Leadership

Enter The Learning Ambassadors

It started as students advising staff on how to improve teaching and learning. It became a major programme of student led research into school improvement.

Pershore High School is an academy in South Worcestershire for approximately 1100 students, aged 12 to 18. Before the school introduced the Learning Ambassadors programme (a joint initiative with Schools of Tomorrow (www.schoolsoftomorrow.org), student views were always valued as part of what was then known as the Leading on Learning strategy. Their opinions were gathered regularly through surveys that included questions based upon Local Authority and OFSTED guidelines. Groups of young people also met regularly with senior staff and governors to discuss issues and share their views.

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      string(354) "... was a pioneer training school, working in partnership with the University of Nottingham to train future language teachers. We have also been privileged to have ambassadors from Germany, Rwanda and Bulgaria visit the College and become patrons.The international dimension at Hockerill Anglo-European College has become deeply embedded. We ..."
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      string(5626) "56 Vol 1.3 n www.teachingtimes.comSchool Business Finance & FundraisingSchool Leadership TodayA fair deal for internationallearning Are new immigration laws undermining moves towards an international curriculum? Principal Simon Dennis shares his experience, while the UK Border Agency explains the rulesI n the last ten years UK schools have become increasingly interested in international education. Quite rightly, schools have recognised the value of an active international programme, both as an extracurricularactivity and as a part of their mainstream curriculum provision. The international links often supported by EU funding or the British Council range from exchanges, visits, sharing of resources and teaching methods to videoconference links and much more.The International School Award has also encouraged schools to embed a global dimension in their curriculum. This has certainly proved popular, judging by the number of International School Award marks appearing on school letterheads. But we have to step back and ask ourselves if we are really serious about the value we place on internationalising our educational experience for students in UK schools. Are we offering the best experience possible? At Hockerill Anglo-European College we believe strongly that there is more we can do in this area.Hockerill College was established in 1980 as an Essex boarding57www.teachingtimes.com n Vol 1.3School BusinessFinance & Fundraisingschool (having previously been a teacher training college for women dating back to the 1850s). In 1994 the college opted to become self-governing and changed the name to Hockerill Anglo- European College to reflect the school’s European outlook and the international dimension in the curriculum. The college also opened its doors to day students for the first time.In 1998 the college became one of the first specialised language colleges in the country, offering the International Baccalaureate programme as the only course of study for sixth formers. Two years later Hockerill was a pioneer training school, working in partnership with the University of Nottingham to train future language teachers. We have also been privileged to have ambassadors from Germany, Rwanda and Bulgaria visit the College and become patrons.The international dimension at Hockerill Anglo-European College has become deeply embedded. We have partner schools in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Romania, Japan, India and Rwanda, with annual exchanges and visits. All students now study at least two modern foreign languages up to GCSE. Nearly all our students reach the end of Year 11 genuinely bilingual and some are trilingual.The mix of students from a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds is what makes Hockerill such an exciting place for learning. Walking around the college, you can hear English, German, Spanish and many other languages being spoken not just by native speakers. If we believe our role is preparing our students to become genuine global citizens rather than just tourists then this surely is what international education means.Legal constraints Unfortunately we are sadly constrained by current UK legislation from developing our international experience further to include students from other countries located outside the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland. These students are entitled to enter the UK freely and have an automatic right of residence for up to three months without needing to demonstrate that they are exercising a right of free movement, for example, to study or work. Once accepted on to a course of study, the student has a right of residence in the UK for as long as the course lasts. In this context, EEA and Swiss students can attend a maintained educational establishment and their tuition will be free at the point of delivery and fees will be recovered by the local authority under reciprocal government arrangements.However, ‘international’ students – meaning those from outside the EEA and Switzerland – cannot access tuition in the same way. They require visas under the UK Border Agency’s new Points Based System, and these will not be provided for students applying to state schools unless they fit into a very limited group of applicants: for example, if they are the dependent of an ‘international’ parent living in the catchment area and with leave to work in the UK.Even in these limited situations a maintained school cannot charge the student any tuition fees because under sections 450 and 451 of the Education Act 1996 no fees may currently be charged to any students in respect of the admission to or tuition from any maintained education establishment. Fees canonly be charged for boarding and maintenance costs. At Hockerill we receive many applications from excellentstudents and their families residing in non-EEA countries who would benefit greatly from coming to the UK to study alongside other students from all over the world. While it is open to us to arrange an exchange scheme under which a young person (normally between 16 and 18 years of age) can spend up to 12 months in the educational system of another country, the Home Office states that student exchanges should not involve tuition fees.The irony is that if these students applied to an independent school or sixth form college they would be welcomed and those institutions will be free to raise a charge for tuition in respect of that attendance.There are a number of good reasons for the current law prohibiting maintained schools from charging for tuition. It ensures that maintained establishments"
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Leadership

