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

http://goo.gl/uKkM2D – for the full picture version.

I am indebted to you dear reader for keeping me encouraged on my weekly task to bring some info and commentary into the School staffroom.

Sally Everett, ICT coordinator at Lyonsdown school, sent me this great little video, created in school, mashing together the ‘Happy’ song with the meaning of Algorithm – what a great idea.

“I don’t know if you would be interested in the algorithm animation video that I have just put on You Tube to aid people with using and understanding the term algorithm. I have put it on the ISANet website, but not sure how many will notice it there.

It grew from an idea when the word algorithm was sung over the Pharrell Williams song “Happy,” and lots of pupils spent hours on animation and we use it and love it at school. I had originally thought that it would be good for younger pupils to hear the word algorithm and sing along but having put a link on the CAS website – it seems that people are using it as lesson starters, raising a smile in KS3 and some have commented that they will use it with teachers too.

So, I thought it might be useful to others and the only proviso is that it should only be used for education and if Pharrell Williams chooses to object as it is his tune, then it would have to be removed. (On You Tube there are thousands of versions of his song, including nappy, cheesing and learning. Hoping if they can survive then so can this one….)

Here’s the link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od_zF0HZWGM

Jan Price, our own Head of Art at Claires Court, introduced me to JibJab, a pay for service which allows you to mash together existing pictures and videos in their collection together with faces cropped from images of your own.  She produced this homage to the Senior Boys Management team, shown at the parents evening Prize Giving and celebration for our Y11 Boys at the start of their GCSE series of exams.

Thanks to the pressure on schools by education and commerce to recreate the conditions of the 1980s, in which the arrival of the Sinclair Spectrum and BBC Micro introduced programming for that generation, we can look forward to much more coding being carried out in schools. The good news, as Sally’s examples show, (here’s her Christmas card from Scratch, if you haven’t yet seen it), we really don’t have anything to fear and much to gain from this enterprise.

As readers of the ISANet Bulletin will know now, the ISA Ning site is to close at the end of this month, but that’s not to say our activity shuts down.  Far from that. This Blog will continue on my wordpress site.

We have 2 Major ISANet events in the planning.  

Saturday 12 July-The Google Apps day at Claires Court.  

As well as offering training on Google Apps for Education at beginner and intermediate levels, including access to the advanced webinars to assist in passing Google Apps Certified individual exams, the event will provide showcase opportunities for using Chromebooks, Tablets and the soon-to-be-launched Play-for-Edu and Google Classroom.

We will also be providing support for the next Academic Year for Coding in Primary Schools, highlighting some low/no cost ideas for hard-pressed teachers.

Registration for the event is free, 9.30am to 4pm, and a schedule of events will be published next week together with the booking form.

Saturday 21 November – ISANet Annual unconference – 9.30 to 4pm

Save the date – this will be really special.

Algorithms and the Future of Teaching

The arrival of Chromebooks and Google Apps for Education at Claires Court has transformed a massive part of our school practice, and I have absolutely no doubt that the arrival next of Android Tablets, now manageable with the Chrome console for schools who have gone Google, will add to that transformation. As you have read, I have visitors every Monday afternoon for a show round of our intellectual assets, and they almost always leave, scratching their heads and saying @Strike me Guv, we’ve got a lot to get on with’ or similar professional discourse.

However, we have been here before: Back in 1922, for instance, Thomas Edison thought he’d figured out the future of education.

“I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our education system,and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks.” he said, according to Larry Cuban’s  Teachers and Machines: The Classroom Use of Technology Since 1920,

Now, show this film on ‘Banks and Credit’ to one of your classes and see what they think about it being the future of education:

Salman Khan, creator of the Khan academy, still feels film (in the form of video) can transform education, by sending the teaching home for prep. leavng the teacher and child to practice during the lesson.

