June 2003

Accelerated Learning newsletter, June 2003

This month we look at two exciting examples of thinking outside the box: one is from a Derbyshire Primary, looking to inspire their pupils by creating a town within the school; the second is from Cornwall, where their EAZ challenged a group of KS3 pupils to design a Learning Centre for the county – the results were amazing! As we are looking towards the future of education we also provide some thoughts on the use of technology. To round off, a school in Hull explains how it creates the right climate for learning, a reader tells us how she was inspired and, on a lighter note, we take a look at what happens in RE when children don’t quite connect to what they’ve learnt.

Grangeton - learning meets its future

Headteacher Richard Gerver shares his plans for the school of the future. We like them!

‘Grange is currently undergoing a huge transformation from an under-performing school to one that offers all children the very best that modern primary education stands for. We are and will always be committed to the highest quality delivery of the National Curriculum to ensure excellent learning opportunities for the children. Our priority has to be the embedding of key skills that allow children to develop a palette that will enable them to investigate, research and problem solve, so that they develop as effective, motivated and independent learners.

At Grange we are not going to be satisfied with leaving it at that! We are committed to developing the whole child and to developing their educational and curricular experience beyond the classroom. We are going to offer children insights into their future. We are going to provide opportunities for children to develop their skills and knowledge on a contextual plane by creating a holistic and experiential environment.

Children learn most effectively when they are motivated and what motivates children is the same as what motivates us… relevance, experiences and opportunities that will be of benefit to us, that will help to improve our own lives. Too many children engage in learning because they have to and not because they want to. One of Grange’s biggest issues is the lack of self-motivation amongst the student body; the children who leave us in year 6 are struggling to become independent and therefore effective learners. They lack the sense of responsibility and the realisation of self-development that creates high quality learning profiles. They are mostly ready to be taught but too few are ready to engage in learning.

We have a real responsibility to develop meaningful opportunities for all of our children and that includes our gifted, talented and able pupils who need the opportunity to explore their talents, skills and motivations in real contexts that allow for high level problem solving and skills applications.

We must not patronise our children and limit their experiences just because of their age. All too often we underestimate children’s capabilities to adapt and meet challenges. It should not therefore be left until Secondary education to explore the vocational application of skills and knowledge that come with exposure to industry, profession and the work place.

Most importantly it is our duty to inspire and excite our children, to propel them on a journey that opens doors and maximises choices, gives education and learning a context, a relevance and a purpose within their own perceptions.

Grangeton will be the response to the commitment. Creating a miniature town within the bounds of the school will be a complicated and ambitious project that will require a huge commitment from staff, pupils, governors and members of our wider community. It is a project that must, as a result, have huge and measurable benefits. They include:

We need to create an environment that provides opportunities for all children with different interests and skills; children who are artistic, visual problem solvers, numerate, technical, communicators, organisers etc. children who want to extend their interests in History, Geography, Music etc. We must incorporate all aspects of information technology.

Initially the town will:

• Be overseen by the school council

It will offer:

• A museum charting the history of the school

• A modern, computer controlled library

• A website

• A newspaper

• A design team creating everything from, greetings cards to t-shirts, rulers to posters.

• A shop selling healthy eating foods and the above mentioned items.

• A job centre

• A language café

• A radio station

• A television studio that will generate documentaries following day-to-day life at school

The school will also offer opportunities for children to work as ‘buddies’, office receptionists and librarians.

We will be endeavouring to make the town as authentic as possible and to do this we will be working with local industry and business in training staff and pupils to create, maintain and develop real enterprises that will need financial planning, marketing, production, staffing and quality control.

We are already pleased to have secured commitments from:

The financial implications will be a factor in the pace of development but we will be looking to part fund developments year on year from within the school’s budget. We will also be looking to secure sponsorships and additional LEA funding. A projected timescale and estimated cost are part of the action plan.

When in place Grangeton will be the first project of its kind in the United Kingdom, it will be a powerful addition to a proud and committed school, helping it to become what we all want, which is a beacon of excellence providing the very best education for our children.’

Ten Thoughts on Using Technology

The technology tail should not wag the learning dog. A structured model for engaging learning becomes even more important when there is a proliferation of information technologies in and around classrooms. Here are some considerations:

1. Impress me! Expensive technology brings pressure on staff to quickly show expertise in its use. Prepare for this by planning the training before installation. Don’t delegate the training to the suppliers!

