Dan Buckley is a Principal Consultant
for Cambridge Education working on the Building
Schools for the Future and Academies programmes.
As winner of both the BECTA National ICT in Practice
award for Secondary Leadership and of the National
Teaching Award for Innovative use of ICT, Dan
has considerable experience of leading edge innovation
in schools. Prior to his current role, Dan worked
at Eggbuckland Community College
There are many compelling visions for the future
of education currently on offer. However, actually
transforming a school to meet the aspirations
of such a vision is a completely different matter.
Clearly, the vision and its implementation must
be tailored to the specific contextual constraints
of the school and, in the absence of state-led
abandonment, must also continue with some of the
processes it aims to replace. When I undertook
this challenge at Eggbuckland Community College
I found the approach to be somewhat like mixing
a cocktail: the ingredients might be known, but
the success lies within combining these. Clearly,
there is no 'best' cocktail, but with
creativity, e-learning, a skill based curriculum,
student empowerment and leadership, learning networks
and inclusion as ingredients, the resulting learning
cocktail is a potent one for the future.
Analogy exhausted, I don't want simply
to outline a vision of learning in the future,
categorised and described in a slightly different
way from others. I want to be pragmatic about
how we begin to address the large scale transformation
of learning which I am convinced has to happen.
Clearly before embarking on such a transformation
you need to make sure that the bare bones of your
vision are secure.
A Vision of What it May be Like to Be
a Learner in 2020
Your mobile device can be used to take video or
just photos, edit, compose and record music, email,
surf the internet - and every student will
have one. Hands-free versions may use special
glasses that allow you to see a virtual screen
in front of you or possibly 3D projections. The
device is integral to your life and most of your
learning, leisure and communication involves its
use in some form or another.
Your learning begins in a very structured way,
concentrating on skills development. Mentors,
teachers and parents will determine priorities
and set your direction but, as you become older,
it becomes the skills framework that is managed;
the content, knowledge base and context is increasingly
determined by you, or other teams of learners,
who need to employ your skills or provide you
with specific training.
Most learning will be problem-based and, as you
embark on a project, your mobile device allows
you to research, build up an advice network, produce
work using a range of media and assess your development.
Such assessments will be added directly to your
ongoing bank of data, which will draw from teachers'
entries of their observations, team members'
assessment, online assessment and distance mentor
assessment. Key elements of your online record
of achievement will be derived from your ability
to offer guidance and assessment to other students.
All learning will be through collaborative networks
of one form or another. Key skills, specific skills
and behaviours will form the focus for your work
and your assessment.
As you work through your learning, your assessment
database will alert you to certain weaknesses
and propose routes you could take to correct these.
The database could either inform the school when
you are owed the presentation of a certificate
or it could provide details of the stage you have
reached at a given date or age.
On leaving school your learning continues in
the same way, but many of the tasks you will be
solving will originate from your workplace. Your
qualifications can be interrogated by an employer
simply by having selective access to your assessment
data bank or by seeing the evidence files you
will have developed through your project work.
Your learning networks will contain less face-to-face
working but the processes will not differ greatly.
In fact, you will be used to working within the
confines set by a given company as, for all of
your secondary school years, you will have had
work-based mentors who will already have provided
some of the impetus behind your projects.
Schools will still contain experts and people
who are excellent at teaching and will still fulfil
their supervisory role. Classes may be larger
than thirty or may be dispersed, depending on
your preferred learning style.
Timetabling will be dynamic and schools will
offer a range of opportunities for learners of
all ages to opt in to as their needs require.
Outside agencies and local employers will be an
integral part of this rich mixture and learners
who have demonstrated the necessary skills will
have a wider range of opportunities made available
to them. The e-portfolio which collects all this
evidence will increasingly be managed independently
by the learners. For example, a learner in early
years will have daily or hourly discussions with
their mentor or teacher who will look at their
learning profile and help them decide which areas
they wish to improve and how they could do this.
