Creative Teaching & Learning

Response to computing curriculum shows the profession at its best

With the welcome but rushed introduction of the new computing curriculum has come a wealth of challenges for schools. How are teachers responding?

Say what you will about Michael Gove; one thing he got right was the replacement of ICT in schools with a cutting-edge curriculum for computing. The DfE promised to make it ‘the envy of the world’, and they did. No other curriculum incorporates such a substantial strand of computer science and programming that begins so young, and global interest is well and truly piqued.

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      string(323) "... communities and professional groups and academic groups and social groups and religious groups and political groups are. Although people of all walks of life use computing, computing is not the purpose of many of those ways of life –and it should not even be the purpose of ICT lessons. The ..."
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      string(5644) "Because IT’s There In the film Where the Money Is, a journalist asks an aging criminal: “Why do you rob banks?”, expecting a self-pitying list of childhood traumas, poverty and social exclusion. “Because that’s where the money is”, the robber answered. The same could be said of computers. They should be used in all school subjects because that’s where people and communities and professional groups and academic groups and social groups and religious groups and political groups are. Although people of all walks of life use computing, computing is not the purpose of many of those ways of life –and it should not even be the purpose of ICT lessons. The novelist Jay Raynor wrote about a proud mother who was expecting great things of her son. She said that she hoped to be mentioned in newspaper reports of his triumphs (Danny Smith, son of Irene and David Smith, …). She is therefore happy, Raynor says: “To live her life as a sub-clause”. Computers should also, I think, live their lives as sub-clauses. It should be possible to make sense of the world using computers. Just look at breathingearth.net. Computers can connect people, ‘voice’ people and enliven the spirit of schooling. That’s my excuse for the pun in the title, ‘soul and chips’ –computers contribute, vitally, to the spirit of schools. Saying Hello Pupils should feel as though they belong to a world of many different kinds of people, following different cultures and religions. There have been many electronic greetings cards sites over the years. When used with effective teaching (in history, RE, PSHE, citizenship, English, ICT and elsewhere), they can be used to connect people and boost the quality of celebration in schools. Pupils should be aware of calendars of festivals and celebrations, and an intellectual understanding can be complemented by an activity that means they send and receive electronic greetings cards, relevant to the season – try dgreetings.com. Cards can be sent between pupils and teachers within a school and then developed to include teachers and pupils in other schools, members of different communities and people linked around the world. Saying ‘hello’ like this is a good start. Keeping to the multi-religious theme of the greetings cards activity, pupils could make use of the online database of responses to a questionnaire from 1997, when children were asked about important issues – including religious issues (old.natre.org.uk/db). They could find the person in the database least like them, and write three questions they would like to ask that person in the form of a letter to the person, with other pupils role-playing the recipient of the letter and replying in role. They could also find the person in the database most like them, and write three questions they would like to ask that person in the form of a letter to the person, also followed by role-played replies. Many young people empathise strongly with soap opera characters. An interesting way to exploit this closeness is by applying lessons learned in school to those fictional characters. Building on work in PSHE, citizenship, English, history, RE – well, almost any subject – pupils might be asked to develop a spreadsheet analysis of television soap operas. They could record and then analyse examples of breaking of a set of rules (the law, moral rules, or religious rules) along with the consequences of such deviance. This could generate charts and graphs of the data, with written explanation or analysis. The data could be compiled from several series or episodes of one programme to produce whole-class ‘causes and consequences’ charts. Starting with the seven deadly sins, for example, let us assume that there are four examples of gluttony in one week of the soap opera EastEnders. Suppose one example of over-indulging in a Christmas lunch causes physical pain, and three examples of people eating cream buns makes them say: “Oh no, there goes my diet!” This gives us the first two columns in the chart. The three examples of lust generate the next three columns – one causing pain, one anguish and one public shame. The bar graph image shows an example taken from a couple of EastEnders episodes. Place and Chips Having said hello, it is important to get to know people from other religions and their surroundings. Computers can help overcome the barriers of distance, but that doesn’t mean places have no significance. Swanseekers is an activity described by Maggie Pollard (in Abbott 2002). Her school was next to a city park and her students loved to watch swans in the pond. Occasionally, the swans would fly away, soaring away on their large powerful wings. They flew in all directions. For the activity, groups in a class could work on what the swans might see within a mile of the school. The swan travelling north might go to the industrial area of the city: the pupils who mapped this studied manufacturing and business. This was linked to a study of the politics and morality of business and economics. The swan travelling south would go over residential estates. The pupils in this group studied family life and the history of the area. They linked this to changes in family life. The swan travelling west would go over theatres, cinemas and galleries. The pupils in this group studied the art and the plays and films showing there. The swan travelling east would go over a church, a mosque and a temple and a community centre. This group studied the"
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Computing and Coding

