Leadership

Hopes and Streams

This report by the London Grid for Learning looks at the online behaviour of 7-16 year olds and flags growth in sexting, child exploitation, mental health, violent and sexual conduct. The charity has called for technology companies to embrace calls for change and put the safety of children first in all developments in the light of findings. Leadership Briefing (143)

The report focuses on six main topics including: video chatting and live streaming; experiences on apps, sites and games; contact risk – making friends and meeting people online; seeing, sending and receiving content; pornography; online friendships, bullying and mental health.

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      string(324) "... feel confident discussing online safety with their children A good way to spark a productive discussion is to present the following statistics (compiled from our Hopes and Streams survey of 40,000 young people) on screen as parents enter the session: Two in five pupils have never told anyone about ..."
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      string(5636) "Family relaxing with kids and using digital tabletAs a safeguarding team, we’re often posed the question: ‘I’ve been asked to run a parent session on online safety—what should we do?’ These evenings are often intimidating for teachers: how do you ensure parents turn up, and once they’re sitting down, what should you teach them? Firstly, ask yourself (and your SLT) if a parent session is really the best way to keep parents and carers informed. Our top recommendation is drip-feeding information to families throughout the year, making the news and advice less overwhelming. If you send home a regular newsletter about curriculum or events, why not add an online safety pointer or resource to each issue? It’s an easy way to make a regular impact on parents’ understanding of current issues and trends. Face-to-face sessions can be very helpful too—but ensure you stop to consider whether a stand-alone ‘big bang’ annual approach is the most effective. Will parents come? Will all your efforts lead to measurable, sustainable support? If the answer to these questions is ‘no’, it might be time to rethink your school’s technique. One more efficient method is to include an online safety briefing within another event where parental attendance is guaranteed. Once you have decided the best way to approach a face-to-face event, here are some ways to run an interesting and informative parent online safety seminar.Find out if parents feel confident discussing online safety with their children A good way to spark a productive discussion is to present the following statistics (compiled from our Hopes and Streams survey of 40,000 young people) on screen as parents enter the session: Two in five pupils have never told anyone about the worst thing that has happened to them online But of those who did, 94% told someone they knew, and 71% chose to confide in a parent/carer 73% of pupils trust parents’ advice on online safety, but only 56% talk about it more than once a year Ask parents if they feel confident talking about online safety with their children; point out that the first two statistics prove why it’s so important that families are open with each other. The third statistic demonstrates that children recognise that adults’ life experience and wisdom is helpful when facing a challenge online, even if it’s on an app, site or game that parents have never heard of, let alone used!Address expectations and your parent Acceptable Use Policy If you haven’t got an Acceptable Use Policy (which is actually more about behaviour than use), then the first step is to get one! You can download this template to get started.An Acceptable Use Policy is a document which outlines expectations of behaviour when online, and/or using school network, connections, internet connectivity and devices, cloud platforms and social media (both when on a school site and outside school). It’s no good just having one though – show it to parents, talk it through and discuss why each point is important. Even if you fear some may ignore it, it gives you a foundation for any tricky conversations you may have in future. Above all, discussing the rationale for it with parents makes it more likely that they will understand and adhere to it!Provide background context to life online for young people You can provide some background to life online to young people by referring to our Hopes & Streams survey. You could show the video from the page, or simply scroll through the flipbook to see some of the topics, quotes and statistics.DO NOT scaremonger about the latest worrying apps, sites, games, or dares! We don’t recommend providing lists of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ apps, as it generates a false sense of security, provides the sites with free publicity that may draw more young people to them and spreads panic among parents. Focus on helping parents understand the latest features and functionality of games and apps and ensure they know the general guidelines of sensible behaviour online. If you feel the need to issue warnings, which can be helpful at times, help them understand that the dangers can exist in a range of apps, some of which haven’t been invented yet.Demo some appsProviding some live demos is really useful if parents want to find out how a particular app works. There’s also the NSPCC’s NetAware site which gives great overviews and summaries of the risks, opportunities and what parents/children think of various apps. There are additional resources available on the Apps section of the LGfL website.The screen time debate: remind parents to focus on the screen, not the time!  Screen time is often a concern for parents, but the best thing you can do is reassure them that ‘how long?’ isn’t as important as what children are doing online. It’s also crucial to consider balance – when a young person is neglecting physical activity, time with friends or family, schoolwork or sleep, screen-time limits are needed. You can get plenty of advice, including flyers you could hand out, plus a blog from us that explains a bit more about what to look for, from the screen time section of our website. Remember you can’t compare one bit of screen time with another, in the same way as you can’t compare broccoli with chicken dippers when talking about food. Parents need to be careful when applying advice on official time limits, as it may not take into account the quality of screen time and may offer polarised ‘good’ or ‘bad’ judgements. Don’t forget about the tricky topics, either…Undressed: nudity"
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Digital Learning

