People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them. George Bernard Shaw.

The full colour edition here – http://goo.gl/396qMz

“If you want to go fast, travel alone.  If you want to go far, travel together.” [African proverb]

Once again we end our Academic Year reporting on a wealth of pupil achievement in and around the classroom, on stage and the playing fields, lakes and rivers, and out there in the wider community at large. The amazing report by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) of our School started this Summer Term in “excellent” manner. During their visit in March, the Inspectors came to a whole series of “excellent” judgements about our provision, the opportunities we make available, the care that we bring, and the excellence of our achievements, by pupils and by our colleagues.  Your reaction to the published report was heart warming in congratulating us on the quality of the judgements received and in affirming that it came as “no surprise and thoroughly deserved”. Thank you!

New Campus Consultation for Claires Court

During May, together with our chosen partners, the Institute of Medicine & Surgery, Berkshire and The Berkeley Group,  we held a number of events around Maidenhead to showcase our vision for the future of Claires Court. If you were not able to attend one of these you can see more at http://www.clairescourt-consultation.co.uk . Since then we have worked continuously with our architects to ensure a sensitive development of the Ridgeway estate and the retention of its unique ecology. We expect to make an outline application for planning during the autumn and will consult further with you at that time.

Farewell to Mr Jeff Watkins, Head of Claires Court Junior Boy A fuller appreciation will appear in the Court Circular Review of the year 2013/14

Jeff Watkins retires this summer as Head of Junior Boys leaving a huge contribution to the development of Claires Court. Jeff joined Senior Boys in 1985 as a teacher of English and  transferred to Junior Boys to serve as Deputy to Karen Rogg (then Miss Boyd) when she took over the Headship from David Wilding on the latter’s retirement in 1988. Through his clear sighted leadership of sport, Junior Boys became one of the powerhouses for Under 11 physical education, promoting inclusivity and the opportunity for all to play for their school. As parents of young children, Jeff and wife Anne placed both son Alex and daughter Verity at Claires Court, from where they graduated after A Levels to successful University careers in Sheffield and are now working in Law and Media respectively.

Jeff has led the Junior Boys’ School since April 2010, and has provided clear, engaging and supportive guidance for his staff, so that they have been able to develop post National Curriculum, a unique blend of academic and collaborative disciplines that particularly suits the young males in his charge. His insistence on manners, courtesy and service above self has been the ideal exemplar of the four values we promote of Responsibility, Respect, Loyalty and Integrity, and ensures that ‘Ridgeway’ boys are not arrogant in any sense, yet have a quiet confidence and unreserved enthusiasm for their School and all it stands for.

Jeff stands aside at a time when the future for Claires Court is exciting and challenging, and his successor, Justin Spanswick could not have asked for a better legacy – a full school and an outstanding Inspection report!  

We wish Jeff and his wife Anne the very best for the next stage of their professional lives.  Jeff will stay close to Claires Court over the next few years, assisting us in a variety of ways, not least on the further development of our Former Pupils Association.

ISA Awards 2014

Claires Court is among the 340 schools that make up the Independent Schools Association which earlier this year invited its members to apply for awards marking success in 14 categories from excellence in early years, prep and senior provision, to outstanding achievement in sport, IT and the arts. In our application for the Award for Excellence, we cited our extensive range of partnerships with other local and national organisations with particular reference to ‘3for3’, our major commitment to support three local charities, and our sponsorship of  ‘Art on the Street’, Maidenhead’s biannual art event.   

Here is some of the detail that gave rise to our award in 2013/14:

ISA Community Award 2014

Claires Court set out by way of its 2007-2012 School Development Plan to become an integral part of its town, Maidenhead, covered by its postcode – SL6.

We have partnerships with:

Maidenhead and Bray Cricket Club

Maidenhead Rugby Club and Phoenix Rugby Club

Maidenhead Sailing Club

Maidenhead Rowing Club

Maidenhead Golf Club

Maidenhead Centre for the Arts, Norden Farm

Maidenhead Rotary Club

Maidenhead Lions

We are an integral part of the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead’s strategic plan, providing 50% of their holiday child care needs for Maidenhead through our innovative Holiday Club and Sports Club provision. http://www.clairescourt.com/holiday-club/

This March, our Year 12 BTEC students ran a football tournament for all of the local primary schools, known as the Sainsbury’s Games.

