Sound good?
One of the claws in the velvet glove is that the shorter programmes of study will be more academic and written, and practical subjects may not be as practical anymore. This could mean as you progress through the national curriculum and into KS4, music, Arts, CDT, and so on will end up being assessed by a single written paper…
Computer Science is going to be the first subject that is added to the eBacc since it’s introduction, as reported on the BBC here.
I must say congratulations to the computer industries for their lobbying and persistence, I’m happy to see the subject classed as a real science and getting the recognition it deserves. Geeks rejoice. It is pretty sad though for RE and the Arts who are once again snubbed and relegated to the bottom of the class, they have been lobbying just as hard and just as forcibly. I’m guessing this is true evidence that the Government still think the arts and RE are pointless.
In related news Good egg Kenneth Baker has just published his book “14-18 – A New Vision for Secondary Education” which questions the policy of forcing learners to stick to academic subjects until they are 16. I never thought I would agree with him but I quite simply do. Learners with a passion at 14 should be able to specialise…
Now I’m not sure yet on the mechanics of adding computer science to the eBacc and if that means you can drop the other science subjects or mix and match disciplines, so I will check on it and get back to you. I’ve also got Ken Baker’s book on order and will review it as soon as it arrives.
10 For x = 1 to 100000
20 Print “Just what on Earth is he playing at”;
30 next x
What do schools, teachers, students and parents want from universities to support kids to get to University?
Milburn expresses clearly, as the social- mobility guru, that there is much Universities can do targeted at students from under-represented groups such as disabled students, students from areas where there is traditional low participation in higher education, ethnic minority students and students from families where no one has been to university. While Universities are digesting Milburn’s report, OFFA has set out its vision and expectations for widening participation in its annual guidance for the HE sector and a page devoted to sanctions if a HEI fails to meet its HE access agreement. Now that many HEIs are charging the maximum fees they are increasingly accountable to ensure that their widen participation and access agenda is robust and takes on board the strong steers from external influencers especially OFFA.
The OFFA guidance quotes Milburn several times in a 40 page document, so the pieces of the jigsaw are coming together. What should HEIs do to widen participation and help the social mobility agenda? After all the research, including the Leach Report (remember Leach?), shows that a degree is a passport to better economic stability for the individual and supports the national skills requirements to successful participate in a global economy. Universities need to form strong links with schools, provide after school homework support facilities, set up subject study days, provide IAG on admissions processes, use contextualised data to inform admissions processes, run summer schools, provide mentors and in the main raise aspiration and attainment at KS 2, KS 3, KS4 and KS 5 and try to do this in collaboration with other HEIs. All of these activities targeted at students and schools that at the moment are under-represented in the undergraduate population – otherwise it is unaccountable by OFFA.
What do schools think about this? The independent school sector has strong links with selective universities and often these go back hundreds of years, if not more. They have a head-start, but now is the opportunity for state schools to say, in the absence of a national careers service, universities can provide my students with… Your voice needs to be heard?
Many thanks to good mate Doug for pointing me to this Radio 4 documentary which you can catch up with on the BBC Radio iPlayer (go to BBC iPlayer radio and search for “Analysis – The School of hard Facts” just in case this link doesn’t work out.)
The programme goes into the work of E.D. Hirsch, who developed the concept of ‘cultural literacy and core knowledge’ that our current education secretary thinks is the best thing since sliced bread. It’s a fascinating prgramme, see how long you can go without loosing your temper…
I’m really happy to report that The Straight has received some praise recently and I want to quickly thank those who have commented and contacted me and asked some questions about it. We shoot a lot of video and make short films for clients and the website. In fact what started out as an idea for a weekly podcast has turned into a small video production company… The Straight was designed to be shown at a CPD session and be used to spark debate and discussion amongst groups of teachers and it works very well in that way and is an excellent ice-breaker.
We’ve been asked to do a few more and we will, as soon as we can get them made we will post them.
Yes, you can show it and use it in your CPD sessions as you can use all of the material we publish on the website. If you’d like us to make something else let us know. We make out money running CPD in schools and colleges and designing training events, if you would like us to do something for you do get in touch.
The Straight was filmed in Sprotbrough, Conisbrough and Edlington, South Yorkshire over a few days this Summer using JVC, Go-Pro and Panasonic Camcorders… all still work.
I heard yet another tail of woe yesterday, a headteacher on the sick 2 weeks before an inspection, deputy and assistant heads in the dark, teaching staff demoralised. Rather sadly, it is a very common story which I hear far too regularly.
To follow the stereotype through I would expect the head to have had a leadership problem, not delegated sufficiently well and not managed the staff. If this was baseball that would be her error, a stolen base and potential RBIs (hey, its the world series on Wednesday, Detroit versus San Francisco…). But in an organisation like a school the error is often not that easily attributed and I would look at the governors and the deputies as having let the school down as well.
Somewhere along the line someone didn’t say “no” when they should have.
Saying no is one of the hardest things to do in any workplace and something which is accentuated when the management structure is fractured or wobbly. You should be able to say no without fear of retribution or ridicule. You should be able to say no with a clear conscience and mutual respect. You should be able to say no, but I bet you can’t.
