curriculum – JAMES MICHIE

TSA – KS3 @ CCC (Slides)

Ever since I began working at Chalfonts Community College I have been impressed by the role the school plays in teacher development. Currently, we offer teacher training placements for ITT students; an impressive middle-leader programme; funding and support for teachers who wish to complete Masters level study; and this year we were invited to be a pert of the Hearts and Bucks Teaching School Alliance.

On Monday, we will be convening with St Clement Danes School and Parmiter’s School for our first TSA Conference. During the morning we will be working in departmental teams, sharing best practice and forging links for the future. I am really looking forward to working with the other English departments and I hope that my team get a lot out of the day.

Our time together begins with an opportunity to present our vision for Key Stage Three, following the introduction of the new National Curriculum. In all honesty, we have not made significant changes to what we have been doing over the last two years. Many of the key areas of learning that have been emphasised in the new NC were already priorities in our programme of study, having sought to create a greater degree of continuity between Key Stage Three and Four.

However, putting this presentation together has been a useful process. And I am looking forward to presenting it, along side Joanna Green (Deputy Leader for English), tomorrow.

*The slides can be viewed in full screen and you can access speaker notes by clicking on the cog. If you have any questions please leave a comment.

[#ukedchat] Starting with a blank piece of paper: Design the school of your dreams.

Next Thursday, I will be hosting #ukedchat for the third time.

During my previous session, I asked:

Are schools (as physical spaces) necessary to facilitate learning in the 21st century?

The resulting discussion was a thoroughly engaging one, which raised more questions than provided answers. It was apparent that most of the educators who got involved, felt that schools as physical spaces still have purpose. However, it was also clear that schools in their current state are not 100% fit for purpose. Be it the learning space itself, the infrastructure or the curriculum, a number of areas for improvement were recognised.

In this next session, I want to pick up where the previous discussion left off and explore what a school should be like in the 21st century. In order to do that, I thought it would be useful to provide a premise:

Starting with a blank piece of paper: Design the school of your dreams.

In considering this, I wish for us to focus on the following areas:

Curriculum

What should be learned? How should it be learned? How should learning be structured? Subjects? Skills?

Assessment

Should learning be assessed? If so, how? Is there a place for grades? How can we accredit informal learning? AfL? Badges?

People

Who is to be involved? How will they be involved? Teachers? Students? Parents?

Space

Where will the learning happen? Classrooms? What role for libraries? What about virtual spaces?

Time

How long should the school day be? Should it be the same for everyone? How would lessons/timetable be structured?

Technology

What technologies should be utilised? Wifi? Tablets? BYOD?

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To provide some further provocation, the following series of videos feature students from the Santa Barbara Middle School interviewing Sir Ken Robinson about his dream school; his answers are, as usual, well considered and challenging:

And so, if that has suitably whetted your appetite, I hope that you will be able to join me on Thursday at 8pm.

[Update: Saturday, 21 April] This was the 94th instalment of #ukedchat. You can read a summary of the discussion here and read/download a PDF archive of all the tweets here.

Sir Ken Robinson: Leading a Learning Revolution

Closing LWF12, Sir Ken Robinson did much more than draw together the various themes and ideas from the conference. Instead, he used his closing talk to discuss the “revolution” he believes is needed (and is already happening) in education. Echoing the conclusions of his 2006 TED Talk and purpose of his 2010 TED Talk, he referred quickly to the struggle between “whole child” education and the propensity of governments to want to “control” and “test” education.

Robinson created a highly compelling polemic. He went on to address the disconnect between practice, theory and policy, as well as the technological and social changes that are feed into the need for a learning revolution. He outlined what he believes to be the purposes of education and then set about, under the headings: Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, and Assessment, recommending a series of changes needed to improve education. These included:

Emphasising personalised (independent) learning;
Customising education for communities;
A move away from “subjects” to “disciplines”;
Encouraging collaborative learning strategies;
Shifting the emphasis in assessment away from “judgement” to “description”.