16 teams from schools in and around Maidenhead and Ascot competed to be crowned the ‘Winners of Level 2 Sainsbury’s School Games’, giving them a free pass to play in the Level 3 Tournament, representing Ascot and Maidenhead.  

Through our innovative use of technologies, we now work with hundreds of other schools in the UK and Europe assisting them in developing their use of digital services in the classroom. This January 2014, we welcomed 150 headteachers and digital leaders from Sweden over three days to see at first hand our use of these technologies. We work with local primary schools, in the post GCSE period for Year 11, to introduce to them what cloud-based learning looks like, and you can see Barnaby Woodruff presenting our work with Ellington [now Riverside] School at BETT14 – 4min 40 secs into the Video.

We host a whole variety of Artistic events for our Community, from Public Speaking, Orchestra Day for local schools and our own Drama productions for other schools to visit as well as Activity weeks to engage and involve our children in the local community.

We have two major Jewels in our Community work.

Charity work – 3for3

Our School Councils determine each year our charity work involvement, with 3 local charities being supported by the 3 sites of CC – hence 3for3. Each year during the second half of the Lent Term (March), we then set out to have as much fun as possible whilst making as much money as possible for the three charities supported.  Here’s what it looks like through our ‘blurb’ to parents:

The Alexander Devine Children’s Hospice Service (previously The Alexander Devine Children’s Cancer Trust). This charity was set up in memory of Alexander Devine who sadly died at the age of 8 having been diagnosed at just four years of age with a brain tumour.  This charity already provides a service and is looking to extend this by ultimately building a children’s hospice in Berkshire to help all families with children with life–limiting conditions, not only those suffering from cancer.

Thames Valley Adventure Playground

Most children love being able to get out and about, explore, climb trees and play with friends, but for many children and adults with a special need, it isn’t possible. The Thames Valley Adventure Playground provides a chance for children and adults with all types of special needs to enjoy fun, freedom and friendship in a safe and stimulating environment. Our own Sports Leadership students support this worthwhile cause by giving practical help and assistance.

Kids in Sport

This charity is close to our School as it was set up in memory of Julian Budd, a past pupil of Claires Court, who sadly died in 2007 at the age of 33. Julian was a keen sportsman and raised money for charity to support children. His parents have set up the charity to continue this work. Kids in Sport aims to help children participate in sport who otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity.

The fund raising is colossal – each charity receiving some £4,000+. This year, Junior Boys alone have exceeded £5,900 and still counting (‘til the end of April!). [When the final monies were collected, each of the three charities received a cheque for £4,262.84.] In addition, we support a further 20 charity collections a year, Jeans for Genes, Help for Heroes and so forth – but our localism is really important for us and our pupils!

Art on the Street – Some community activities don’t need money; what’s needed is the get up and go of enthusiastic adults and/or children, either on their own or on groups, lending a hand and putting on a show. Claires Court is the main sponsor of Maidenhead’s major artistic open air event, Art on the Street. This does not just mean cash (which the organisers do find helpful it must be said) but organisational people-power and jaw-dropping, show-stopping performances from our Actors, Musicians, Singers and Artists (the latter running workshops for much younger children in otherwise closed town centre units we open up for the day).

Following our work with Art on the Street,  with young offenders from the Maidenhead PRU and with disabled adults we continue to work in partnership with Maidenhead Centre for the Art at Norden Farm, as we take the innovative Arts Award forward to Bronze and Silver in this academic year.

Here are some examples of the Arts Award candidates work for their Bronze award, June 2014.

As we move towards creating a new campus for our School at the west of Maidenhead, it seems we have very many friends now in the local community who want to see us succeed. If nothing else, the evidence above highlights why!

And finally…

This Summer Term has seen challenge aplenty for the various Claires Court PTAs with hugely successful events in the May Ball, the Summer Fete and the Rowing Dinner. Four extraordinary parents have led our PTA communities for a number of years; Felipe Foy at Junior Boys, Vanessa Shander Kelsey for Senior Boys, and Louise and David Johnson for Girls and we thank them and their committees for all the wonderful events, awards and donations to the School and its Departments they have caused and overseen during their watch. They step down in September for the next generation of willing Parent volunteers to take us into the future, posing the question ‘how do you follow that!’ To which the obvious reply is ‘if not you, who?’ – names on a postcard, please!