In secondary school this meeting may be weekly
and will allow the learner to negotiate a number
of targets. They then plan their learning and
choose the range of opportunities both in and
out of school which will allow them to gather
the required evidence. Progress will be measured
by means of a wide range of statements that describe
specific behaviours. The only reason for introducing
such scales are so that the system can generate
as many measurements as our current examination
system and thereby ensure that the culture of
evidence based testing, monitoring and inspection
can be maintained. In this way ICT provides a
'middle way' to the antagonism of
skills based and examination based education systems.
Making the Vision A Reality
If this is the future of learning, then we need
to simultaneously transform our institutions on
a number of fronts. I have identified five such
strands of development emerging from this vision,
which must converge as the vision is realised.
Whilst it is true that each strand could be developed
separately, it is the inter-relation between them
that provides the most interesting transformation
models. It is my view that development must therefore
happen in all strands simultaneously, and in parallel.
1. Creativity. All students will need to be able
to interpret, manipulate, gather evidence and
express themselves through all media. They must
have the tools to investigate their own preferred
learning styles and understand those of others.
2. Skills-based, rather than content-based curriculum.
We will lose the notion that 'vocational'
courses are for those who can't achieve
the true 'gold standard' of academic
study. Our new 'gold standard' will
be attained by those who operate effectively in
any context, inspire others and facilitate independence
of mind. Validation systems must be flexible enough
to credibly value achievement if it demonstrates
improvement, and maintain self-esteem and direction
if it doesn't.
3. Student Empowerment. Students will be in charge
of the content, the assessment and the mode of
learning. They will be active in their pursuit
of learning and able to teach others around them.
They will have true responsibility within the
system and feel able to take control of the pastoral
development of others.
4. Validating the abilities of young people, by
recognising their choice of learning style. The
current inclusion agenda provides an invaluable
insight into the requirements of such a system.
Our aim should be to allow students as much choice
as possible, given the need to provide appropriate
challenge, range and inspiration.
5. Learning networks and the new role of the teacher.
We must set up diverse learning environments and
investigate how the teacher can be most effectively
employed to improve learning and provide support.
In this we must recognise the vital role of community
in learning and belonging.
Practical Examples of How Such Transformation
Was Approached at Eggbuckland
Strand 1: Creativity
I began by introducing animation and music composition
as compulsory elements for all Year 7 and 8 students.
The aim was for them to tell a story through images
and music alone. They had access to software that
allowed them to take music samples and images
from the internet and blend them into loops and
patterns.
The aim of the research was to begin providing
students with the skills they would need if they
were to begin expressing themselves through different
media in their subject lessons and provide a rationale
for file manipulation and internet use.
The results have been incredible and there is
already evidence of the unlocking of potential
and enthusiasm. The Ofsted inspection team who
observed the scheme reported that the students
were "making remarkable progress."
We have also seen the first evidence of students
incorporating their own compositions into PowerPoint
presentations given in other subject areas. One
example of this was the use of low pitched drum
beats to provide the right atmosphere for an animation
showing the attack of foreign bodies by white
blood cells. The animation covered by the course
has spread extensively.
In Stage 2, all students in Years 7, 8 and 9
created digital video images to express an idea
or view by visual media, then they blended these
with their own images and music to convey meaning
or emotion. Again, the overall aim was to provide
the skills that students would need to validate
kinaesthetic, visual and auditory forms of expression
within their formal curriculum and the complex
ICT literacy skills that underpin this.
Once more, I conducted preliminary trials to
help evaluate and thereby evolve the course. These
have included involvement in the BECTA digital
video project, which, through the training, equipment
and backup support, has really allowed us to accelerate
the project. As part of the project, I set up
a student TV station and have been amazed by the
latent creativity that was unlocked, although
the lack of effective broadcast facilities means
that this needs to be re-introduced later. As
a separate trial, I ran a project with Year 6
students, in which they created a music video
within a week. All five groups created original
music, shot video of their group performing to
this music, imported the video, mixed it, and
then overlaid special effects. The results were
quite stunning.