What I found most gratifying about Robinson’s talk was the emphasis he put on teachers and schools. He believes that teaching is at the heart of education, reminding us (the teachers) that we are part of the system and therefore can, if we choose to, change it. He recognised that there were many of us already doing so and continued by saying: “If you’re waiting for a government to start the revolution, I think you’ll be waiting a long time”. In closing he declared that:

We need to be part of the solution for the revolution and not part of the problem

With that sentiment in mind, I invite you to join me (and a host of other educators) on Thursday, March 1, between 8pm and 9pm, for #ukedchat, where we will be addressing the following question:

Are schools (as physical spaces) necessary to facilitate learning in the 21st century

The question is (I hope) a jumping off point for a debate about what schooling should be like in the 21st century. You can read my full provocation, here.

Recommended Reading:

Ken Robinson – Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative
Ken Robinson with Lou Aronica – The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

Gove + Zuckerberg = Elitist Victorian Education 101

This past week, education secretary Michael Gove suggested that he wants a national curriculum that will create the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Okay, that’s not quite what he said. If that had been what he’d said, I might not have bothered to write this post, as surely that would have implied a curriculum that was creative, fostered ingenuity and was embracing of new technologies. What the education secretary actually said was:

“When Zuckerberg applied to college he was asked what languages he could speak and write – as well as English – he listed, French, Hebrew, Latin and Ancient Greek. He also studied maths and science at school. He would have done very well in our English baccalaureate. And the breakthroughs his rigorously academic education helped create are now providing new opportunities for billions.” (guardian.co.uk, 2011)

Now, I’ve got no problem with Mark Zuckerberg. He created a website that has revolutionised social networking; he’s an astute guy, working alongside some brilliant individuals who have helped him to grow his creation into a billion dollar company; and from what I can tell, he is not actually the complete a**hole that the book: ‘The Accidental Billionaires‘ and the film: ‘The Social Network‘ would have you believe him to be. However, I do not believe that the fact that he can speak and write “French, Hebrew, Latin and Ancient Greek” or that he “studied maths and science at school” had anything to do with his success. I’m fairly certain that his study of IT had a significantly large part to play in it. That, coupled with a healthy dose of ingenuity (not a subject on the national curriculum) and creativity (again not a subject in itself) had a major role in helping him create Facebook.

You see, there are two significant problems with Michael Gove’s thinking. One, there is plenty of proof to suggest that education does not guarantee success. The myriad of entrepreneurs who have been successful ‘sans-education’ is huge. Two, the subjects he refers to as being part of an “academic education” are only a small piece of the puzzle in helping young people to develop the skills they need to survive in the 21st century. The point being, that a student who studies Philosophy, Drama and Art is just as likely to be the next Mark Zuckerberg as a student who studies Maths, IT and Latin.

What I resent is the implication that certain subjects are considered more academic than others. In fact, we should insert the word ‘better’ in place of academic, that is what Michael Gove means after all! This is the sort of elitist thinking that was being steadily eroded during the Labour party’s time in government. It is now being rebuilt by the so-called ‘coalition’, like elitist bricks stuck together with an alarmingly unhealthy dose of cynicism towards new technologies. The curriculum review is a waste of time and tax payers money; nothing more than a placation exercise; as I firmly believe that Michael Gove knows exactly what he wants the national curriculum to look like. In case you haven’t heard, Michael Gove wants lessons to “emphasise the learning of facts”. I think both my own students and Mark Zuckerberg would tell Michael Gove to go shove his lessons where the sun doesn’t shine. After all, he can find out anything he needs to know via Google or by asking any one of the 500 million people who are on Facebook. I’m not suggesting that facts have no place in education but to see them as the basis of an “academic education” is more 19th century than 21st.

It’s time to make our voices heard. One subject is not better or more important than another. We should be offering our students greater choices and freedoms not taking them away. And we should not be considering a return to a Victorian era curriculum that will certainly leave British school children wanting in comparison to their European, American and Asian counterparts. It’s time to take a stand. It’s time for disruption, it’s time for the edupunks to stand up and be counted.

Who’s with me?

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Image: Jolie O’Dell