2. Nerd creep: Love of the technology for its own sake exerts a negative pressure on good teaching and squeezes it out

3. Ability divides: Disparities in staff use and understanding of the classroom applications of the technology will quickly widen

4. Curriculum lag: The curriculum is not re-thought as quickly as the technology is

5. Fit for purpose: Use a balance of technology which is fit for purpose – one large classroom installed electronic whiteboard, small mobile whiteboards, portable digital projection facilities, mobile radio laptops, preparation tablets – rather than put all your eggs in an expensive basket

6. FiFi: Fit it, Forget it! Avoid installing expensive technology and then forgetting it. Review its use and influence regularly

7. Piles: Avoid piling new learning and teaching demands on top of an old model of what is needed

8. Think Loopy. Think of class work, private study and homework as a loop system

9. Mind the gap: Use technology to decrease the gaps between home and school, community and school, the world and school

10. Whose technology? Consider how the technology actively and meaningfully engages the learner: investigate its use by structured classroom observation. Ask who uses it and when? How does it influence classroom interactions? What happens to problem solving? Discussion? How does differentiation exhibit itself?

Bible Libel

We regularly point out the importance of providing good connections in learning. But connections are not always as well secured as they should be, as these young schoolchildren studying the Bible show…

• The Jews were a proud people and throughout history they had trouble with the unsympathetic Genitals.

• The first commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple

• Noah's wife was called Joan of Ark.

• Noah built an ark which the animals came on to in pears.

• It was a miracle when Jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the tombstone off the entrance

• Solomon, one of David's sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

• David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Finklesteins, a race of people who lived in Biblical times.
  

Brain Wave: the largest learning forum in the country

“Wouldn't it be great to be able to run a school the way we want to...?” It had only been a moment of reverie, but don’t great events always start like this?

Next month, between the 7th and 12th July, Brain Wave II 2003 will take place in Cornwall. The original Brain Wave, in July last year, saw three Secondary Schools (Camborne School and Community College, Pool School and Community College, and Redruth School: A Technology College) jointly send 90 Year 7 to 9 students to CPR College, Camborne to realise the dream brought about by that blue sky comment months earlier.

The Brain Wave school had the explicit aim of trying to attain high academic standards while focusing on the process of pupils’ learning and their motivation, rather than through focusing on what was to be taught. We wanted to maximise the learning of everyone involved, whilst fostering a love of learning, self awareness, self belief and a sense of place within their community. Our curriculum was designed to deliver a wide range of knowledge, skills and attitudes within a high challenge framework. The task was to design a Learning Centre for Cornwall. In order to successfully achieve this, they needed to provide a range of evidence by the end of the Thursday.

This learning was designed to reflect and accommodate:

• New, experimental and innovative educational ideas

• New knowledge about the brain and student motivation

• Cross curricular links with academic rigor

• Formative assessment

• The five stage learning cycle

• The different ways students process information (VAKO)

• Students’ different learning styles

• Collaboration at and between all parties, including parents

• Opportunist teaching and learning

• Student leadership

• A range of thinking skills and a toolkit for their development (De Bono’s Six Hats, Funnel Questioning, QuADS, KWL, PMI, Mind Mapping etc.)

• A balanced focus on process and content – the how and what of learning

• Maximising the release of potential

Our students were organised into eight families of 15 students in two vertical mixed teams. Each family worked in their home base room with two peer tutors (Year 10 and 11 students from the same schools, trained to support learning) and a teacher. These staff were supported by a Headteacher (with authority delegated to them by the planning team), three administrators, one IT technician and three senior peer tutors (responsible for coordinating the work of the adults, Peer Tutors and students).

The Brain Wave building was open between 8am and 8pm with Breakfast and Homework Clubs, run by peer tutors, offered to all. Every day was planned around a five stage learning cycle (pre-conditions for learning, setting the scene/big picture, input, activity, and review and reflection). The core parts of each day started with a collective assembly for all and ended with a time for personal reflection. Students were asked to self assess the ‘what and how’ of their learning that day and, whilst peer tutors provided each student with written feedback about their participation and contributions, teachers did the same for peer tutors.

