Reflecting upon The Cambridge Primary Review

Introduction

In some respects the Cambridge Primary Review (hereafter referred to as CPR) set out to redress the ‘exclusivity of the literacy and numeracy standards focus which ‘frustrated alternative analyses of what was right in English primary education, what was wrong, and what was needed by the way of improvement’[1]. It addresses possible reasons behind UNICEF’s (2007) claim that British children are the unhappiest in the Western world, including a consideration of the legacy of our Victorian educational heritage such as early compulsory schooling, generalist teaching systems and 3Rs.

Whilst not dismissing the importance of the shift from Piagetian to Vygotskyian theories of children’s learning and import of recent advances in neuroscience (Ch 7), the CPR seeks (Chs 4-6) to explore also the broader terrain of diversity and inequality and in particular to hear the children’s voices about the questions of ‘division, equity, inclusion and special provision’[2] in the context of their own experiences.

In asking (Ch 12) ‘what is primary education for, and by what values and principles should it be informed?’ the CPR concentrates on statutory schooling. However, despite this self-imposed limitation, the review does make recommendations for educational foundations since it insists that ‘children in England are required to do too much, or the wrong things, too young’[3]. The CPR refuses to accept as a given previous models of education and instead proposes a new framework for the primary curriculum which encompasses 12 aims and 8 domains of knowledge, skill, enquiry and disposition which it claims will not only support a clearer debate about the curriculum, but which will also incorporate local and international perspectives into the existing national perspective. In reviewing classroom practice (Ch 15) and the purposes of assessment (Chs 16 & 17) the CPR examines the evidence regarding ‘standards’ and explores what the term ‘standards’ may mean at all.

The CPR also examines systemic aspects of education in England, considering the diversity of other sites for learning (Ch 18), inter-agency working as a result of the 2004 Children’s Act and Every Child Matters (Ch 20) and professional development and training for staff working in primary schools (Chs 21 & 22). With this overview the CPR considers the role of Government centralization over the last 20 years and the increasing politicization of educational reform (Ch 23).

The review concludes by making 75 recommendations from 153 conclusions (Ch 24), which may be grouped as follows[4]:

For the purposes of this think piece, I will consider just three different elements of the CPR, though of course there are many that require and deserve considerable reflection. I will consider: the challenge and courage required to create a new curriculum; narrowing the gap as a responsibility that lies before us all if children’s futures are to be determined by their talents rather than their socio-economic background; and the consideration that we must give in order to deliver schools for the future. However, before addressing these three principle areas, I should first note a significant theme within the CPR that should, I suggest,  be central to all that we consider in what follows.

Whilst the CPR promotes the notion of single or dual specialist ITT training in addition to generalist training, it is teachers’ critical engagement with the educational and pedagogical debate that is heralded as more significant than any other key feature of ITT and professional development[5].  Yet, in my discussions with antipodean colleagues I have discerned a clear difference in the quality and critical engagement with the theories of learning encouraged in each country, with English teachers clearly less well informed about learning theory. The consideration given to pedagogical development in the CPR (Ch 15) should be required reading for all new AND serving professionals so that the terms and understandings implicit in the description of children’s learning form part of the everyday vocabulary, talk  and agenda of adults working in primary schools.  Just as the needs of the 21^st century child are different to those faced by children as recently as the 1980s and 1990s, so too must our professionals’ understanding and training be equally contemporary and dynamic[6].

Yet, there is significant doubt, in my experience, whether many of our colleagues in the 3^rd or 4^th year of their teaching and beyond, are able to articulate in a sophisticated and deep manner the influences on a child’s learning journey, beyond broad-brush strokes. The CPR’s discussion of ‘well-paced’ lessons alone[7], with its differentiation between interactive pace, cognitive pace and learning pace is not one I have often heard articulated and on the occasions that it is, is conflated by teachers into an OfSTED-type simple maxim to ‘make the lesson snappy’, with little consideration of the different nuances and aspects of pace which need to be considered in such a gloss. This is not to be critical of teachers’ lack of engagement with learning theory, since the very nature of the expectations placed upon the profession currently mitigate against providing time for contemporary study. Compare for instance the Australian, Singaporean or Hong Kong teaching professions’ commitment to regular sabbatical study for its teachers. Nevertheless, it behoves on us as committed professionals to ensure that we understand that the pedagogical terrain in which we operate is changing rapidly and significantly, that the very children with whom we learn are now better understood, whilst their future is less predictable than ever before. It is not clear, in my mind at least, that continuing professional development addresses the need to keep our workforce as well briefed, appropriately skilled and as effective as our new circumstances require.

