Thomas the Tank Engine has been a staple of children’s TV since 1984. Whether you’re 90 or 19, you’re sure to recognise the (train) faces of Thomas, Percy, Gordon and James. But have the characters ever featured in your lessons?
At The Cavendish School in Cambridge, they do. It’s the world’s first international baccalaureate (IB) special autism school and, as part of the primary curriculum, they harness the universal pull of Thomas the Tank Engine to explore self-identity and human relationships.
It sounds like any train lover’s dream. But how exactly does the approach work?
Deputy headteacher Stephanie Smith explains that the lessons sit within a Primary Years Programme. This programme has six transdisciplinary themes - who we are, where we are in place and time, how we express ourselves, how the world works, how we organise ourselves, and sharing the planet - in place of traditional subjects.
“The themes are a way to take fact-based learning and give it meaning,” she explains. “Rather than learning things in isolation, it teaches children to attach what happens in maths to what happens in science to what’s happened in history.”
This approach, she says, it’s particularly important for autistic children.
“One of the biggest things that autistic children struggle with is the ability to make connections and generalise skills. You often hear teachers say ‘well, they can do it in my lesson’. [But] the ability to move that skill into a new setting is like relearning it,” she says.
She gives the example of the colour of a chair. If you show children a picture of a red chair, and tell them it’s a chair, they might then not be able to understand that a blue chair is also a chair.
Thomas the Tank Engine: how the lessons work in practice
So where does Thomas the Tank Engine fit in with all of this? The character features in the “who we are” transdisciplinary theme, which is an inquiry into the nature of the self and human relationships.
At the start of each theme, a number of hypothesis questions are put to the children. In this case, children are asked: how experiences form a person’s identity; how a person’s identity changes throughout their life; and how society perceives individual identities. Each question takes around two weeks to answer and is done through exploration within a fictional world: enter Thomas the Tank Engine.
The show was chosen, Smith explains, because a lot of children had a natural affinity with trains already. “One of our students is a great fan of trains, and we were already embedding trains to capture his interest,” she says. “He really thrived, and we decided to roll it out for other pupils too.”
So, what do these lessons look like in practice?
The first area of focus is “nature of the self”, and here students are encouraged to analyse each of the engine’s personalities, based on the description in the theme tune and their visual attributes. They then explore the assumptions society makes about an individual’s identity, and examine different factors that influence this, such as age, gender, nationality and language.
“Analysing the character development of the engines, such as the character arc of Thomas, from impudent and cheeky engine to kinder and gentler engine, helps students explore and understand the concept of identity changing over time,” she explains.
The next focus is relationships: here, the children watch episodes and explore the relationships between the trains, as well as the organisational structure in the world. This, in turn, can help to understand government structures and cultures.
“So, Sir Topham Hatt, otherwise known as The Fat Controller, is a relatable example of leadership and his authoritative qualities and the hierarchy of the engines can be used to facilitate a broader conversation about the role of our government and leaders,” says Smith.
“The friendships between the engines help students navigate their own relationships by providing explicit instruction to identify examples of positive friendship for them to emulate.”
The last area of focus is rights and responsibilities: as avid watchers will know, every character in Thomas the Tank Engine has clear responsibilities, and there is a clear hierarchy.
“Creating connections between the important roles of each engine, their strengths and their weaknesses, helps children to understand about the collective impact, as well as an impact on a community because students learn the value that they add to society by being their authentic selves,” she says.
“Harold the Helicopter is often perceived as noisy but is always welcome; this observation contributes to a broader conversation about embracing your individuality and being welcomed within your community.”
These concepts are well thought out, but what if a child isn’t a fan of Thomas and his friends?
That’s not a problem, says Smith. Every child will start with the Thomas theme, but they can bring their own interests to the lessons too. One boy, for example, looked at Angry Birds and could talk about the different personalities of each bird, while another loved dinosaurs, and again talked about how that community worked together. No matter the subject the children choose to explore, they are all brought together to answer the key hypothesis questions as a group.
The exact impact of these approaches is hard to quantify: The Cavendish School has only been open since Autumn 2021, but Smith is clear: the engagement from the pupils is extremely high.
“In this approach, children understand that learning isn’t just about sitting down and being told what to do, and that it does relate to them and their lives. Quite often, autistic children will ask ‘why should I?’ when it comes to school work,” she says. “But these lessons give them the opportunity to understand why learning is important, and then link it to adult life.”