The week’s timetable for Brain Wave proved to be flexible and fluid. Each day had a clearly defined focus but, within this, teams and students were able to organise their own work and learning in order to best achieve the outcomes listed above. The days included visiting possible sites for the Learning Centre; obtaining experiences of pre-existing Learning Centres; designing and working on their ideas; and presenting their work to interested parties and invited VIPS. There was even a last minute change of building regulations, when they were informed that their Learning Centre had to be energy sustainable. Achievement of this would involve getting every team member up to, or beyond, Science National Curriculum level 5 in alternative energy. This provocation had been deliberately chosen, as none of the Brain Wave teachers were Science specialists. These were invited in on that day to be interviewed about their knowledge by the student groups.

During the week I began to realise just how much potential all students have and how limiting even the very best Secondary school classroom practice can be. In so many instances the students greatly exceeded even my high expectations of them – for example some teams:

• produced promotional materials in five different languages

• computed spreadsheets that impressed even advanced level students and teachers

• made contact with estate agents to find suitable plots of land and their price implications

• took total responsibility for filing and presenting their folders of work produced during the week

• asked questions that the Marine Aquarium director described as ‘better than those posed by most adult audiences’

• impressed Science teachers with National Curriculum levels usually achieved only by Key Stage 4 students

• had T-shirts printed with their logo

• produced PowerPoint presentations demonstrating real flair in their marketing campaigns.

The students’ team presentations on the final day really brought home to me what students can do when the learning ‘glass ceiling’ is lifted. Not a single student said, “I can’t do that.” It made me realise that students with self esteem, confidence and a self awareness about the skills they have and how to learn independently, can and do achieve anything!

For the first time ever, I began to visualise what an ideal Secondary school building could look like and how it could operate. Brain Wave gave me hope for the future, hope for a better way of building collaborative learning communities, with exponentially developing skills and knowledge, driven by people with a strong moral and social purpose.

Sue Sayer is an AST on secondment to the CPR Success Zone, the only Education Action Zone in Cornwall. She will be presenting details of Brain Wave at Alite 2003 at the Café Royal on 20th June. See the website for more details.

Reader’s Tip

Substitute the word work with the word learning – Homework suddenly takes on a whole new meaning.
Work is a chore; learning is something much more important
Jarlath Madine, The Primary Excellence Team, Kent

A League of Their Own

Stepney Primary School is a small inner city school in Hull. Many of our pupils arrive at school lacking self-confidence and with chequered school careers behind them. They often feel they are useless at school lessons and consequently have grown reluctant to try anything new because, in their eyes, they have never been any good at anything and so won’t be now. Our children are the sort that people look at and say, “Well, they do well to even get here each day.” However, our motto is A small school with great expectations and so we say, “They’ve done well to get here, now let’s make it worth their while!”

One particularly challenging group was a Year 6 class that I taught. They not only lacked self-confidence, but had already given up on themselves and were ill equipped to deal with the challenges that would face them in May. Behaviour and attitudes were poor. In addition, the majority of the class would not even put pen to paper for fear of getting something wrong. I decided I needed to be as positive as possible and try to develop a climate where it was okay to get things wrong. I used partner talk to give pupils the confidence to answer questions in class and they were thanked for providing possible answers even if these turned out to be wrong. One phrase was repeated over and over again: “Remember, it’s not wrong to be wrong – only wrong not to find out why you’re wrong.” Children were encouraged to offer explanations and to correct themselves and also to correct others in a positive way.

Central to turning the class around was the creation of their own positive attitude. We developed a Premier League of Attitude, which began with pupils identifying what they considered a good attitude to be. They were encouraged to be specific and focus on one aspect that they would try to do. For this, we used a big piece of paper in the middle of the circle during circle time. Each child wrote their idea on a post-it and placed it on the paper.

“A good attitude is...

• having a go even when I find something difficult.”

• using the names of people on my table.”

• making eye contact with the person I am speaking to.”

Everyone starts from the same place in the Premier League each Monday. As with all leagues, they can be promoted or relegated, though there is room for more than one person at the top, so potentially every child could head the league. We look at it twice a day, at the end of the morning and at the end of the afternoon, to see who is up or down. Children can slip into the relegation zone for bad attitudes and be relegated from there. If a child is relegated they don’t get a Friday prize, which is awarded to everyone in the Premier League on the last day. They can, however, still earn other class rewards, such as miniature heroes. Promotion back into the league is also a possibility as soon as their attitude improves. I have found this works well with competitive boys in particular.