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

Whilst our own educational landscape seems to enjoy many successes, nothing happens without intense hard work, and we hope you join with us in paying tribute to all of the teachers together with administrative and support staff who have gone that extra mile and kept so much of what we do at such an ‘Excellent’ level. They may be salaried for their work, but in no way does that cover the exceptional care they give to our pupils, your children. We could not be better supported and the Faculty of Claires Court 2014 step into their holidays knowing they have worked remarkably together and ‘Gone Far’!

Hugh and James Wilding

Link to Academic Principal’s Blog here – www.jameswilding.wordpress.com

Writing last week, I referenced the cutting edge nature of Science I discovered on entry to the University of Leicester.  The degree was a BSc in Combined Science, in the end focussing on Ecology, Microbiology, Psychology and Sociology. I arrived at University at a time when environmentalist activity was relatively new, and specific celebrations in 1972 were focussed on the banning of pesticides.

This prohibition arose from the research work of Rachel Louise Carson, the American-born marine biologist and writer, best known for her 1962 book Silent Spring, which is credited with launching the global contemporary environmental movement – read more below from the Independent newspaper 3 July.

52 years on, and we face a similar crisis, with Bees for similar reasons, and additionally in that parallel universe of Medicine, with the growing  resistance of microbes to antibiotics.  As David Cameron made clear yesterday in announcing a review of why so little work has been done to launch new antibiotics in recent years, “The world could soon be cast back into the dark ages of medicine unless action is taken to tackle the growing threat of resistance to antibiotics”.

At the educational level, we know that warnings of this kind can inspire children to take up the challenge, to become scientists and researchers into History. Children need heroes, and those of the past such as Carson and Fleming are readily superseded by David Attenborough and Brian Cox, who might not be famous for their science, but have made science intelligible once again the the masses.

Science literacy in schools is not developed by reading books alone, but through extensive practical activity so that children gain the investigative skills to research into the unknown.  Joining up subjects such that Historians and Scientists alike (Y9) can understand how we gained initially an understanding of germ theory, how we created sanitation and focussed our communities on the importance of public health really does capture the imagination.

Isn’t it a pity that David Cameron is so alive to the issue that he makes it national news, yet his government also authorises the decoupling of diverse practical science experiments from A level examinations. Education’s Michael Gove states that these changes will ‘correct the pernicious damage of dumbing down’. Of course, Mr Gove hasn’t heeded the opinion of scientists on this,  nor reflected on the traditions of UK education that have included such practical laboratory assessments since before he was born.

And what kind of school will continue to offer major practical activities at A level despite its sidelining? Why the independent Sector of course, because we don’t just study subjects to pass exams, but to inspire, inform and develop students such that they see the potential of science and other practical subjects as future careers. Just as my first extract came from the Independent, so does my last, alerted as I was by today’s (Thursday 3 July 2014) lead editorial (not on-line), bemoaning the growing gulf between the earnings of those educated at independent schools (such as Claires Court), and those in state schools, as reported by the Social Market Foundation.  Sir Peter Lampl of the Sutton Trust, another campaigning organisation on education wrote in the report’s forward of“a sense of outrage at the waste of talent in Britain” over the class divide in schools.

I can’t do anything about government choices, or calm such outrage, but I can continue to guarantee that children will enjoy a practical history and science (and everything else) hands-on education at Claires Court. It is from such experiences that the future generations of our historic and scientific heroes will come.

And as if by magic, the Eureka project report back on the combined experiment shared between Claires Court and their project on Mars. http://goo.gl/xAEesA

Silent Spring focused on the impact of synthetic pesticides on the environment – with the title referring to the absence of birdsong across swathes of agricultural landscape following the widespread introduction of pesticides and other intensive farming practices. The book sparked a public outcry, bringing to widespread attention the effects of these chemicals both on the ecosystem and on human health. Although her research was attacked by chemical companies, a decade after her book was published, and years after her death, her book led to a nationwide ban of DDT, a colourless and crystalline organochloride with insecticidal properties, and other pesticides. 

Silent Spring demonstrated that these pesticides could cause cancer and that their agricultural use was a threat to wildlife, particularly to birds.  A worldwide ban on DDT’s agricultural use was formalised under the Stockholm Convention, but its limited use in disease vector control continues to this day and remains controversial.