Soul and Chips

22 May 2018

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      string(4661) "Tweet Michael Wilshaw’s Christmas present to the nation – that one third of secondary schools were failing to improve, and some were even backsliding – came as a bit of a jolt. After all the upward exam trends of recent years and the constant release of stories by the government on how Academy status had ushered in a new era of excellence, this was a ‘corrective’ movement, as they say in financial markets.Less than inspiring school leaders were the cause, Wilshaw claimed, although he could have added that by lifting the goalposts and moving them further along the field, a larger number of schools were always going to find themselves in the drop zone. The government would have found the statement as equally sour as school leaders, for Wilshaw also said that it had made no difference whether the schools were Academies, Free Schools or state schools. Failure to improve was evident across the board and much more marked in secondary than in primary. Indeed, many of the advances and innovations made in the primary sector were being squandered by secondary schools. All of which begs a lot of questions left unanswered by simply blaming secondary headteachers. The first question is why, after all these years of Ofsted and the National College for Teaching and Leadership both spending billions doing what they do, are things still so bad? The second might be why, after spending billions on the introduction of Academies and Free schools, are these also languishing in the 30 per cent ‘critical zone’? One insight is from a brilliant article in this issue from Lisa Jane Ashes. She was given the task – inspired by a directive from Ofsted – that reading, writing, communication and maths be planned collaboratively across the curriculum. She was totally committed to the task – after all, England came 22nd out of 24 of the top industrialised countries for literacy and numeracy, so there was a lot to go for. She was though, totally shocked at the deadening, obstructive hand of subject departments on any innovative or ‘joined-up’ teaching: ‘Once classroom doors were shut, it seemed that teachers may as well have worked at different schools, in different continents (despite being responsible for the same students’ success or failure), the gulf that was created was so big.’ This so vividly shows how teachers operate in atomised cells within subject bunkers in our secondary schools – how their creativity and engagement in broader educational issues languishes when isolated teachers are drilled to deliver curriculum milestones. Gove’s new emphasis on traditional subject teaching and facts, rather than the process of learning and acquiring transferable skills has just made the situation worse. More creative approaches to curriculum delivery come from collegiate working and this is easier to effect within primaries, which are smaller and not burdened by subject nationalism. This remarkable lack of creativity in the way our schools do business, in an otherwise very creative and innovative culture, was the main theme of this year’s Whole Education Conference in London. It was inspiring to see so many teachers and school leaders getting together to explore how they could break the mould with new pedagogies and leadership strategies. But it was also profoundly dispiriting to see so many educators responding enthusiastically to ideas about project-based learning, team teaching, oracy, learner-led learning and changing the nature of the school day, as if they were all newly invented! They were around twenty years ago and were in many experimental schools at the beginning of LMS (Local Management of Schools). It revealed how far that creativity and innovation was driven back by oppressive regimes like Ofsted, the micro-management of Labour and the authoritarian destructives of Gove. But it was also squashed by the heads and their organisations being too compliant with policy makers who thought they knew best. The only response to this, as Dr Kevan Collins, chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, said at the conference, was a research-based profession that had the courage to stand up for evidence-based practice. It’s all been said before, not least by Creative Teaching and Learning, but it’s as far off as it has ever been. One small start might be to make CPD compulsory for teachers as it is in other professions, and that a license to teach would be dependent on this continuing yearly CPD. At the moment, its absence simply gives teaching a license to be a learning resistant profession."
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Was Wilshaw right about secondary school failure?