Here’s Khan’s TED talk where he introduces the idea – http://goo.gl/hLzl3o

Here is the Khan Academy’s Computer Science platform, on which any one can (and do) learn the principles of Computer Programming.

https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/cs 

Linked the Academy site are hundreds of examples of coding created using the site, and it really is worth a look.  From my experience creating a bunch of IT mentors in school from the children, whose privilege is to stay in and run a  Lunchtime club, it really just requires some patience and opportunity.

Our main successes in coding have come from running one Lunchtime club using a local Minecraft version,  a visual block programming programme second to none.

Read and watch more here – http://www.edutopia.org/made-with-play-game-based-learning-minecraft-video

Scrubbing up Reading Comprehension

In many subject areas, teachers find it difficult to improve comprehension and raise reading standards.  In this recent post on Cool Cat Teacher blog, Heid Morgan introduces using Close reading passages, constructed to cause read and reread with a purpose.  Whilst the post is also an advertorial for a digital tool, rise above that peeps and enjoy learning how teachers of whatever subject in the middle years can assist their children in raising their reading standards.  It can be used as an example of Mastery learning, where children can’t move on until they have mastered a technique, and I commend it to you all.  I was introduced to a version of this approach, the use of Cloze passages to assess understanding by an amazing dyslexia specialist, Eileen Gofford.  Great assistance for me in the early 1980s as I learned how to raise standards of learning in Science for O-level. Yes really!

And finally…

Don’t say I told you so, but the ‘Birmingham’ Trojan horse saga is proving just as bad as people’s worst fears and then some. This week’s claims see DfE in a sandwich stand-off against the Home Office and Theresa May on the one hand, and OfSTED and Sir Michael Wilshaw on the other. You cannot replace the coordinating structure of local authorities through the atomisation of schools into individual units, without an inspection process that is able to hold the schools to account.  What ISI as an inspectorate uses are serving teachers from Independent schools in much greater numbers so that the whole school, including Governance is fully inspected, both against its aims and against national expectations of a very experienced set of peer managers. Ofsted inspections do not include a rigorous review of governance, it wants to but is not permitted to under current DfE guidelines, particularly where chains of schools exist. Be careful what you wish for!

The majority of Independent Schools enjoy being Independent, but subject themselves to rigorous scrutiny using the ISI inspectorate and by belonging to one of the 5 Independent School Council School Associations.  As you can read in the About on my WordPress blog, I am a passionate advocate for the ISA, our own association and the second largest of the ISC associations.  Faith, Dance and Drama, aligned and nonaligned schools alike, we are an eclectic mix of every type of school, from Nursery to Sixth Form only, and all the better for ‘scrubbing each other up’.

Have agreat Summery week, and speak to you soon!

James Wilding

jtw@clairescourt.net

@james_wilding

jameswilding.wordpress.com

http://goo.gl/1P5Wn9 for the full colour version

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou

When I was in Sixth Form, I came across Maya Angelou’s writing, “I Know Why the Caged Bird sings” , book 1 of her autobiographical writings. I came across her writing at the same time as I became aware of the civil rights films such as ‘In the heat of the night’ and shortly after the murder of Martin Luther King. Off at University, studying Sociology in my 3rd year, Angelou’s writing, more specifically her poetry entered my ken, with ‘Still I rise’. And probably for the first time, I seriously worried about whether I had pursued the right degree disciplines (Biology and Psychology), because with such work, my eyes were opened to the beauty of writing that transcends colour, culture, race and creed. Circa 1974.

Now Maya Angelou has gone, and leaves behind a legacy of work of such magnitude, I am not surprised to read that if we are to lose american writings such as the Crucible and To kill a Mocking Bird, then we should replace those with ‘I know why the caged bird sings’.  Sara McCorquodale writes an impassioned post last week, in response to the news that Gove had cancelled GCSE’s American influence. I quote 2 lines that should take you through to read more:

“From big issues such as prejudice to personal experiences like virginity loss (an “empty night”) and teen motherhood (“he was beautiful and he was mine. Totally mine.”), I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings deals with the right, the wrong and the minutiae of family life. It’s a book about a young woman who will not be curbed and who learns a person needs strong character and determination – not perfect circumstances – to thrive”.