Carson died on 14 April 1964, aged 56, of a heart attack having had breast cancer for many years. (From the Independent 3 July).

http://goo.gl/Tw3kZR link to the picture edition

Preamble

The ISANet Newsletter started as part of the ISA’s service to schools, something I felt would bring teachers and ideas together. The ISANet site shows me I have created some 238 Blog posts, of which the vast majority are newsletters such as this.

My editorial approach to creating the newsletter goes as follows. Most of the time, I have used POCKET as my bookmarking service, so that on a Sunday evening, I can review the week’s research and build the items into some kind of coherent (or otherwise you might say) content. In the early years, as the Ning network attracted people to its Facebook-style of social activity, plenty of other colleagues would blog and bounce ideas. But gladly, as more and more colleagues have become digitally savvy, the need to gather on the ISANet has disappeared, but your kind reactions to the Newsletter service has kept me going for some 5 years.

And today, this is the last of the Weekly newsletters from the ISANet.

I have downloaded the distribution list, and will email each member after the end of term to see whether they wish to be signed up for my WordPress blog, which will have both ‘A Principled View’ and ‘ISANet Blog section’ back up from next week..

Ian Nairn, Founder of the ISANet Ning, is shortly to close the site down, and save himself a few dollars each month into the process, and assist me in archiving the content.  I suspect there’s a Master research base in there somewhere – what 5+ years of Social Networking has achieved for a group of 563 Independent school  teachers and fellow travellers?

My grateful thanks to Ian, Dave Orchard, Chris Rowan, Eric Leuzinger, Rupert Fowke, Theresa Ward, Paul Robson and all that have taken and interest, written for me and promoted the cause of Digital Literacy and Innovation.  It’s been a pleasure working with you, and I hope all will consider adding to the ISANet Blog on its WordPress platform.

From next week, the Digital Newlstter will reappear on the sister Blog on WordPress http://isaonline.wordpress.com/. 

Newsbytes on ISANet stuff

Google Apps, the Story continues – event is now on the horizon, for Saturday 12 July, during which we host Beginner and more advanced GAFE training in the various core tools, as well as showcase the soon-to-arrive in the UK tools of

Google Classroom, Google Play for Edu and Google Glass:

https://www.smore.com/8h6e

• My Google Glass arrived last week, and today make their first outing into the Classroom with 2 of our year 11 students, Will and Lisa, as they support Junior school children in their work in the Cloud. Hopefully in the hands of these two CC Google Mentors, Glass will show what it can do for Education.  My Colleague Paul Robson has also acquired a set, and we’ll try our best to share with you Hands-on what they might mean for Class.
• Google Classroom arrived recently today, and last week I started a demo in school. It looks a useful free edition to the GAFE ecosystem, but it’s right at the start of its development and functionality will develop as Google Certified Teachers feedback to Mountain View what tweaks and extras are needed to make it a useful coherent service to schools.
• Google Play for Education is almost here in the UK, and will be incredibly useful for the deployment and management of Tablets in schools. Claires Court is supporting the use of Tablets in Primary schools as part of a Samsung Project in the autumn, but I understand the Lawyers need to keep tweaking the contract to fit inside the EU, and Samsung need to make sure their Tablets will run the Service.  Stateside, they have just retro-fitted Play for Edu to Chromebooks, permitting some greater functionality to the Management console. As the advert syass “With the revamped Google Play for Education, teachers can now give students access to Android apps and Chrome apps, books and videos from a single site. According to Google, about 10,000 schools currently use Chromebooks (and some of them use both Chromebooks and tablets).”  Techcrunch
• Coding in Drive seeks to highlight some free to use tools, that sync with Google Drive, assisting young and old to get their hands and heads around computer programming, rolling out across the UK in Primary schools from September.

From my POCKET this week

• A nice little cartoon by Ros Asquith from the Guardian, on the yet further decline on Music funding in schools.

• Most graduates have switched careers by age of 24 – from the Daily Telegraph.  19 out of 20 of today’s graduates have changed jobs at least once within three years of finishing university, study by New College of the Humanities finds

• Playing with Dr Doug Belshaw on Google+ on Sunday night, as he launched his book on The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies, he reintroduced my to the whole stuff on Memes – by way of this site – http://knowyourmeme.com/ and this Meme generator – http://memegenerator.net/ .  I really can see some Fun can be had with these two, and if children by end of Year 6 can get the hang of generating Memes and using them, then they’ll be digitally literate for Secondary school, or that’s Doug’s contention.  You can view the 60 minute session led by Doug here – Google+ Live.
• A Simple Coding sandboox for use in the Classroom – PENCIL
• Axe A-levels for Bacc-style exam, say UK scientists.  Another week, another 10 or so Education Soundbytes to add to that incredible insecure feeling that we are now living in.  The UK scientists concerned are looking 10 or so years down the road – perhaps they’d like to take a Time Machine back to Curriculum 2000, the New A level curriculum that promised so much but was derailed by a combination of League Table frenzy and Universities lack of appetite for change.