Running a Brilliant Parent Session on Online Safety Doesn’t Have to be Hard

10 Mar 2020

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      string(3215) "with certain special educational needs (SEND) may have benefited from the changes brought in by lockdown. According to the EPI Digital Divide paper:“Some school leaders suggest thatpupils with physical needs, such as hearing-impaired children, have alsoexperienced learning gains, possibly due to having a quiet home learningenvironment and device assistance.”It’s also clear that many teaching staff have rapidly upskilled, as they’ve been dropped into the deep end of digital communication, and everyone has been thinking more seriously about the value of digital tools, which feels like a net positive.It’s encouraging, too, that there is now a decent amount of guidance available for schools adapting rapidly to a new lockdown situation, and services like the ongoing EdTech Demonstrator Programme for teachers to access. Centralised learning resources haveproved a valuable support to many educators since lockdown, and brand new, highquality resources cropped up with astonishing speed. The Oak National Academy,for example, was founded in April and has been widely adopted – with 220,000daily users now taking part in more than 20 million lessons across 23 subjects.A number of players in the techsector have been offering their services to educators free of charge, too,either from April to July, or in the case of digital overlays company Singular, indefinitely. Singular’s CEO AndrewHeimbold explains:“We launched Singular for Schools in2019 to ensure that all schools have completely free access to our platform.Pre-COVID, schools used Singular as part of their curriculum in media classesor for informal broadcasting of school events. When the pandemic closedschools, the emphasis shifted towards educators using Singular overlays toaugment their educational and community live streams e.g. this graduation ceremony wasproduced by students from their homes. Teachers have told us that using theplatform has inspired students to think about careers in digital media and thatit’s inspired them to use Singular for everything from advanced sciencelectures to spelling bees.”Reconsidering our optionsThese are extremely challenging times for everyone, and with schools starting up again in an environment of social distancing, local lockdowns and a global recession, the ‘new normal’ of schools and offices returning has not removed much of the uncertainty. However, raising the profile of this problem can bring results surprisingly quickly.When we look beyond expensiveequipment and see technology as a useful social resource, we have a uniquechance to come at tech from the other side; setting out our expectationsaccording to how people really behave and what people really need, rather thantaking our lead from the commercial operators. This could yet prove to be a valuablemoment for redesigning a new relationship with technology within education –one that has little to do with the trendiest apps or methods, and which insteadinvolves asking people what they can really make use of; an approach which,sometimes, might even involve putting tablets and laptops away and getting outa good, old-fashioned pen and paper."
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Blogs

What Happened To Learning During The Lockdown In Leeds?