Stage three involved video and music skills being
put to the test as a method of curriculum delivery
by students in the laptop groups. Students have
already put together a two-minute summary of World
War II in images and sounds, and it is very moving
to watch. The move to employing such skills generally
in the curriculum evolved slowly at first. Although
students were excellent at using multimedia to
express themselves outside of the classroom, they
were slow to accept that formal learning could
use these methods. This conservatism was much
easier to break down with the primary projects
and practically impossible with sixth formers.
Strand 2: Role of Key Skills
In the first year of the project I wrote and introduced
an online key skills assessment package for all
subjects and all year groups. This was used by
all approximately 100 teaching staff in the College
and provided criterion-based assessment grades
from 1-10 for each of the six key skills (Communication,
Numeracy, Information Technology, Working With
Others, Problem Solving and Evaluation Own And
Others Performance) in each subject, in each year
group. The twenty skill areas we chose resulted
in 200 (20 x 10) statements of attainment. This
went through ten drafts, as it was so difficult
to agree on the top twenty areas considering the
vastness of human achievement and learning. We
settled on twenty simply because by trial and
error we found this was the most we could bite
off at one time. Eventually by draft ten we had
the agreement of students, secondary staff, primary
staff, university colleagues, two local companies
and of course parents.
Students taught in the laptop groups (students
taught all their academic subjects using a laptop)
have made significantly greater progress in key
skills than other students of the same ability
within their year group. For the last three years
they have consistently accelerated their key skills
development by three years.
Communication cannot be reported on by English
or Foreign Language teachers, as this causes a
conflict of understanding about the nature of
'key skills' verses 'literacy
skills'. There would logically be considerable
overlap but the compartmentalisation of skills
training makes it difficult for students and staff
to differentiate between a generic ability to
communicate and a trained response to a skilfully
taught context. The same is true for Numeracy
and Mathematics.
Debate about the overlap of behaviour reporting
and the key skills involved in Working With Others,
Problem Solving and Evaluating Own and Others'
Performance has intensified and we have been able
to debate and challenge the initial response of
some departments which was that they didn't
teach, for example, 'working with others'.
Parents have received a full breakdown of their
child's performance in each of the key skills
and suggestions as to how they can help, as part
of the student's annual report. Responses
to the scheme varied. In the first year, partly
because drafts one to five were pretty poor and
key skills were seen as sub-standard measurements
that bolted on to the 'real' report,
it was hard to convince parents, students and
staff that these measurements were worth putting
in the report at all. As the negotiation continued
and the drafts improved, the praise for the system
began to flood in. At the end of the five years,
parents were extremely supportive and many felt
moved to write to me. With staff, although we
had moved from five supporters to well over half
the staff in support, the database I had been
using to generate all of the reports was one I
had written myself (badly) and on leaving the
college we were unable to find a commercial package
that could do the same. This setback has not deterred
staff who are working on temporary alternatives
to keep the scheme alive.
Having a way of measuring the key skills we then
set about developing ways of integrating them
into the curriculum. The most impressive of these
was the peer teaching programme within the laptop
groups. In this, students were given a teacher
training course that trained them about the importance
of learning objectives, accelerated learning techniques,
the role of praise and assessment. Students were
then allocated learning objectives to deliver.
Teachers were asked not to correct errors so that
students believed that the responsibility was
real. After eighteen months of such peer teaching,
the SATs results showed considerable improvement
alongside outstanding development in key skills.
The range of learning styles grew and to facilitate
this we only assessed the students on their success
in delivering their learning objectives not on
the way they chose to deliver them. As the scheme
progressed, the students provided this evidence
of the success of their own lesson by devising
quite sophisticated assessment tools.
In the section on Strand 4 I explain how, in
the final year of the project, this skills-based
system progressed into a truly remarkable personalised
learning model. As expected, there was considerable
convergence of the strands as the scheme progressed.
Strand 3: Student Empowerment
In the first year of the project I developed the
Access Manager Program, which I introduced as
a way of developing leadership and management
skills in young people. This scheme has evolved
considerably and now, as well as students as young
as twelve years old taking control of the ICT
facilities at lunchtime and break-time, they also
manage rooms for other groups to use, operate
lessons for students, assess the ability of other
students, mentor students through an apprenticeship,
manage student behaviour and conduct emotional
intelligence and leadership audits on other students,
so that they can offer professional development
targets for mentors to implement.