The suggestion (CPR rec. 138) that existing staff should be encouraged to engage in professionally-related research leading to a higher ceiling for qualification would seem a sensible step towards addressing this shortfall. In my own school, half of the teaching staff are engaged in a Master of Arts degree in New Technologies and it is difficult to imagine how else I could have achieved the level of motivation that has been achieved through renewed engagement with the learning theories considered on this course. To see the fruits of research borne out in children’s learning has been at once tremendously encouraging with respect to those participating in the course and simultaneously a cause for concern by comparison to the level of contemporary reflection undertaken by those not engaged in the programme.

With the caveat that true reform of our profession will only occur if significant numbers are involved in really thinking about what supports children’s learning best, I will briefly consider three aspects of such reform, in order to prompt some debate. The reflections are, of course, my own and are offered simply as a starting point for discussion about the CPR, rather than as an unequivocal statement of absolutes.

A New Curriculum

The CPR is quite clear that ‘how children learn is as important as what they learn, in as far as the curriculum, however relevant or inspiring it is on paper, will make little headway unless the teacher succeeds in igniting ‘children’s active, willing and enthusiastic engagement in their learning’ ’[8]. The CPR promotes the importance of imagination (aim 11), dialogue and joint activity (aim 12) and the alliance of empowerment and skill through which learning becomes self-directed and autonomous (aims 3 & 4). Nevertheless, it also refuses to sideline ‘knowledge’ in favour of ‘process’ since it suggests that knowing and understanding is key to making sense of a culturally complex society. Indeed the globalisation of culture requires that children have an understanding of interdependence and sustainability (aim 6), within global and local relationships as much as national identity (aims 5,7 & 8).

In light of the recent prominence of the global dimension to life and learning, the CPR recommends that the new curriculum is divided into national and local components in a 70/30 division, on the assumption that Dearing’s 80/20 recommendation foundered because 20% was too small to resist the tidal wave of national initiatives. The CPR makes the observation that the generalist make up of primary teachers affords greater flexibility than the secondary specialism model and that as such the various domains could be addressed in concentrated blocks, rather than being divided up on the basis of hours in a day and days in a week.

The CPR proposes that the primary curriculum is ‘re-conceived as a matrix of the 12 specified aims together with eight domains of knowledge, skill, disposition and enquiry’[9]. These are listed alphabetically in order to discourage a perceived pecking order (although ironically, Ken Robinson would be pleased to see that this places arts and creativity at the ‘top’ of the list):

When combined with the aims for primary education, the matrix is formed:

Domains Aims	Arts and Creativity	Citizenship and ethics	Faith and belief	Language, oracy and literacy	Mathematics	Physical and emotional health	Place and time	Science and technology
The individual
Well-being
Engagement
Empowerment
Autonomy
Self, others and the wider world
Respect and reciprocity
Interdependence and sustainability
Local, national and global citizenship
Culture and community
Learning, knowing and doing
Exploring, knowing, understanding, making sense
Fostering skill
Exciting the imagination
Enacting dialogue

There are some interesting observations that could be made about this matrix. Firstly, the uncomfortable place of religious education in/outside the Rose Review areas of learning is addressed here since the CPR takes the view that ‘religion is so fundamental to this country’s history, culture and language, as well as to the daily lives of many of its inhabitants that it must remain within the curriculum’[10]. However, secondly, PSHE or at least PSE does not have an explicit place within the matrix and is addressed through the domains of citizenship and ethics, faith and belief and physical and emotional health. Thirdly and perhaps even more surprisingly, ICT has no specific domain either, its ‘C’ being addressed through the domain of language, oracy and literacy, and all other applications of ICT being addressed through the remaining domains.

The prominence of Religious Education in the CPR is contrasted to total absence of RE from the Rose Review Primary Curriculum, until, bowing to pressure from the Association of University Lecturers in RE, REToday, the British Journal of RE and others, the note that Religious Education remained a statutory subject and ‘part of the basic Primary Curriculum’ was added to the review[11] in November 2009. In either case, this prominence reflects the opinions of some that religious understanding is an increasingly important part of primary schools’ attendance to community cohesion. Equally, the dispersal of PSHE in to 3 different domains in effect increases the routes in to these interpersonal skills and places the drive towards interdependent citizenship at the forefront of the school’s learning culture. Both of these adjustments in perspective would seem to reflect better the global context that we live in than the Rose Review.

However, the subsumption of ICT into the other domains may be more problematic. The CPR refers to the Rose Review’s treatment of ICT as a ‘neo-basic ‘skill for learning and life’ ’[12] and dismisses it as a ‘tool without apparent substance or challenge other than the technical’. In contrast the CPR shows a contemporary understanding of new technologies as a means to ‘share, socialise, collaborate and create’[13], however it pays scant regard to the notion of embedded ICT. It is surely not sufficient to acknowledge ICT as a ‘cross-curricular informational tool’ without considering just how ICT will be embedded across the curriculum. Even the phrase ‘informational tool’ is to misunderstand the agility of ICT to enhance creativity or to explore new routes of discovery. Yet, the manner of deploying ICT across the curriculum is left undisclosed in the CPR, presumably for the very teachers that it says need further and deeper professional development and opportunity to reflect upon pedagogy to find their own way forward.