28 Sep 2020

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      string(5611) "This month’sReportse-learning UPDATE n www.teachingtimes.com‹‹ PREVIOUS PAGE n  NEXT PAGE ››n CONTENTSPublished by The Science and TechnologyCommitteeThe Science and Technology Committee has published a reportwarning that the UK risks being left behind if the government does nottake more action to address the digital skills crisis.It is thought 12.6 million adults lack basic digital skills, while 5.8million have never used the internet at all. The report calls forbusinesses to invest more and better training at all levels of educationand urges the government’s digital strategy to be published withoutdelay.The report found that: n Twenty-two per cent of IT equipment in schools is ineffective. n Just 35 per cent of computer science teachers had a relevantqualification. n Only 70 per cent of the required number of computer scienceteachers have been recruited. n The UK needs another 745,000 workers with digital skills by2017.Digital skills crisis n 90 per cent of jobs require digital skills to some degree. n Skills gap costs economy around £63bn a year in lost income.Action: n Digital skills to be made one of the core components in allapprenticeships, not just ‘digital apprenticeships’. n Industry-led vocationally-focused digital careers advice inuniversities. n Universities to provide ‘code conversion courses’ to helpgraduates from non-computer science backgrounds enter the techsector. n After introducing the much needed computer curriculum inschools, the government to establish a forum for employers tofeedback on the continuing development of the curriculum, andOfsted to include it in its school inspections. n A review of the qualifying requirements for ‘shortage occupation’IT jobs under ‘Tier 2 visas’, to allow SMEs to get critical digitalskills from abroad. n Apprenticeship scheme processes to be simplified to allow SMEsto participate more easily.http://www.teachingtimes.comThis month’sReportse-learning UPDATE n www.teachingtimes.com‹‹ PREVIOUS PAGE n  NEXT PAGE ››n CONTENTSConclusions and recommendations: n The government has set targets for recruiting teachers in mathsand physics. They should also make a similar pledge for computerscience. This would demonstrate a commitment to equip our futuregeneration with the tools and resources to navigate the digitalworld, and provide a means of monitoring progress. n Every student must have access to education that enablesthem to participate in the growing digital economy. Thegovernment deserves credit for its leadership in introducing thecomputing curriculum but there is still some way to go for it tobecome truly embedded in all schools, let alone delivered toa consistently high standard. Given that digital skills are of thehighest priority to the future of the UK economy and the futurechances of young people, we find it surprising that computingis not explicitly considered in Ofsted’s schools inspectionframework. We recommend that the government requestOfsted to include the computing curriculum in their inspectionsand require schools to deliver credible, sustainable plans forembedding computing. n The government should encourage the uptake of existingavailable resources by schools, many of which are free.Learning from the success of existing teacher support initiativeslike The Big Write, and working closely with academia andindustry, the government should consider whether developinga similar model for computing will also help address gaps in ITresources. n Furthermore, to ensure digital education in schools continues tokeep pace with business needs in an evolving tech environment,we recommend that the government work with the TechPartnership to establish a regular forum for employers to raise anddiscuss their priorities for ensuring the computing curriculum andits teaching stay up to date, and to help ensure that other schoolsubject qualifications provide a foundation for a broader range ofdigital careers. n As digital skills are increasingly becoming essential for industrialsectors, schools will need to invest in offering high qualitycomputer science courses and upskilling teachers so that digitalskills can become more mainstream rather than a standalonesubject. n ICT teachers are now expected to teach the new computingcurriculum, but too many do not have the qualifications or theconfidence to teach computer science. It is clear that greaterinvestment is necessary to address the teaching skills gap. Wetherefore recommend that the government increase its investmentin teacher training as a long term commitment and requestthat, as part of its monitoring of the delivery of the computingcurriculum, Ofsted take into account the uptake of free resourcesand training. n The digital skills crisis includes not only shortages of key digitalskills in the economy but also a shortage of qualified, confidentICT teachers. We commend Teach First and the Master Teachersinitiative but, given the rate of loss to a highly attractive privatesector, we believe that the ICT streams of these programmesshould be scaled up to have any hope of delivering the sheernumber of teachers needed for the long term health of UK digitaleducation. n So far financial incentives have not attracted sufficientcomputer science teachers to the profession. In its forthcomingDigital Strategy, the government should review the case forfinancial incentives for recruiting and retaining computerscience teachers in schools, mindful of the higher payremuneration available in the private sector. As an interimsolution to recruitment shortfalls, the government"
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Digital Learning