Maya Angelou was asked to read at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration her poem “On the Pulse of Morning”.  You can read that extract and hear Maya Angelou’s reading here – http://goo.gl/gaHLKH. It brings shivers to the spine, not just because of the hope that it promises, but because under the subsequent President George Bush’s stewardship, we saw the denial of the admonishment in the Poem

“You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched too long in

The bruising darkness, Have lain too long Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words Armed for slaughter”.

I love the idea too that Angelou’s best poem was saved ‘til last, her ‘Twitter’ feed.

Do read it, because they might be right in a curious way. https://twitter.com/DrMayaAngelou

Time for some light relief

I recently read a straight talking blog by Barry Smith ( that made me laugh out loud and made my day. You see I think teaching is really hard and that education is the most complex of industries. And to be good in teaching, to be paid for it as a professional demands of individuals that we practise hard to get better.  Now Barry doesn’t seem to write a lot, but he reminds us of the need to be honest in our endeavours, to try new things when the old way does not work, or perhaps to go back to the old ways when the child spots the Emperor’s ‘new’ clothes.

For me, the best practice I can have at getting better at this teaching, learning and leadership stuff is through reading lots, and Twitter and Blogs and modern technology have surfaced so much to read that perhaps I am in danger of not seeing the wood for the trees, as well as mixing too many metaphors.  Quite. And then someone like Angelou dies, and I get transported back to why I come to work each day – as the opening quotation implies – ‘to make a difference’.

Changing colour pen during the Summer exams

What we know about thinking reading and writing is as follows.  Unless a child can verbalise what they are thinking, they won’t be able to write it down.  And if they can’t write, the process of so doing will so occupy their conscious working memory that they won’t have time to think, generate ideas and make connections. I have taught a number of dyslexic children in my time, pupils who could verbalise brilliantly but who could not write legibly. For those, the laptop has proven a god-send. But for the vast majority of others who can’t verbalise their thinking, no amount of laptop time can make up for the lack of thinking to start with.  Despite some serious flak for over a decade now, I have insisted in our secondary school that during the summer exams of an hour’s duration, children are required to change colour pen for the last 15 minutes.

This small step provides us with very useful data:

• Does the child have sufficient resilience to work through for an hour on their paper?
• Do they go back and check and correct their work?
• Do they know enough to warrant receiving extra time?
• Are they day dreaming for the first bit and then coming in with a rush right at the end.

I then require that the exam papers are sent home for parent review.  Now that’s a hair-shirt, but provides the parents with first hand evidence on their child’s performance, both in terms of actual responses, and in terms of feedback on their child’s ability to work.

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater

We are not the only school to be dismayed at the obvious deterioration in handwriting of those entering the secondary phase. What really perplexes me is just how many children continue to choose to write in pencil, rather than ink, be that biro, writing felt pen or fountain pen. So our big push at secondary level is to change expectations straight away about ink and pencil, and at Junior school is firm up substantially on our expectations of what good writing looks like.  

Graeme Patton, education editor of the Daily Telegraph highlighted two weeks ago the growing problem of illiteracy in public examinations, highlighting that students feel it is now appropriate behaviour to use emoticons in Exam answers and coursework. :o(

I draw your attention to this article for 2 reasons

• the next back-to-the future of MG, as we see handwriting once again relaunched as an integral part of the junior curriculum (did it ever leave?)
• the comment stream makes the clash between educational cultures very obvious.

Wilding’s basic guide to recovering handwriting can be found here: http://goo.gl/SDPRCQ

And finally,

The Ning site, the ISANet is to disappear at the end of June. This blog will continue, and both existing and new members wishing to receive the weekly newsletter will be able to ‘follow’ my weekly postings on my wordpress blog, jameswilding.wordpress.com. I will extract/curate from the Ning site all of our work, and no doubt in due course, reflect back on what the Ning site enabled for our schools and community.