18 Dec 2014

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      string(5690) "privatisation agenda and in a chapter written with Alison Gilliland of the Irish National Teachers’ organisation entitled The Teachers’ Voice: Teacher Unions at the Heart of a new Democratic Professionalism (Stevenson & Gilliland, 2016) argues that:“A key feature of the market-driven Global Education Reform Movement is its intent to break-up and fragment, as a deliberate attempt to undermine the influence of professional interests within public education systems.”The systematic de-skilling of the profession in England has had other consequences and may have contributed to a reduction in respect for teachers. In their submission to the House of Commons Education Committee, academics from the Institute of Education (HoCEC, 2017) wrote:“ultimately, the status accorded to teaching is an important factor in attracting and retaining high calibre candidates. According to the OECD, 35% of teachers in England feel their profession is valued by society, compared with 66% in Korea and 60% in Finland.”If there is to be any hope of transforming the life chances of children and of reducing social inequalities, we need a teaching workforce that is confident, well-trained and trusted rather than demoralised, overburdened and under-prepared. While Schleicher (2011) argues for a collaborative model of reform in which teachers play a key part, successive Secretaries of State at the Department for Education have chosen the opposite path: a top-down model that is conceived of and imposed from the centre. The need for an alternative approachIn Wales, where education is currently undergoing an in-depth review to rewrite the curriculum and overhaul assessment procedures, the Welsh Government has recently commissioned a review of its progress from the OECD (2017). In its report, researchers commented that “in the future Wales will need a different type of teaching professional; one who has significantly more responsibility and understands the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’”.In Scotland, with the introduction of the 2010 Curriculum for Excellence (Scotland’s skills-based curriculum), there has been a move away from a top-down model of change to an approach which sees teachers as playing a central role. They are encouraged to be reflective practitioners who can share and develop ideas within their schools. A new National Improvement Framework introduced in 2016 cited teacher professionalism as one of the key drivers of improvement. The question for all who are concerned with education in England – and one that is frequently articulated is: How can the tide be turned so that teachers here feel valued and gain the support that they need to be the best that they can? This is where teacher voice comes in.Collaborative discussionA good start might be to create opportunities for discussion and collaboration within schools to mitigate the professional isolation that many staff feel. Not just opportunities to talk about their work, but opportunities to discuss the values, vision and direction of their school in order to develop a shared sense of purpose. Time needs to be set aside for this as happens, for example, in Finland. Many teachers go into teaching with high ideals. This motivation can be kept alive by encouraging ongoing reflection about school policies and the ways in which these facilitate the positive development of the school. For too long the majority of teachers have been excluded from such debate as it has been the preserve of school leaders and governors. Surely as some of the key stakeholders in a school they need to have a greater sense of ownership over their working environment and practices. While most schools have teacher representation on their governing bodies, their position is rarely one that is given much weight. This needs to change.American studies find that when teachers are engaged in school decisions and collaborate with school leaders and with each other, school climate improves (Singh, 2012). This promotes a better learning environment for students, which raises student achievement, and a better working environment for teachers, which reduces teacher turnover. Schools, therefore, have everything to gain from developing a more reflective and a more participative ethos. According to researcher, Richard Ingersoll (2003), data from the Schools and Staffing Survey administered by the US Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics shows that as teacher control over ‘social decisions’ (such as student discipline and teacher professional development policies) increases, the amount of conflict between students and staff, among teachers, and between teachers and the principal all decrease.Teachers as agents of changeThis resonates with research from Gert Biesta (Biesta et al., 2012) at the University of Stirling carried out as part of an ESRC project on Teacher Agency and Curriculum Change. Biesta points to the importance of relationships in the building of a collaborative culture which enables teachers to take responsibility and develop a sense of agency in their work. Studies he conducted in schools in Scotland which have introduced the Curriculum for Excellence, indicate the value of less hierarchical school management structures in enabling teachers “to address the complexities encountered in their implementation of a new curriculum”. In Scotland, education policy supports teachers to become agents of change and so it is instructive to look at the factors that make this possible.Some of the messages that can"
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HR and Staff Wellbeing