A fair deal for international learning

24 Jul 2009

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      string(5650) "Spaces  Volume 1:3Case Studywww.teachingtimes.comschool holidays. However the school’s Principalknew that the longer opening hours and increasedfootfall would mean higher electricity and waterbills, and so he took advice from the CollaborativePartnership and installed a Power Perfector, a reallyeffective energy efficiency measure, which loweredthe voltage costs.Mark Avoth said that support from his governorswas crucial. They were very concerned and took theirdue diligence responsibilities very seriously. Theywere determined to make sure that the businessmodel was robust and that no money would be takenout of the teaching and learning budget.  “We hadmany meetings to clarity points. On the one hand,you could say it was a risk to enter into a commercialpartnership but it would profit our young people andit has proved beneficial.”His advice to others who are contemplating settingup a similar project is that schools need to be clearabout their goals, “Don’t go into a project like this justto make money. Your aim should be to create a goodquality service for young people and the community.Don’t just go for a single sports facility.  Think in termsof a campus built around the gym.  That’s what willbring people in.”Enthusing the pupilsWhile all pupils use the gym as a matter of course intheir lessons it is important to make sure they becomegood ambassadors too.  One way of doing this is toinvolve them from the very beginning. Avon ValleySports College made sure that early discussionsincluded not just senior management and the PEdepartment but also the Head Boy, Head Girl andStudent Executive who would act as a conduit toother students.“Pupil Voice” was a key element in the PrimaryCapital and also Building Schools for the FutureProgrammes, but it can be hard to manage.Sometimes pupils have great ideas but unrealisticexpectations. It is a learning curve for them as theyfind out about costs and the processes which needto be considered in the real world.  This can be verydifferent from the kind of knowledge and thinkingrequired for a school project or for a businesssimulation.In recent months, Avon Valley Sports College hashosted visits by pupils from another school which isconsidering installing a gym. Those pupils now havean insider view of what needs to be addressed.  Asa result of their connection with Avon Valley SportsCollege, they have now set up a panel to discusstheir ideas with Andy Davidson. He welcomes thisapproach because pupils and, by extension, the staffare better informed and are addressing the issues ata deeper level.The business modelThe agreement between Avon Valley SportsCollege and Competition Line is a revenueshare partnership. Competition Line recruitedthe gym staff and is their employer at present.When profits increase they will become collegeemployees.  There are advantages for bothparties.  The school acquired first class facilities itcould not otherwise have afforded and in return 53 Volume 1:3  Learning SpacesCase Studywww.teachingtimes.comit provides access to a ready made potentialmarket made up of parents and carers, sixthformers and school leavers. So far the gym hasapproximately 400 members and is currentlyexceeding its financial projections.It’s a ‘win win’ situation for the college. Unusedor existing space is revitalised. All the school has todo is make its gym available to the local communityoutside school hours.  Revenue generated is thenshared between the school and the constructionpartner and used to boost budgets for educationalestablishments such as Avon Valley Sports Collegewhich may have been hit hard by the current publicsector cuts.Plans for the futureThe school  is keen to use the new facilities to extendthe vocational opportunities for young people.Avon Valley is a sports college and so most of thestudents will study for sports related qualificationsfor Higher Education courses or as a way into theleisure industry.  Alongside the academic elementthere could be opportunities for work experience inmany areas from cleaning to customer care.The next logical step is to offer apprenticeships.The school will not benefit financially from thisbecause young people have to be out of educationand training to qualify for an apprenticeship, but thecollege sees it as part of the its commitment to itsstudents. The Principal feels  it is really important tokeep as many young people as possible in educationand training and these facilities help to  provideanother route for them.Andy Davidson echoed this view, saying:,“Apprenticeships mean that the young people getpaid while working towards professionally recognisedqualifications. Vocational education in any form is agreat training ground for tomorrow’s employees.It gives them the chance to work alongside older 54 Learning Spaces  Volume 1:3Case Studywww.teachingtimes.compeople, learn on the job and extend their peopleskills which may not be fully developed in formalschool education.”Lessons for Avon Valley SportsCollegeThe college has seen great advantages for its studentsalready.  One major challenge for all schools is to keepteenage girls interested in exercise and sport so staffare delighted that they now have two after schoolfitness clubs with up to 25 girls in each.The gym at Avon Valley Sports College has beenopen for six months and Mark Avoth is still fired up bythe project, “Our young people now want to take partin running or rowing and challenge themselves to seehow fast they can go. They want to build their staminaand try to emulate the Olympians. Our students nowhave access to a"
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Learning Spaces