James Wilding

jtw@clairescourt.net

P.S. Last Google Apps training for the term at Claires Court – info here – https://www.smore.com/8h6e –

Saturday 14 June, led by Paul Farrell.

PPS Infographic of the week follows – it is a biggee! All the data you can byte

http://goo.gl/I7DMW4

Full picture edition here – http://goo.gl/BhQV0z

Introduction

The principles behind Carol Dweck’s Growth mindset were well known before Dweck’s “Discovery”. Harking back to Reuven Feuerstein’s work in the 1950s with backward children in Israel and Professor Michael Shayer’s work in the 1980s, we learned that children’s IQs could be improved substantially through teaching the children how to to think about their own thinking, and to act upon what they conclude in this thinking. Couple this with gathering an understanding of different types of reasoning, as in Bloom’s Taxonomy, and different types of Thinking, such as with De Bono’s thinking hats, and we know that children can perform really much better than their standardised IQ might suggest. What Dweck added to the mix was the initial kick-start that learners needed to ‘believe’ they could do better. Encouraging students to gain a ‘Growth Mindset’ meant they also believed that obstacles to learning were there to be overcome, that failure was part of the learning process and a change in strategy was needed to overcome the barrier to progress.

This all might seem ‘University of the Bleeding Obvious’ stuff, but it’s not. As Shayer’s research found last decade, the arrival of the UK National Curriculum in Maths and English in the 1990s lead to a real fall in academic standards.  Here’s the start of a 2006 Guardian article entitled ‘Children are less able than they used to be’.

“New research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and conducted by Michael Shayer, Professor of applied psychology at King’s College, University of London, concludes that 11- and 12-year-old children in year 7 are “now on average between two and three years behind where they were 15 years ago”, in terms of cognitive and conceptual development”.  

Why did this happen?

Professor Shayler’s conclusion about the decline in UK children’s cognitive abilities was not conclusive; he pointed out that children had become increasingly passive in their work and play. “I suggest that the most likely reasons are the lack of experiential play in primary schools, and the growth of a video-game, TV culture. Both take away the kind of hands-on play that allows kids to experience how the world works in practice and to make informed judgments about abstract concepts.”

If you have 30 minutes to spare, watch Dr Tae’s presentation ‘Building a new culture of Teaching and Learning’ on the Physics of Skateboarding website, a video largely not about street sport and more about how Universities and schools have failed their students in recent years. His secret for success that learners need – “Work your ass of ‘til you figure it out, coupled with honest self-evaluation, and a commitment to practice to achieve Mastery in the challenge to be overcome”.

My take on why children’s cognitive abilities declined through the NC years

Probably because instead of children developing a self-awareness of whether they could read, write, do sums and stuff, their intrinsic knowledge of their own capabilities were replaced by the extrinsic conscious acquisition of levels.  Time and again I have seen children beam that they have gained good grades.  That’s fine at the end of a public exam course such as GCSE or A level, but really of little significance for other kinds of learning.  Once 80% children had passed their Maths at level 4 at end of KS2 age 11, that rather let them and their teachers off the hook, did it not?  I remember at the outset of the National Curriculum, all of my son’s class gained a Level 3.  We celebrated as did their teacher, Mrs Howell, only for her to learn the following year from the local English advisor that ‘all of Y2 can’t get to level 3’. And thence on they never did.  That’s to my mind is a classic imposition of a limiting mindset.  Moreover, one a child had gained a high level 5 or 6, they were deemed to be doing really well, exceeding their targets and actually unable to reach the next level up.  As if learning is this linear anyway!

Further ways of raising our game as pedagogues

In John Hattie’s seminal work, VIsible Learning, and as summarised/updated in the Sutton Trust/Education Endowment Foundation Toolkit, the most effective ways of improving learning outcomes for children are Feedback and Metacognition, both of which give rise to up to 8 months of improvement in a calendar year, and in relative terms are low cost to implement.