We are almost hard wired to not be able to do it. It might be something we were trained out of in our youth, saying no to your parents, for example was not allowed and saying no to your own teacher was also something which would have led to a punishment of some sort. You can check if you can say no, by doing the “sending food back in a restaurant” test… If the food is slightly cold what do you do? Put up with it or send it back? If you can send it back then you have most of the ‘saying no’ tools in your briefcase, if you struggle and would probably choose not to “cause a scene” then we need to do a little more work and go and look at assertiveness, one of my favourite topics.
Assertiveness is the cornerstone of being able to say no and we’ll come back to it in other posts. You can find quite a lot of excellent material on line already. It is also one of the best one day training courses you can go on. Crack assertiveness and saying no will follow…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/oct/02/new-school-building-designs-curve-ban
“Compared to BSF these designs represent a reduction in wasted space – 15% for secondary and 5% for primary schools – whilst maintaining the same size teaching space, classrooms, staffrooms, sport, and art and design facilities. These new schools will still be bigger than secondary schools built in 2004 and primaries built in 2006.”
Yes but…
So sad…
You may be interested to see that Sir Kenneth Baker is the Chair of the Edge Foundation, there are lots of pics of him at the Six Steps for Change launch on their flickr feed http://www.flickr.com/photos/edgefoundation/ Yes, that Kenneth Baker, tory minister under Thatch, he who gave us “Baker Days”, the National Curriculum and SATs. Having said that though he also deeply understands the vocational world and is doing a great job at Edge. Some Conservatives do understand the real world, I was sorry to see John Hays go from his post in charge of FE and Skills in the last re-shuffle and worry deeply about his replacement.
He’s not my favourite Ken Baker though, that is Kenny Baker, the actor who was inside the R2-D2 costume in Star Wars.
On a similar line to Edge’s initiative is Free Education, http://free-education.org who are trying to wrestle education from the hands of the politicians and are currently fund raising and mobilising. As long as education is in the hands of people who don’t understand it we will never really make any true progress.
All good stuff.
You’ve got to support something like this, so I am happy to pass on Suw’s video for all, please circulate and donate if you can. Ada Lovelace is big in the engineering, science and maker worlds, which I’ve posted on before, and she also gave her name to Adafruit which is one of my favourite electronics companies and communities in New York. She would be a very useful surf for those who have never heard of her.
Also Suw’s bookcase, with Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams and loads of Sci Fi looks a lot like mine… was this shot here?
Not a fanboy. Please try to keep that in the back of your mind. Yes, I’m typing this on a Mac, yes I have an iPod. BUT I have an android phone, several windows PCs and a healthy understanding of the real world. So please, don’t think this is just a fanboy rant, it’s not. What it is, is an attempt to point out that we’re at a tipping point in education technology and that the next step, probably made by Apple at their product launch in San Francisco on Wednesday, could change everything.
We’ve had the iPad since the Summer of 2010, an incredibly thin device which uses a touch screen and can fit in an A4 envelope. It can access the web, seamlessly handle your email, manage your media content and a host of other tasks through a wealth of apps. As Steve Jobs used to say it’s “insanely great”. The iPad launched an industry wide rethink of what IT is, what it’s for and who should have it. Now just about every IT manufacturer has a tablet device, there are a variety of operating systems, and app development is a major growth industry. If you still think IT is sitting behind a massive grey box and a 15 inch CRT monitor or that Microsoft Word and spreadsheets is what the IT curriculum should teach you have missed this revolution completely.
Many schools have ridden the crest of this wave and already brought tablet computers into the classroom. Schools which issue their learners with their own iPads do exist. Units are being written as we speak allowing you to use tablet computers and mobile devices in art, music and media exams. Companies are already writing apps for classroom teaching, classroom management, assessment and support. The education tablet revolution has started but it it is, at the moment, in the hands of the enthusiast.
It is widely expected that Apple will launch a smaller version of their iPad on Wednesday (I’m not an Apple pundit myself, but Engadget and Macrumors will back me up here) as well as a larger phone, refreshed iMacs and iPods. It could be quite a day. The smaller iPad is a very interesting idea as it comes hot on the heals of the Kindle Fire and a host of other Android based tablet devices. A smaller screen would bring limitations but it would also bring a cheaper price and perhaps a price so compelling that buying a class set, or indeed one for every learner is financially wise. In the UK you can get an iPad for £329 from the apple store, it’s not the latest model but it’s cheaper than a typical PC laptop. The kindle Fire is £129, just how much would a smaller iPad cost?
The Apple argument will be that the iPad is the only real tablet proposition for schools as there are apps in place, robust app quality control and apps in every subject and for every use. Guaranteed learner engagement in a sleek, brushed aluminium case. Android and the new Windows operating system (which is just around the corner) might argue with that, but the condition is clear. If Wednesday goes the way the pundits are telling us, we may well be seeing the argument crashing on our desks this week.
If you are not going in this direction, parents will want to know why.