And finally…

I have followed Ewan McIntosh and Tom Barrett from the NoTosh digital training consultancy for a number of years, exceptional practitioners in schools and the corporate world now plying their trade mainly down under it seems.  

Here’s Ewan’s blog, and a post on which he highlights what a year of school innovation around the world looks like. He reminds me to remember to be Agile, and I like that, for at my grand old age of 60, I’d like to think I have tried to be just that as your editor of weekly digital news.

My closing aphorism to make you think:

James Wilding

jtw@clairescourt.net

www.jameswordpress.com

@james_wilding

When I was at University of Leicester (1972-75), studying Biological Sciences and Psychology, lots of ideas we now take as read in those days were ‘cutting edge’.  My personal tutor was directly involved in cracking the genetic code and working out how to sequence Chromosomes, which of course led to DNA fingerprinting.  As part of my Ecological studies, we learned about Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect.  Here’s what wikipedia have to say on that early idea:

Sensitivity to initial conditions is popularly known as the “Butterfly effect”, so called because of the title of a paper given by Edward Lorenz in 1972 to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., entitled Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?.^[ The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale phenomena. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different.

Schools form part of that group of most complex systems known to man, see a previous note of mine here http://wp.me/p1i7wC-yc.  Rather like the weather, storms and sunny weather come and go, and schools large and small have to cope with the change in climate that they face.

However, in the last month we have had to face an extraordinary buffeting of ‘Flapping Wings’ from Government and their quangos about Education. Not a day goes by without another centrally created crisis becoming a news-bite for the national and international media to feast upon. And for what?  Is this how complex systems should be run?  Would any adult with an understanding of what’s meant by emotional intelligence seek to name, blame, game and shame in every speech they gave about the sector that they supervise?

• Schools should teach British values
• Too few pupils learning languages
• Are teachers ready for the Coding revolution?
• Ofsted says state pupils denied competitive sport
• Lack of challenge bad for pupils
• White working class fail at school
• Go back to traditional text books, Minister says

Ouch – this litany of daily failure might herald the end of the world as we know it. The crescendo of discontent though is very much driven by journalists and politicians alike. Their Flapping continues to cause a chain of events that is destablising schools and the professionals who work therein. Add to that talk of ‘Trojan Horses’ and ‘Religious Extremism’ and it’s no surprise people are running scared. And yet, none of these stories seem to apply to the world of education in which I work.  Sure stuff happens, but what we are about is creating a daily ‘cut and mow’ second to none, a rhythm of educational life that ensures that practice happens and opportunities are taken at every turn.

The Independent Education Sector is renowned internationally for the quality of our all-round provision. So it’s no surprise to learn that if ISC schools were a country, we’d be found at the top of the PISA rankings. The fact that our athletes disproportionately represent the country in the Olympics and World sporting achievements should be no surprise. That we are over-represented in the Universities, professions, parliament and even dare I say the higher echelons of the Military and Judiciary again should not come as a surprise.

I am writing this blog at 6pm, Wednesday evening, and the Cricketers, Rowers, Tennis players and Sailors are still hard at work.  The girls’ Tennis team came back from the ISA National Tennis championships last Friday with a hat-full of medals, and they are back out practicing again. The top 3 school quads (Rowers) are out training at Henley, preparing for qualifying events this Friday prior to Henley Regatta. The 12 strong Sailing team depart Sunday for 3 days of International Schools sailing on Rutland water on Sunday. Every day now for the next 3 weeks, children young and old alike are stretched and challenged beyond compare.  Sports Days, Drama showcases, Community Research projects, Work Experience and even Google Apps showcasing fill the calendar.   Oh, and there will be a host of boys and girls out on expedition in the Chilterns, New Forest and moorlands between now and September as they learn how to look after themselves under canvas and navigate challenging terrain in remote and wild country.  We are a day school by the way.