Feedback

Let’s be clear, there are plenty of ways to give feedback that discourage and disappoint.  Lots of red lines through the work, loud words in the margin such as ‘See Me’ and negative comments are counter-productive. In fact, EEF recent studies find improvement gains are more modest, and other studies indicate that feedback is most effective when given during active work creation not at stepped intervals between sections. In my own work, it’s quite obvious what effective feedback looks like in some subjects such as Art, Drama and English, where perhaps the student does not need to acquire new knowledge during their period of creative activity. Whereas in History, MFL or Science, a lack of theoretical knowledge can ‘block’ the work, and no amount of ‘giddy-up’ can replace the learner’s lack of mastery of the facts needed to work at the required level.

Nevertheless, here’s EEF’s aide memoire – Research suggests that it should:

• be specific, accurate and clear (e.g. “It was good because you…” rather than just “correct”).
• compare what a learner is doing right now with what they have done wrong before (e.g. “I can see you were focused on improving X as it is much better than last time’s Y…”).
• encourage and support further effort and be given sparingly so that it is meaningful
• provide specific guidance on how to improve and not just tell students when they are wrong.
• be supported with effective professional development for teachers.
• Wider research suggests the feedback should be about complex or challenging tasks or goals as this is likely to emphasise the importance of effort and perseverance as well as be more valued by the pupils. Feedback can come from other peers as well as adults (see Peer tutoring).
• Have you considered the challenge of implementing feedback effectively and consistently?
• What professional development requirements is likely to be necessary for success?

Please bear in mind that positive feedback needs to be rationed, and where possible, not graded until that feedback becomes appropriate. Children know what a good grade is and when it is deserved. Sceptics amongst you will state that children love to hear what mark they’ve got for their work, indeed often it’s the only thing they’ll focus on. Quite, precisely my point.

Metacognition

A couple of years ago I made the mistake of running an Autumn Study conference seminar on the Learning theory that underpinned metacognition, most obviously that drawn from the work of ‘Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development’ – here’s an appropriate treatment of those ideas. In the end, we don’t really need to know why learning about learning works; we just need to think about our learning much more often as we go about our work. However, children make the best teachers mainly because those that can do the work are closer to those that can’t and are able to show them the ropes without imparting a sense of failure onto their peers.

EEF summary – research promotes the following:

• Teaching approaches which encourage learners to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning have very high potential, but require careful implementation.
• Have you planned how you will implement this approach?
• Have you taught pupils explicit strategies on how to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning? Have you given them opportunities to use them with support and then independently?
• Teaching how to plan: Have you asked pupils to identify the different ways that they could plan (general strategies) and then how best to approach a particular task (specific technique)?
• Teaching how to monitor: Have you asked pupils to consider where the task might go wrong? Have you asked the pupils to identify the key steps for keeping the task on track?
• Teaching how to evaluate: Have you asked pupils to consider how they would improve their approach to the task if they completed it again?

One of the more respected lecturers on Effective learning is Geoff Petty, whose website is a mine of all-sorts of great info on improving teaching. What Dweck to Petty and all those other names in between have in common is a firm belief that children do need to be taught at school. But rather than teach them the knowledge (very inefficient way of learning that, by the way), children need to be introduced to a myriad of strategies that once learned assist them in their work.

Petty refers to the importance of teaching the GENERIC skills that children need to acquire for each subject very specially, and include not just mind-maps, flow-charts, essay writing and self-reflection, but also an understanding ‘how to interview’ and ‘behaving maturely’.  You can find his guide for generic skills and lots of other stuff on his download page from his website.

A word of caution – as some of the sheets are a little dated, he still talks about raising children through KS levels.  I know teachers found Levels useful, but for all the reasons I am writing this Blog each week, don’t go falling for that old tripe once again. As Professor Dweck and Shayler have pointed out so clearly, our job as educators is to improve children’s Cognitive capacity, and we do that by specifically working on cognitive development. If we swap that job for scaffolding children’s learning through levels, all we will do is fail our children in the long run.