LS1.3_p50-54_Making school budgets go further

26 Sep 2012

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      string(5599) "This month’s FeaturesCould ‘Thinkspaces’offer a new wayto teach coding inschools?According to a recent statement by Middlesex University, networks such as ‘ThinkSpace’ will be vital in teaching schoolchildren how to code and further develop their skills before attending University. So what is the ThinkSpace initiative? Herewe explain…ThinkSpace is a non-profit start-up founded in Plymouth by schoolboy, JamesAnderson, from Devonport High School for Boys, with the aim of promotingcoding in schools at GCSE level.He and his friends were frustrated with the ICT curriculum, which focuses on using software likeExcel and Powerpoint rather than the technical skills they will need to develop their own apps,games and software – so they began to look at other ideas.Initially they wanted to create a sort of Apple Genius Bar-style technology clinic, wherestudents could get help with their devices. However this evolved into the idea of teaching morestudents how to build their own apps, and this became ‘ThinkSpace’.The idea is simple.  Build physical creative environments in schools where students canlearn to code and build apps. Then create a virtual community – not just within the room butamong other Thinkspaces around the world – where they can share their inspirations, successesand failures.In essence, ThinkSpace aims to get schools to create dedicated zones where students canlearn how to code in an informal, fun environment.http://www.teachingtimes.comThis month’s FeaturesJames said he and his friends had toteach themselves how to build apps andwanted to transfer those skills to others.Since the concept was born, Jameshas recruited a network of ambassadors toreplicate the Thinkspace idea in their ownschools.Organisations already exist, such asCode Club, but they are only in primaryschools, while movements like Code.org aremore like petitions than anything practical.the school needs to sign up to the socialnetwork Thinkspace Social, and they canthen begin inviting students to join in.James said: “We are trying to get rid ofthe stereotypes associated with the wordscode, coding, programmers… and make itcool to create apps. That’s why we are notusing the word code in our name.”The idea is that the Thinkspace would beopen during break and lunch and studentswould be able to drop in and out, as well as‘chill-out, eat lunch, read magazines’. Onepart of the Thinkspace would be focusedon design, while another would be morefocused on development.Supporting the technology is a socialnetwork, built by James, where schools canaccess tutorials, resources, how to videos,educational podcasts, interviews withexperts, and other materials. The hope isthat Thinkspaces could be run by the olderstudents teaching the younger ones.Thinkspace has already attractedthe support of Jimmy Wales, the founderof Wikipedia, Apple co-founder SteveWozniak and Twitter’s Dick Costolo, amongothers. The concept has similarities withGoogle Campus, the seven-floor facilityin East London that offers start-up firms aAlthough Thinkspace isn’t trying tochange the curriculum, it is trying to getschools to create their own Thinkspaces –computer workshops where students are freeto create and collaborate on any softwarethey want.To join the programme, schools don’tnecessarily have to have a high-techdevelopment lab – any space with enoughcomputers for all the students who wantto participate will do. A teacher fromplace to collaborate and get mentoring helpfrom experts, as well as the after-schoolCode Clubs that have been established in anumber of primary schools.Initiatives like these are designedto address the gap in teaching codingbetween primary and secondary education,and college and further education.While there are plenty of universitycourses that teach coding – MiddlesexUniversity, for example, offers a computerscience degree alongside a variety ofrelated courses – there is a lack of syllabiteaching similar skills at A-level and GCSE.Part of the problem is a lack ofeducators who are qualified to teachcoding: or rather, a lack of motivatingfactors for those with the skills andknowledge to enter the world of teaching.Experienced programmers can earnsignificantly higher salaries working forprivate companies than they can teaching http://www.teachingtimes.comhttp://www.mdx.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/computing_it/computer_science_bsc.aspxhttp://www.mdx.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/computing_it/computer_science_bsc.aspxThis month’s Featuresin schools, so there is little reason for themto make the switch. This makes it difficult tointegrate coding into the GCSE syllabusnationwide, leaving it up to voluntaryinitiatives, like Thinkspace and Codeclub toget children programming earlier.However, there is some progress. Arecent Department of Education shake-upof the computing curriculum will removethe necessity of teaching basic officeapplication skills like Word and Excel, andadd in the teaching of programming forchildren as young as five. The curriculum,which is due to come into place fromSeptember 2014, will teach the creationand debugging of simple programs inKey Stage One, and an understandingof computer networks and search in KeyJames Anderson starting out by simply searching online ‘how to build an iPhone app,’ he was enlisted byhis school to build a homework tracker and organisational app for his fellow students. That led him downa path of extra-curricular learning and app development, which helped him reach a level vastly ahead ofhis peers.Without a developer license for"
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Digital Learning

Could ‘Thinkspaces’ offer a new way to teach coding in schools?