The Royal Ballet school and Yehudi Menuhin School are specialist providers; no surprise that so many of their graduates fill our ballet and orchestral companies. Of course they are Independent Schools, of course they charge Tuition fees, and of course they also have state-funded places so that those of real talent and ability whatever their means can apply and be supported through their specialist education.  And post school, no-one can learn to fly a plane without going to a specialist flying school; the last thing you want is that training left to a generalist organisation.

Claires Court is a specialist provider too; from academic study through to personal development, we have mapped programmes developed for decades that give rise for those that pass through our school brilliant opportunities for them to become excellent in their field.  Our multi-sport disciplines approach to developing physical excellence is recommended across the world as the best way of developing the best sporting super-stars. Our Libraries and classrooms bristle with books, and children make informed choices as to whether use ink-based or virtual print. Specialisation too early prevents the overarching development of the all-rounder, so we look for the Goldilocks effect – not too much, not too little, just right. Like-wise our teaching programmes do not propel children pell-mell (disorderly confusion, reckless haste) into early academic specialisation. That’s an outrage that even Ofsted and Gove say should not happen.

My title alludes to the negative effects that panic and agitation bring.  Be very afraid if you hear too much of such fuss around children.  They pick up upon people running scared pretty quickly, and that will shape how they think and act. If they only learn how to behave when adrenalin flows, that’s really not great.

By practicing lots and lots, we become what we repeatedly do, skilled under pressure, calm under fire and creative when something outside the box needs to happen.

“Fly like a butterfly, Sting like a bee, Work like a Trojan, That’s a guarantee!” with apologies to Muhammad Ali – one of the greatest sportsmen in History.

P.S. From the promotion of British values to the provision for excellence, you can read how we do that here – http://www.clairescourt.com/news-and-media/news/inspectors-recognise-maidenhead-private-schools-excellence-/

A survey by Ofsted, the schools watchdog, has revealed this week that competitive sport is compulsory in only a handful of England’s state schools and just a fifth of young people regularly play sport outside lessons. Sir Michael Wilshaw is speaking on this matter at the Education Festival held over at Wellington this weekend in typical pithy manner.  He is due to say that:

“More than 40% of the Team GB medallists at the London Olympics two years ago were educated privately, despite private schools catering for just 7% of all pupils. At the Sydney Olympics in 2000, the figure was 32.7%. Sir Michael is also expected to express support for comments by David Cameron, who has called for an end “to the ‘all must have prizes’ culture”. 

Wilshaw will argue, however, that private schools such as ours, use competitive sport to help build self-esteem and confidence, which also raises exam results.  He will say that, while private schools set aside some afternoons for competitive games and hold extra- curricular coaching sessions, state school head teachers do not see sport as a priority and do not devote funds to it.

Wilshaw will point to a link between academic success and levels of student participation in sport.” Quoted extract from Sunday Times via SchoolImprovement.net

This Monday, following the ISA National Athletics championships at the Birmingham Stadium, the ISA London West Athletics team returned triumphant, having won all 6 sections of the championships, in the teeth of considerable rivalry from the other 6 geographic areas of ISA.  The Claires Court athletes made up approximately 50% of the team, and brought back 45 medals from the nationals.

A quick survey of the map shows you that LW is the smallest of the ISA regions, and as our Area championships had been washed out the previous week (the only one of the 6 to have been so affected), it’s fair to say not only did we stand up to be counted, but we stood very tall indeed.

It must be said we don’t participate in competitive sport to win every event, and that I think is where Sir Michael has yet to get his thinking right. We don’t use sport to build esteem and confidence, though they are very obvious by-products of our work.  We use physical education and sport as a major medium through which a child’s appropriate physical and mental development can be assured. What’s more, we devote sufficient time to the multitude of opportunities that physical education and sport offer such that children find a sport or physical activity that works for them. Anyone following our school will know about Amber Hill’s development as one of the world’s leading shotgun shooters last year, and of her selection as BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year 2013.  She is now selected for the Commonwealth Games this coming Summer. The back-story is how we were able to support her academic development, despite missing school and work as she pursued her dream, such that she successfully completed a full set of GCSE examinations.