Mindset impact in Schools

Durringon High School in West Sussex are one of a number of schools explicitly setting out their stall to develop as a Growth Mindset school – read more of that here. Do click on the About page, as that will show you a range of initiatives the school is embracing to highlight what’s hot and happening for teachers, and you’ll find lots of links to other useful blogs as well.

And finally…

It’s not just me that is recommending we re-engineer our schools and the way we teach. As reported in the press this Friday, The Royal Academy of Engineering are really worried about how schools are switching children off practical learning “the education system has come to expect young people to move away from practical learning as they grow up and to become more theoretical and abstract, it says.

Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/uk-schools-failing-to-encourage-natural-engineering-talent/1018607.article#ixzz32qEspnCn

…Infographic of the week using some Engineering..

I love the arrival of Tube maps to highlight connections and when used as posters improve opportunities for casual learning.  Here’s one on Discourse markers.

…and here’s proof engineering works:

Aarambh, a new Bombay-based NGO, has created a briefcase-like backpack that can fold out to become a desk during the day. And the company is distributing them to children who lack resources in rural India (via Huffington Post).

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/backpack-turns-into-a-help-desk-by-aarambh-2014-5#ixzz32qG6WKi2

Have a great half-term week, and see you soon.

James Wilding

jtw@clairescourt.net

@james_wilding

jameswilding.wordpress.com

Introduction I attended the ISA Annual Conference this last week, and met with Mark  Stevenson, one of our lead speakers at the conference.  If you have 28 minutes to spare, then this Birkbeck lecture from last month captures the essence of his talk to us – Looking forwards to 2025 –  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdloYZgpd-Y   If you don’t have the patience, then that’s fine, you are probably over the age of 35, and follow Douglas Adams’ view regarding thinks created since you turned 35 – “Technology invented after you are 35 is completely pointless and makes you angry”.  In Mark’s talk, he quickly goes on to remind us that those leading our institutions and their future strategic development are almost alway over the age of 35, and that ought to scare us a lot. That’s probably why Politicians prefer to go to war (US costs in Iraq circa $3 trillion) rather than invent a new bio-fuel at a fraction of the price, because in part, they’d have to negotiate the dismantling of the Oil futures market and that’s too hard. What marks this speaker and author out is his breathtaking grasp of everything that is changing as I write this piece, and for those of us planning a school’s future, I do advise you to get your head around this man’s lecture as soon as you can.  In a myriad of different ways, it affected the ISA audience at Coombe Abbey and we now know we have to do something more radical to ensure our children our better prepared for a future no one can predict. Examples of Institutional bewilderment

• Kodak refused to recognise that film was doomed, so we no longer now have Kodak as a company
• Courage does not exist as a brewer any more of beer – gone!
• Marconi, an industrial giant for the UK previously known as GEC, went bust in a year
• The Co-op….
• Teachers who don’t understand yet that Twitter provides the best research platform ever to support them in their work as professionals
• Just because we now have cloud-based learning, available using tablets or laptops, which almost every educationalist who uses the technology raves about, those who don’t and have the power to delay the decision, do just that.

