteers came up
with a range of fund raising ideas, which soon
got the rescue centre back on its feet.

* The children had completed an enquiry, inspired by an assembly on the raft spiders at a local fen. They wrote reports as a 'degree' assignment, then attended their graduation ceremonies when they passed. As newly qualified scientists, they were nearly all happy to join KORC ... apart from one scientist. Professor Rusted decided he would rather go to the North Pole. His reasons? "It's colder there and I don't want to be too far away from my wife and family.' The other scientists were so disappointed to lose a team member, that they did everything in their power to get him to change his mind. Luckily, they were so persuasive that he did!

Le chocolatier

When the chocolatier employees set off for work one Monday morning they found, to their horror, that the chocolatier was on fire!

When the fire inspectors came, they sifted through the damage and found all kinds of hazards.

It turned out that an employee had left one of the chocolate melting machines on overnight. The manager thought she should be sacked, so the committee had to make a big descision.

Luckily, the committee found that there were overcircumstances that led up to this event, so they decided not to sack the employee. Everybody had to undergo fire safety training so that it wouldn't happen again.

The company decided to build new premises and had to decide on where was a good place for their new chocolatier. They were also invited to draw up plans for this new build and contribute to the designs for the shop front.

One day, a very strange French visito arrived, claiming to have a new delicious kind of chocolate. Quality control tasted it and got a 'marmite' reaction, some loved it, some hated it. We later found out it was 'mustard' flavoured and the recipe had been stolen from our sister company in Paris!

As soon as the new Chocolatier was up and running, company members set to work creating their new chocolates.

After the council intervened and requested that all products be Fair trade (as was customary in this new town) a lady called Malie came from Costa Rica to talk to us about cacao and also fair trade. Company members decide to create leaflets and booklets to inform their customers.

Le Chocolatier was a highly successful mantle that covered English, Geography, ICT, DT, art, some science and maths. Skills such as problem solving, collaborative working and developing independence were key.

S.T.A.R.S.

My first ever attempt at teaching through mantle of the expert lasted a whole term. It was because of the subject matter - space. The mantle started with me in role as a very cross professor and a totally bemused class! I ranted about the shortcomings of NASA (!) and how they had failed to launch another rocket. Cue a piece of recent news footage about the failed launch. Even at this early point the children were hooked. As NASA were not delivering, Professor Potts asked S.T.A.R.S to come on board and help.

Many problems plagued the shuttle and stopped it from being launched. The meteorology department studied the weather and found that a hurricane was on its way and questions were raised about suitable launch sites. Along the way the company also became involved in testing jet propelled rockets and buggies at their launch and testing site – with some amazing results. After deciding that the jet-propelled buggies were not going to be easy to control in space, the design team set to work on creating an electrical space buggy that could be sent to the International Space Station. After their designs and plans were completed, the moon buggy team worked closely with the electrical department to produce the buggies. This resulted in a range of amazing buggies to be used in space. At our company reunion, to celebrate the company’s 100th year, our catering department produced an amazing buffet and past employees came and told their stories of their time at S*T*A*R*S. To mark the event, Friends of S*T*A*R*S created an amazing banner, which is currently on display in the manager’s office. S*T*A*R*S will continue to work for many years with NASA on further projects for the International Space Station.