Over the next few weeks, our latest partnership to ensure the successful development of major young Tennis players whilst ensuring their academic subjects are secure will become public knowledge, based in partnership with Living Tennis at the National Sports Centre at Bisham Abbey. This is in a long line of developments in the school that in 2014 have secured regional and national awards, medals and titles in Chess, Cricket, Duke of Edinburgh, Football, Hockey, Netball, Rowing, Rugby, Sailing and Swimming. The sports of Golf, Judo, Karate, Show Jumping, Skipping and a myriad of other interests also give our children opportunities to have lots of fun, expend energy, make friends, learn to succeed and fail, commiserate and celebrate and learn more about themselves.

I agree with Sir Michael that there is a major link between Sport and Academic success at Claires Court. But there is also a very direct link between teaching and learning in everything else too, because what we get right is the provision of all of these Educational opportunities, staffed by suitably experienced teachers with a passion for what they do both for their areas of specialist knowledge and fundamentally for the children they teach and coach. 

Why are we able to run so well? Because we train hard and over an extensive period of time, starting way before the first competitive age group of Year 4. Why do the rowers make national finals? Because they row on the river at 7 am before school every day. How do hockey and cricket players learn such great stick skills? Because they put the time in, often playing imaginary shots as they walk between lessons.

And actually within our school, all have a way of winning awards too. It comes out in their open demeanour and their lack of arrogance, their willingness to help those less fortunate or step up to support when no-one else can. Sir Michael Wilshaw may very well be reading the headlines of his speech at Wellington College in the Press on Saturday when our School Community is all joined up at our Annual PTA Summer fete. In the wonderful grounds of our Junior Boys School at Ridgeway, we’ll have footie and other sports and challenges in equal measure.  The STEM club’s Go-kart will have its first public showing on the Tarmac, and I’ll be showing off our plans for our own school’s next steps towards a one campus solution. SL6 4QQ is the postcode – no, more like a destination, where Sir Michael and anyone else can visit our Open-to-All school, where some really excellent things continue to happen every day.

http://goo.gl/n9X0iI for the full picture edition

Preamble

One of the greatest films from my University days, The Go-Between, starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates, from the book of the same name by L.P.Hartley.  It starts with the line

“The Past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”.

YouTube saves my bacon here, because you can get some sense of the quality of the movie from the first starting minutes of the film, introduced as it is by Michel Legrands wonderful theme tune, the big landscapes of Norfolk and the country house and its surroundings, where the story is set.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BD1rAzJgzI

Learning from the Past

I have been working in schools for 7 decades now, starting as I did at primary school in 1957.  Sounds a mighty long time. I have been employed in schools for 5 decades, starting pre-University in 1971 on a Gap couple of terms, and commencing my professional life as a teacher in 1975. To be fair, I have absolutely no memory of the past being a better time for schools, for Teaching and/or Learning, either for adults  or for children.  Now this is not because I have no memory, or that I now wear rose tinted Google glasses that make the current period of pedagogy the best thing we’ve had. It is just that in my now quite considerable experience, it seems that the way things happen in schools currently enjoys a remarkable degree of transparency not evident in the past.  In short, Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

That’s not to say that we are not in a rapid period of change led by chaotic an ill-informed central government, who take with one hand many of the hard-won freedoms from those that work so hard in schools, and give back-handedly to others that support the current right-wing rhetoric that progressive teaching has led to all the ills reported as seen in schools today.

Seven Myths about Educationby Daisy Christodolou

This might be the most important book you read this year.  Please look inside…>

With a foreword by Professor E.D. Hirsch, it wil certainly be a tome the Secretary of State for Education will reach for.  After all, it highlights for many the 7 Myths that derail teachers’ efforts every day and shows us the evidence that proves the Myths are just that.

And the publisher has this to say “This blisteringly incisive and urgent text is essential reading for all teachers, teacher training students, policy makers, head teachers, researchers and academics around the world”.

Let’s be clear; left to the author, there is no debate on how stuff should be done. Irritatingly, she is one of those ‘teachers’ who left the classroom so quickly its difficult to know whether the experience she gained was worthy of a research-based longitudinal study.  Fortunately, we don’t need me to carpet-bag her.  You can read the positive and negative reviews given to Amazon, or perhaps even better read a really thorough elucidation of its ‘Bomber Harris’ obliteration of the educational landscape you and I occupy, by Dr Kevin Stannard of the GDST.

Educational debate is not a Binary argument

Experience and Expertise are needed in equal measure, as is Enthusiasm and a Joy for Learning. Making schools more effective in the round requires the most complex toolkit known to man. It is extraordinary that even with a population of over 63 million people in the UK, one age cohort differs significantly from the next. We know this from Education, from Health, from the Exchequer and from pretty much every other centre of research that explores our make-up. Unbelievably, the first person to live to the age of 150 is now alive, as are the parents of the child who will live to 1000.