5 Jun 2014

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      string(344) "developed across and beyond any partof the curriculum. Now that this argument has largelypermeated our education system, perhaps now is thetime to refocus on what particular contribution the artsand culture can play in developing these skills. There is along history of research and evidence around the impactof culture on learning ..."
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      string(5674) "developed across and beyond any partof the curriculum. Now that this argument has largelypermeated our education system, perhaps now is thetime to refocus on what particular contribution the artsand culture can play in developing these skills. There is along history of research and evidence around the impactof culture on learning. The Find Your Talent programme,timed to coincide with the development of the newcurriculum at Key Stage 3, the birth of 14-19 diplomas, andeventually the changes to the primary curriculum, as well asthe new QCA focus on personalised learning and thinkingskills, gives us a new impetus to innovate and improve ourunderstanding of what culture can do.The pathfinder programme is crucial, but can onlyever be part of the story. To achieve the transformationour children deserve, we need not just a campaign but acoalition for culture and young people. We have always hada campaign, with cultural institutions and artists, schoolsand teachers making their own case for culture. But, untilnow, this has been atomised and at times divisive: ‘My artform is better than yours/gets less funding than yours’.The prize, a universal cultural offer for all children andyoung people, has now been dangled in front of us byGovernment, and is too great to allow these divisions tocontinue.To win the argument, we first need to communicateevidence of demand – that people want this. The largenumber of applications to the Find Your Talent programmedemonstrated one level of demand, but we need tounearth the demand from parents, children and youngpeople. Second, we need to communicate evidence of 67Teaching Thinking&Creativity  Vol 9:3www.teachingtimes.co.uk   Creativity, Culture & Education (CCE)outcomes – that this is why people want this. Finally,we need to communicate evidence of our proposition– this is how we should do this. Again, the pathfinders arehelping to find out how, but we need the views of anyonepassionate about culture and young people to help createthe evidence and shape the proposition. Young peoplewill also be involved, at pathfinder and national level, indesigning this proposition.  You can register your interestat enquiries@findyourtalent.orgCulture is the means through which, as human beings,we understand and create our identities. And if that isn’tcentral to the learning game, it is difficult to see what is.Joe Hallgarten is leading the Find your Talent programme.In April 2008, the Find Your Talent programmereceived 141 applications, from which 10 areas wereselected as pathfinders:BoltonCustoms House (North and South Tyneside)Partnership for Urban South Hampshire (PUSH) (serving specific areas in Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton)LeedsLeicestershire (Young Ambassadors)Liverpool City Region (serving Knowsley, Liverpool and St Helens)North SomersetShepway (serving Shepway District and including Folkestone, Hythe and Romney Marsh)Telford and WrekinTower HamletsMany of the pathfinders are focussing on exploringhow their programmes can impact on young people’scapacities for creative and critical thinking.Bolton will be working with the CreativePartnerships programme in Greater Manchesterto focus on the development of ‘diagonal thinking’,the distinctive and uncommon ability to thinkin two complementary ways, where the brainoscillates between linear and  lateral thinking. Thesecharacteristics, often thought to be contradictory,produce a potent mix which is particularly apposite toworking in advertising and other parts of the creativeindustries.Customs House will develop with teachers andcultural professionals in North and South Tynesideways to explore the Creativity Wheel developedby Pease West Primary School in Durham. This canbe used to assess the impact of cultural activity onchildren and young people’s learning and criticalthinking skills.●●●●●●●●●●Leicester & Leicestershire are initiating ‘SmallBodies, Big Voices’ targeted at 0-5 years, their parentsand carers. The project will explore through danceand movement child centred learning and explore thelinks to the Reggio Emilio approach which will involveeach child, parent and early years setting recording andreflecting on the work and development.Leicester & Leicestershire are also using the ArtsAward as a framework for engaging young people todevelop their critical thinking and leadership skills.Schools will work together with youth groups and artsorganisations to share knowledge and expertise andto engage each other in a more critical dialogue aboutopportunity and choice in Arts and Culture. See www.artsaward.org.ukLiverpool City Region will be working with CreativePartnerships Merseyside to develop a tool for children,young people and adults to assess their strengthsand potential areas for growth in relation to PersonalLearning and Thinking Skills.  These will be mapped ontothe PLTS (Personal Learning and Thinking Skills) thata range of creative and cultural professionals workingin a range of art forms and disciplines use each day oftheir working lives. One of the aspirations is that youngpeople who feel they would like to enter the creativeindustries but don’t yet have a specific job or art formin mind can reflect upon who they are and get pointerson the types of career that would allow them to excel.North Somerset will target young people in LocalAuthority care to develop their critical and leadershipskills. The ‘virtual school’ project is using critical skillsto support the planning and delivery of a film-makingproject – ‘Barriers to Learning’. The"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Culture change

18 Jun 2009