Report summary: Digital skills crisis

4 Aug 2016

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      string(373) "... educational ethos of anotherera. Spaces had become shabby and run-down,and the building was struggling to accommodatemodern educational methods and technology.The college had hoped initially to secure fundingfor a major new building programme under theLearning and Skills Council’s Building Colleges forthe Future funding stream – an opportunity that26 ..."
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      string(5618) "collaborativelearning experience.24 Learning Spaces Volume Special IssueCase Studywww.teachingtimes.comPeter Allen, a Partner atPlatform 5 Architects,discusses the firm’s mostexciting project to date –remodelling the austereWaltham College intoa welcoming centre ofeducation.RenewingWaltham College25 Volume Special Issue Learning SpacesCase Studywww.teachingtimes.comNew life has been breathed into the maincampus building at Waltham ForestCollege, thanks to an imaginative andsuccessful refurbishment by RichardHopkinson Architects in collaboration with Platform5 Architects. The team worked closely alongsidethe college, overcoming funding difficulties andphysical obstacles to produce a well-consideredand successfully-delivered scheme.Securing the fundingThe main Waltham Forest College campus was builtin the late 1930s, and stands as an imposing neo-Classical landmark building next to WalthamstowTown Hall. The college was conscious thatthe building, with its austere appearance andformal, enclosed classroom layouts, presented anunwelcoming face to students, staff and visitorsand represented an educational ethos of anotherera. Spaces had become shabby and run-down,and the building was struggling to accommodatemodern educational methods and technology.The college had hoped initially to secure fundingfor a major new building programme under theLearning and Skills Council’s Building Colleges forthe Future funding stream – an opportunity that26 Learning Spaces Volume Special IssueCase Studywww.teachingtimes.comwas unfortunately lost in 2010 when the LSC fundingprogramme was cut. Nevertheless, the collegeremained convinced that there was a critical businessneed for the college estate to be improved. WalthamForest College appointed Richard Hopkinson – anexperienced architect, design director and projectmanager with over 20 years’ experience of capitaleducation projects, particularly in refurbishmentand renewal schemes – to review the college’s estateand develop a masterplan for its revitalisation. AtPlatform 5, we had worked with Richard in the past,and were naturally delighted to be appointed towork alongside Richard to develop and deliver hismasterplan.In the absence of major funding opportunities,it was decided to adopt a phased approach ofrefurbishment and renewal, rather than wholescalerebuilding. A phased approach also meant thatfunding could hopefully be secured from smallerfunding streams. In late 2010 an opportunitypresented itself to bid for Skills Funding Agencysupport and, together, we used our skills andexperience to put together a bid in a very limitedtimescale. Crucially, the college worked extremelyclosely alongside us to produce a bid that clearlyexplained the college’s priorities for refurbishment.Our bid was successful, with Waltham Forestbecoming one of only two successful applicants inSouth East England. With £3 million available, wewere able to begin work on the delivery of the firstphase of the Waltham Forest College masterplan.27 Volume Special Issue Learning SpacesCase Studywww.teachingtimes.comA new learning centreThe result of this first phase is an extraordinarytransformation of the heart of the campus that isproving to be extremely popular with the collegeand its users. The existing 1930s building has beenopened up to create a new series of formal andinformal education and meeting areas. The feel of thecollege has also been transformed as austere and run-down areas have been remodelled and revitalised.Today, Waltham Forest College is a welcoming,inclusive and contemporary environment for its staff,its students and many more building users.One of the college’s main objectives was to createa more welcoming environment for people arriving atthe main entrance. Previously, visitors arrived at thetop of an imposing staircase to be met by a shabby,cluttered reception area and a high, blank wall,behind which lay a neglected and underused mainhall. By removing the wall we immediately createdmore space, which we used to refresh the receptionarea. Visitors are now welcomed in a large, brightand airy space that encourages them to come in28 Learning Spaces Volume Special IssueCase Studywww.teachingtimes.comand enjoy the building. The main staircase from thelobby has also been restored which, together withthe transformation of the reception area, has led toa huge improvement in circulation throughout thebuilding.Before the refurbishment, the college library washoused on an upper floor, where it was difficultto get to and was consequently underused. Thecollege wanted to demonstrate that learning wasat the heart of the campus and the college’s ethos,and the creation of new, attractive and accessiblelearning areas was fundamental to our brief. Themain hall area presented an unmissable opportunityto address this point, and we transformed it into anew learning centre designed to attract students,staff and visitors to the heart of the main building.At its entrance is a cafe, providing a much-neededmeeting and refreshment area, and deliberatelyblurring the boundaries between formal and informaluses. Beyond a glazed wall, the former hall thenopens out into a large double-height, brightly lit andcolourful space containing a relocated and updatedlibrary, together with a series of informal learningareas. Thanks to the removal of the wall between theold hall and the college entrance, visitors and usersare welcomed with long views through to the newlearning centre, visibly placing it at the core of thecollege campus.The “learning pod”The college asked us to find ways to create as"
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Learning Spaces

Learning Spaces HE/FE issue

16 Mar 2016