Given the absolute uncertainty of our futures, it seems to me such a witless argument even to argue that we shouldn’t be aiming to blend the old with the new and perhaps even the yet -to-be-known. I know children need to learn facts at school, and I also know they need to learn how to apply them. There is a dramatic causal link between the drop-off by girls in University Physics and Engineering and the move from practical experiment-based learning back to theory-based A level. Whether you listen to Sir Ken Robinson, Dan Pink or Dan Meyer, their very clear description of what excites and motivates –  ‘Intrinsic motivation driven by internal rewards’ – is the way we ensure we can generate the key attributes for learning success in our schools.

So its not Learning Facts v Exploration

or Teacher-led v Student-led

or 20th Century v 21st Century etc.

It’s all of it, in a cycle of activity that ensures effective Learning happens, and through which children develop a love of a whole variety of subjects and make choices lat enough so that they have covered enough ground.

Looking to the Future

People do things because they believe in that choice. It’s our job as School Leaders to identify the future that we are aiming our children for in our schools, to pose the questions and shape the curriculum and the experiences that conjoin to build within each child hope, motivation and the will to succeed. By-products of an effective curriculum will be the learning skills and attributes the children need, the opportunities to succeed and fail, to trust and be suspicious, to argue and to accept.

A great TED talk, on how leadership shapes actions is by Simon Senek.  Like many TED talks, it simplifies because it must fit within 20 minutes, but I recommend it perhaps for your Summer closing CPD session. It reminds us above all to shape for our schools our purpose for coming to work each day.  Certainly not so that children can pass exams or win trophies, however desirable those conscious rewards might be. Any child I have ever asked about school talk about school being ‘Fun’, and the better the school, the more ‘Fun’ they have.

In a research paper published in May, Growing up in Scotland, Alison Parkes, Helen Sweeting and Daniel Wight highlight just how important the school environment is, and in equal balance to the importance of family. They asked 5 questions of their 7 year old targets:

For schools, the study reinforces the importance of creating conditions for positive learning, successful relationships and preventing bullying and violence. To help children make friends, schools should possibly offer training in social skills such as sharing; and help teachers develop strategies to reduce behaviour that alienates other children, such as anger or bossiness. The importance of children making friends is something for parents and other child-friendly venues to bear in mind too.

Separate research published in May also shows that August born children are more likely to suffer mental health issues, and September/October born children are less likely to be so affected, although the differences are actually quote small in % terms. But what this does remind me is that Independent schools have historically been more flexible about starting age and working ahead or behind in terms of the September deadline. And I think we should maintain that flexibility, because actually insisting for example that all children start school in the September of the year they are 4 is really quite ludicrously early for some. In this Daily Telegraph article from the weekend, the state’s unwillingness to permit parents to make this choice is becoming a national scandal.

Wilding’s Crystal Ball

Make no bones about it – Cloud-based learning is rapidly moving past the early adopter stage with so many schools now moving to Chromebooks and Tablets, across Europe, the Middle East, Down under and across the pond.  And returning with the Cloud is Computer Programming, Code for short.

The palpable excitement this morning with our own year 12, who received their own Chromebook for the next year to use, customise and twin with their mobile was a joy to behold.

Some of those Sixth Formers are attending the end of term Google Event we are hosting with C-Learning at Claires Court on Saturday 12 July. They now realise this is a technology form which is new, but in which they can define a future and even perhaps get a job.

Arriving…Google Classroom – http://youtu.be/JUiLc0If0CI

Google Play for Edu – http://youtu.be/vzvpcEffvaE

Using Edity Apps in Google Drive to teach coding – http://goo.gl/lS0Ppq

Try using Crunchzilla for Coding too – http://www.crunchzilla.com/

The Saturday Booking form will be sent out this week, once we have the detail for booking right.  We know some delegates want to come and learn some beginner Google Apps stuff, whilst others want to come and set their radar on these and other new tools.

Advance notice of our Annual Unconference for Digital Educators – Saturday 22 November 10am-4pm 

And finally…

With every best wish for a busy Report writing week…

James Wilding

jtw@clairescourt.net

jameswilding.wordpress.com

@james_wilding