The Teaching Crisis

10 Oct 2018

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      string(5651) "OECD International Futures Programme (OECD 2016a) unsurprisingly concludes that young peoples’ daily lives as adults will be ‘radically different’ compared to today. The OECD predicts that the world economy, society, governance, technology (OCED 2016) and employment (ESPAS 2016:13) will be subject to ‘major transitions’ in the future. However, the OECD concludes that it is impossible to accurately predict what these ‘transitions’ will be or their impact on the future lives of children and young people. The World Economic Forum concludes that “in many industries and countries, the most in-demand occupations or specialties did not exist 10 or even five years ago, and the pace of change is set to accelerate. By one popular estimate, 65% of children entering primary school today will ultimately end up working in […] job types that don’t yet exist” (WEF 2016). In his 2006 ‘TED Talk’, Sir Ken Robinson observes that children “starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue […] what the world will look like in five years’ time. And yet we’re meant to be educating them for it. So the unpredictability, I think, is extraordinary.” (Robinson, 2006).The traditional response of policy makers to emergent challenge tends to be two-fold: (i) structural or systemic change and/or, (2) short-term policy goals (Ilott et al., 2016 with Norris and Adam, 2017). These responses are understandable in the context of the UK political cycle, which “naturally tends towards short-term activity” (Ilott et al., 2016:8) and the reality of education policy makers having a limited number of ‘levers’ to achieve change (Parliament. House of Commons, 2010, p.4). Ilott et al. (2016) and the National College for Teaching & Leadership (undated) remind us that many of the recent structural changes to education in England and Wales (including, but not limited to, the content and delivery of the National Curriculum, and professional standards for teachers) were often short-to-medium term solutions to long-term challenges. If were we to attempt to design an education system that would preempt the challenges of the future, the only resource available to us is our understanding of ‘now’, projected forward. History demonstrates that this resource will always be insufficient for the task: even the best-informed projection will be wrong, to a greater or lesser degree. For example, in 1964, the writer Arthur C. Clarke predicted with alarming accuracy the online world of 2014, and changes to employment. However, Clark also predicted with equal confidence the universal delegation of manual work to trained chimpanzees (Middleton, 2013).So, what is the alternative to attempting to build a ‘future-proofed’ educational system that will fail to accurately predict real-world change? The best evidence we have suggests that the most effective support that we can give to young people to meet the challenges of tomorrow is to embed pedagogies and practice that could be described as ‘future-aware’. ‘Future-aware’ pedagogies support young people to develop the mindset, capacities and characteristics required to meet new challenges as they arise, and on their own terms. In the following section, I suggest effective responses to the challenge of developing ‘future-aware’ pedagogies. Future-AwareA survey of key research literature1 provides a coherent and common ‘spine’ of key future-aware skills and capacities that young people will require in their adult lives: Effective collaborationBeing able to reflect on and extend knowledgeSelf-regulation and self-developmentResearch and problem solving skillsEffective use of technology CommunicationCreativity and innovationMetacognitionGrit and resilienceThere is a need to build the core strength of every child or young person. Core strength, defined as a ‘future-aware’ concept is “the confidence and ability to learn, develop and participate in society” (Achievement for All 2017). To do this, a three-step approach, based on evidence, is proposed: Step One: Every Child Included Children and young people are supported to identify themselves in terms of:Aspiration, ‘I can’ Access, ‘I do’ Attainment, ‘I have’Achievement, ‘I am’This self-aware and reflective identification equips children and young people to develop grit and resilience – they know they can achieve – and develops self-regulation and self-development – they know they can achieve more. Step Two: Building the FoundationsChildren and young people are supported to develop ‘future-aware’ skills and capacities, through: Inclusive school or setting leadership that meets the needs of children and young people.High-quality teaching and learning that closes the attainment gap and drives attainment and achievement. Wider outcomes and opportunities that develop children and young people’s engagement, positive behaviours, well-being, self-awareness, independence and self-efficacy.Game-changing engagement of parents and carers to embed aspiration, grit and resilience, motivation and self-development in the wider lives of children and young people. Step Three: The development of teams of significant adults and services that support all children and young peopleAchievement of All develops professionals at all levels through mutually ‘owned’ learning and support that deepens professional knowledge, capacity and confidenceTaken together, these"
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Digital Learning

Future Proofing our Young People

22 May 2018