Each day pupils who have displayed a positive attitude in their behaviour or work are rewarded with a miniature hero certificate to take home to share the good news with parents and a chance to enter the end of half term raffle. The idea of miniature heroes occurred after one CSA brought in a big tin of Miniature Heroes chocolates for the class at Christmas. We were left with a lovely big tin and decided that we wanted to extend the certificate scheme that we had been using. So I made a template (a little like a ginger bread boy shape) from which the miniature heroes are made. When the children earn their certificate for premier attitudes they put their name on one of these cut out figures and place it in the tin. At the end of every half term we have a draw for four names, who carry off a fairly substantial prize (at Easter it was an Easter egg). Obviously, the more miniature heroes you earn the better the chance you have of being drawn out and so far it has worked like that! Constant review of what is meant by a premier attitude is needed, with individual pupils providing the role models and being praised specifically for this. I would add, though, that it is important to tailor rewards to your class: different classes have different needs and different motivations. I might not use some of this with my next class or I might adapt it.

This is just one – but one very successful – method I have used to create a purposeful learning environment in my classroom. Music, Brain Breaks and motivational sayings uttered by the children’s role models are some of the other methods I have used. However, one final – and surprising – benefit of using these strategies was seen during our annual residential visit. Using guided visualisation techniques and pole bridging forty-eight pupils managed to pack and clear their rooms leaving only one flannel behind! If you’ve ever been away with children then you will appreciate the significance of this feat!

Helen Thomson is Deputy Headteacher of Stepney Primary, Hull. Together with the Headteacher, Amraz Ali, she will be presenting more details at Alite 2003 about how the school creates the right climate for learning. For more information visit www.alite.co.uk.

Believe – and live your dream

Reading the recent article on self-esteem, I recalled how my future was re-shaped by one comment from a teacher who had not even taught me. It was my last day at a school in Cheshunt in July 1973 and I had been offered a place on a private secretarial course. As I was literally just about to go through the vestibule door for the last time, Miss Mitchelmore, an RE teacher, asked me what my plans were. I told her about the secretarial course, to which she replied, “Is that what you want to do?” I immediately said that it wasn’t, but in those days, and in a middle of the road school, it was accepted that it would be a good career for us. Miss Mitchelmore then asked what I wanted to do. “Foreign languages,” I replied. “Then do it!” She was really quite emphatic.

I went on to do A-levels and a degree in languages, and now speak fluent French, German and Spanish. I have worked both here and abroad in a varied career. This July I complete my probationary year as an MFL teacher. It is by far the hardest profession I have ever chosen, but that is another story!!
Elaine Game

Alite 2003, Making it Happen

Simon Weston OBE is just one of four leading experts from the world of motivation and learning who are joining forces for Alite 2003 on 20 June.

This inspiring event, which will take place at the Café Royal, London, is designed to showcase how practitioners throughout the country are leading innovation, fostering creativity and transforming learning.

Alistair Smith, founder and director of Alite, says: “The key points that we are setting out to explore at Making It Happen include how inspirational leadership can shape the future of education, what needs to be done to create school frameworks that support positive change and how can we move to the next level with modern learning methods.”

The Conference agenda is packed with essential tools for educators who are serious about ‘making it happen’ in their organisation. The conference has been designed to ensure that in just one day you will:

• hear three nationally recognised experts who are really making a difference in the field of teaching and learning

• visit more than a dozen different learning fair stands, hear from the experts and see their work

• attend a combination of three practitioner presentations

• leave with a conference book of over 100 pages

• see the best books and resources currently available

• join the UK's most exciting network of leading learners

Each Case Study presented at Making it Happen will be written up in the conference documents. This will provide you with a description of what has been done and how, the context, examples of many of the resources used and contact details. Each of the keynoters is also included so that, on the day, you do not need to do anything other than listen, ask questions, think and enjoy yourself.
We look forward to seeing you at the Café Royal on 20th June!

For more details, contact the Alite office on 01628 810700 or via email: office@alite.co.uk

Masterclass – new dates!

The 2003 Alite Masterclass Series with Paul Ginnis and Alistair Smith was a sell-out success in Leeds and London.

We are delighted to be able to announce new dates for 2004. The Masterclass will take place in London on 27th February 2004. Further dates will be announced shortly for Leeds and Manchester. For more details, visit the website at www.alite.co.uk

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