Briefly, a student puts themselves forward for
the scheme and is allocated a mentor by the students
in charge. The mentor works through two A4 sheets,
one covering emotional intelligence indicators
and key skills, the other covering role specific
skills. Both these sheets were constructed and
are evolved by the students. When the mentor and
trainee agree they are ready, the trainee has
an interview conducted by students which either
results in them achieving a 'Grade 1'
badge or in them being set pointers for improvement
to work through with their mentor before re-applying.
Students who have a Grade 1 badge are considered
to be staff and, as such, while on duty can be
asked to perform roles normally reserved for adults.
There are suspension and disciplinary policies
as well as monitoring and observation procedures
managed by the 'Grade 2' students
and so on up the system.
Students who have Grade 2 manage ICT rooms, staff
rotas and projects. They are similar, in structural
terms to deputy department heads with Grade 3
being department heads and Grade 4 senior leaders.
As the scheme progressed, we achieved over eighty
student leaders in all areas of school life with
four Grade 4 leaders who represented the school
in various ways from writing unedited articles
for the national press through to successfully
bidding for funds for the school.
Clearly the ethos of the College and the friendly
and supportive students that operate within it
provided an excellent context for such a scheme
to grow. However, the scheme has now gone much
further and is beginning to provide alternative
student roles. When students recently conducted
a staff meeting, from start to finish, there was
an openness from staff to the notion of 'training'
of this sort, mixed with a genuine admiration
for the skills of the students concerned.
Each July, students from the current laptop groups
provided the training for our two new laptop groups.
The students organised and delivered this course
themselves.
Such blending of roles and responsibilities is
paving the way for the flexible working that is
required by the new paradigm. As one of the students
put it, "teachers teach you, but children
talk to you about it and I learn it easier like
that." I am not suggesting that students
will make teachers redundant. Quite the opposite,
we need to provide students with numerous, diverse
routes to learning, role models and mentors. It
is through creating such diversity that we can
understand the new, more highly focused roles
of teachers.
Strand 4: Flexible Working, Flexible
Validation
'The Bridge' works with students who
are at risk of permanent exclusion. Last year
we began using the experience and skills of these
young people as guidance for developing alternative
learning pathways. The results have been featured
by both the local and national press. Students
have used art in the environment as a medium for
the development of self-esteem and key skills.
They have used email to contact artists directly
for advice and to showcase their work. They use
digital media to provide instant feedback and
validation and have begun to develop networks
of teachers and instructors who they can go to
for support. When the 'Moss Man' that
they erected in the school grounds was vandalised,
the group was able to discuss the impact of vandalism
from first-hand experience, talk about their own
previous involvement in vandalism and work as
a team to improve the positioning of the sculpture.
Breakfast classes have been setup for those students
who have had difficulty coping with the lunchtime
and afternoon, and would prefer to begin school
early and leave before lunch.
Students are able to log on and access college
materials outside of school hours. We have also
linked up with the local hospital school, so that
students can log on via a laptop in their hospital
bed and access our network as they would in College.
The date stamp on emails has revealed that students
are using e-learning over a wide range of times
and even, in some cases, from their holiday destination.
The extremely high quality of work and the ability
for students from such traditionally mistrusted
groupings to effectively self-determine their
learning led us to feel that we were not being
ambitious enough with the students we had. We
decided to trial a completely self-determined
curriculum for Year 9 students after their SATs
had finished. We chose the laptop groups and used
the extremely detailed structure of the key skills
matrix discussed earlier as the basis for their
learning. On Monday of each week, the students
analysed their learning profile, decided which
skills they would improve and how to gather the
evidence of these improvements. Hence, they constructed
a plan for the week in which their only restrictions
were that they had two classrooms to use, a range
of staff available at different times as per the
timetable and had to factor in Technology and
PE lessons which were the only ones that continued
during the scheme.