Highlights for optimism in Education As a starter for 10, I’d direct teachers to our own Inspection report, which for a school that does not make use of the National Curriculum, or its leveling programme makes excellent reading. If you can’t see the Report there on our website just yet, be patient because it is due to be there by the close today. Not that long ago, almost every time I spoke in public about the corrosive nature of the National Curriculum and its poisonous effect on learning, people were not really very polite, feeling that I was speaking to destroy their successes. As the evidence has stacked up that learning is not linear nor is child development more generally, then more and more schools are now reviewing how best to assess pupils’ learning. I have previously highlighted the NAHT review on Assessment, which came out this March. I have also praised the moves made by Singapore to reduce the curriculum at primary level so substantially that children have time to gain mastery of the skills they have been asked to develop, before moving on. One of the Gurus behind the abandonment of the NC and its leveling structure is Tim Oates, from Cambridge Assessment. You can find a 13 minute on these ideas here on YouTube – debunking the idea that children making progress in lessons is important – and replacing this  with an approach to ensure children acquire the deep content required of them – essential viewing for any primary teacher https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q5vrBXFpm0#t=40 “The highest achieving nations (and schools) who have high equity and high enjoyment amongst their children don’t use levels. When children don’t understand something in these nations, the teachers suggests they have not presented the idea appropriately yet, not because the child is a level 3!” Now only time will tell whether Tom Oates confidence that the new Curriculum for England will deliver what he hopes for. Given the thrust by the DfE, Michael Gove and their pressure to ‘academise’ all secondary schools, and any primary deemed ‘failing’, I don’t think state schools in the main have the incentive to change.  As Alex Quigley (HuntingEnglish) writes in his blog on assessment today, “The Department for Education needs to also be aligned with our inspectorate in ensuring different models of assessment can be applied without fear of recrimination, otherwise schools will fear to tread new, innovative ground”. As subjects are so very different, the ‘comfort’ that speaking about levels shares a common language and helps parents understand what is on offer is badly misplaced. At the various courses I have run across the country this last year, more and more teachers are regaining the confidence to design their own curriculum, in the light of the school’s context and place in locality.  At the upper end of school, success is very much related to achieving well enough in a written exam such that a GCSE or A level might be awarded, but lower down, teachers and schools are not just reaching for a text book to prescribe their course, but putting a very good deal of effort into creating a curriculum and assessment framework together so that learning for children in their schools is more successful.  For a simple summary of a range of ways currently under consideration, here’s a blog post from Daisy Christodoulou, research director at the Ark academy groups,  that’s worth some time reading and reflecting about. http://thewingtoheaven.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/replacing-national-curriculum-levels/ Moving with the Maker culture, going mainstream with new, creative ideas (I have digested a short article from the We are Teachers website

Key features

“Doing” Is What Matters Makers learn to make stuff by making stuff. Learning by doing is for now – technology is a key part of that, both old and new. Openness Maker culture thrives on projects that work being shared readily, working with other people in other schools Give It A Go The best way for students to become deeply invested in their work is for their projects to be personally meaningful, afforded sufficient development time, given access to constructive materials, and the students themselves encouraged to overcome challenges – by puzzling through and gaining experience, we build grit and resilience. Iterative Design Computers make designing new inventions risk-free and inexpensive. You can now tinker with designs and programs and make prototypes easily and quickly, so children can take risks and fail – if you have not added Minecraft to your school IT toolkit, do so soon. Aesthetics Matter Over recent years, Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths have informed the STEM movement – and now we can add Art, giving us STEAM – objects can be beautiful too. Mentoring Defies Ageism “As Sir Ken Robinson says, school is the only place in the world where we sort people by their manufacturing date. The Maker Movement honors learners of all ages and embraces the sharing of expertise. Young people like “Super Awesome Sylvia” and Jody Hudy are valued alongside decades-older master tinkerers and inventors. Schools may create opportunities for mentoring and apprenticeship by connecting with the greater community. Access to expertise must not be limited to the classroom teacher.” Learning Is Intensely Personal Learning is personal—always. No one can do it for you. Giving children the opportunity to master what they love means they will love what they learn. It IS About the Technology Some educators like to say that technology is “just a tool” that should fit seamlessly into classrooms. For example a 3D printer is the raw material for solving problems, such as how to create inexpensive but custom-fit prosthetics for people anywhere in the world, or how to print a pizza for hungry astronauts, preparing our children to solve problems their teachers never anticipated, with technology we can’t yet imagine. Ownership Teachers should consider that prepackaged experiences for students, even in the name of efficiency, are depriving students of owning their own learning. Learning depends on learners with maximum agency over their intellectual processes. Here’s a nice cartoon that captures perhaps some hypocrisy that still exists, even in the most well regulated institutions: So every best wish for a busy week for most in UK schools, as next week is half-term for both staff and children. Have courage now to take those steps to make a real, perhaps even disruptive change to your curriculum – after all, the lessons that Mark Stevenson preaches are those the Dodo failed to evolve in time to learn.