Students shocked all of us, including themselves
and their parents. The acceleration of progress
was quite astounding and, within the space of
five weeks, all students without exception could
give a presentation in which they supported evidence
of their own progression. A City & Guilds
qualification was used to demonstrate that the
students had achieved GCSE standard in five weeks
in Year 9 post-SATs. After this time, the students
were given the opportunity to play on games, chat
or just relax for the last week. Interestingly,
only two of the sixty students chose to do this,
the rest continued. Another interesting outcome
was that, despite choosing a qualification that
required the minimum written evidence, even those
students who achieved enormous progress and who
gave quite stunning presentations to prove this
slowed to a halt when asked to 'write it
up'.
Strand 5: Learning Networks and the New
Role of the Teacher
Students as young as twelve are undergoing teacher
training.
Staff are meeting weekly to develop alternative
modes of working.
Students and their teachers are engaging in weekly
conferences to discuss teaching and learning trials.
Parents have worked alongside their children.
Children have been training their parents in the
use of ICT.
Students have devised, resourced and delivered
a staff meeting and presentations to parents.
In a project filmed by the DfES as an example
of good practice, students constructed an advice
network by emailing the local harbourmaster, chief
constable, hospital trust director, high ranking
naval officers, city councillors, pressure groups,
community leaders and local MPs. They then used
this network to devise a detailed plan and risk
assessment for the refitting of a nuclear submarine.
This action plan challenged the official plan
and caused a number of its proposals to be modified
before the refit took place.
All students and staff have been provided with
an email directory, which allows them to contact
anyone in the College directly.
Students aged 13 and 14 were trained in the ICT
packages used in primary schools and were then
asked to devise and deliver a course for students
aged from 7 to 11.
We are currently developing a network of web pages
that provide students with skill scaffolding,
so that they understand the process of skill development
and, as a result, ask more directed and specific
questions. This will encourage a more focused
use of teachers, as well as paving the way for
more effective peer teaching.
In 2003 we invited the TTA to a seminar including
students from the laptop groups, Access Managers,
teachers in their first year of teaching who had
taught in the laptop groups, long established
teachers who had taught in both areas, trainee
teachers who had taught in both areas and parents
of students in the laptop groups. The resulting
discussion convinced all present that we had evolved
a model which was entirely different to the 'traditional
model' and which resulted in more engaged
parents, more engaged and motivated learners and
stimulated teachers engaged in the process of
learning through a different yet more intense
role. As a result we were made into a training
school specifically for fast track trainees, but
we had only just begun.
All over the world, individuals are linking up
through the internet, forming complex learning
communities which are rewriting the way learning
works. Our scheme simply managed to explore some
of these ideas and bring these forms closer to
the classroom. At home, students are moving much
quicker, the role of MSN, peer review, exemplification,
mobile texting, blogging and threaded learning
are revolutionising learning and yet we just didn't
have the tools to even begin to evaluate or utilise
these emergent learning communities.
On leaving Eggbuckland I conducted a rough survey
of some indicators. All students I asked used
MSN accounts and in their contact lists had people
not in this country and not their age. One fifth
of students had had their work reviewed by others
on the internet who were not their teachers and
had subsequently acted on the advice. All had
either read a blog or constructed one. All had
constructed a threaded piece of work and all turned
to the internet for exemplar material when they
were unsure how to do a piece of work (they and
the teachers called it copying!).
Our most successful project aimed at looking
at such communities centered around secondary
students helping primary students to achieve better
Science Investigations. The primary students would
email their work to the secondary students who
would provide constructive advice and send it
back. This resulted in significant improvements
on both sides, but as a learning community the
students felt that there was too much teacher
involvement and they 'couldn't be
honest'. Some students even agreed to write
offensive emails to see if they were being monitored.
Six months later, only six students from the sixty
were still using the community for collaborative
learning. What tools currently exist that allow
non-obtrusive construction of safe communities
and how will students respond if we continue to
deny the importance of such a significant aspect
of their development as learners and people in
society?
In conclusion, I believe that we have hit upon
a cocktail of change processes, which is already
delivering measurable improvements to student
learning. I believe that it is only through the
simultaneous developments of each strand that
true progress towards transformation can take
place.
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