I do agree that placing ICT firmly in the domain of language makes a very clear and contemporary statement about the role that Web 2.0 technologies have in supporting collaborative and interdependent working. However, ICT can and should make a significant contribution to all domains of learning and to leave unexplored the process by which teachers may deepen children’s critical understanding of the application of ICT surely is an oversight that needs addressing. I am sure that the CPR’s intention was to reflect the ubiquity of ICT in all areas of learning, and if this is correct, then it is to be lauded. However, there is a distinction to be made between the philosophical envisioning of ICT at use in all domains of learning on the one hand and the practical implementation and development of such deployment in a primary school on the other. In practice, schools will seek to develop management structures to ensure dynamic development of each of these domains. I can easily imagine a situation in which, without a domain all of its own, a school’s ICT vision, development, renewal and progression is left to the haphazard, chance whim of individual teachers’ interest rather than a more co-ordinated dominant place as one of the 21^st century learning levers in the school’s curriculum.

Narrowing the Gap

The CPR identifies the crucial contribution made by locally determined agenda to the national drive towards ‘Narrowing the Gap’.  Specifically, the CPR proposes raising the locally-determined component of the curriculum to 30%, thereby making the local ‘habitual rather than exceptional’[14]. However, narrowing the gap is about much more than the curriculum and for many of the submissions to the CPR, the reduction of disparities in opportunity and life chances was the very raison d’etre of extended schools[15]. Yet, many of the families that schools want to support prove to be stubbornly ‘hard to reach’, whether because they are marginalized minority groups, those who slip through the net, such as carers or people with mental health problems, or the ‘service resistant’ (families ‘known’ to social services, those with a history of drug use, alcohol abuse or criminal behaviour)[16]. In Birmingham for instance, children ‘considered it important that teachers knew if children were in care or were having difficulties at home. However… they also believed children should have a choice about disclosing such information’[17].

There is a common consensus however, that ‘stresses the importance of looking at the family as a unit and of focusing on positive interdependency and supportive relationships. This approach takes the family’s resilience and social capital as the foundations for achieving positive outcomes’[18]. In this sense the CPR acknowledges the success of the Narrowing the Gap programme, building upon the Children’s Plan of 2007, in implementing the Every Child Matters principles and focusing on the needs of all children, but particularly the most vulnerable. However the CPR also notes that ‘if the gap is to be narrowed everywhere, the notion of the school as a community asset and all that implies, must be driven through’[19]. In this regard the CPR highlights the contrast between the localism required of this ‘one vital aspect of children’s education and care’ as opposed to the ‘continuing centralism in respect of the national curriculum, national assessment and national strategies for raising standards’[20]. This is an observation well made, however, I am not convinced that the CPR’s solution is as robust as is implied.

The CPR suggests that their own 70/30 division in the shaping of the curriculum ‘provides for a strong and protected local component to the curriculum [that] is more consistent with the government’s strategy for narrowing the gap’[21]. However, this seems to me to pay insufficient attention to the role of the ‘family’s resilience and social capital as the foundations for achieving positive outcomes’, as identified in the ‘Think Family’ report. Narrowing the Gap is obviously going to be better achieved if the curriculum is able to respond to locally identified needs, context and motivation. However, rather than curriculum change, I suggest making contact with hard to reach parents and families is surely the preeminent requirement to illuminating and manifesting the changes required to support these families as they help their children narrow the gap. The CPR’s observations that children’s centres and extended schools have made a slow start in contacting these families, but that signs are emerging of some progress here will offer little comfort to those schools struggling to find the ‘non-teachers’ to run out of hours activities as the CPR suggests. Indeed, whilst large inner city LAs may be well resourced for activity leaders, every child that matters just as much in the leafier suburbs may well find that provision in their area falls far short of these ideals. In these disparate settings, reaching the hard to reach families will surely require much more than a partially locally determined curriculum or yet more imperatives to ‘shape a school’s relations with other agencies’[22].

Schools for the Future

The CPR details a catalogue of important features that schools of the future should contain, features culled from the best practice evidenced around the country. These include the notions of:

• the school both in and as a community
• extended schools and integrated multi-agency services
• high value placed on external learning and playing facilities
• sustainability and carbon-neutral status
• specialist teachers and learning spaces
• children working as a group, not just in a group
• complementary juxtaposition of books libraries and ICT
• changes to timings and lengths of a school day, terms, year and holidays
• pastoral liaison in key stage transition
• maintaining smaller primary schools to promote and preserve a shared community culture
• children’s voice in the capital re-build of schools (PCP)
• a re-envisioning of the concept of a 21^st century primary school
• federated schools with staff sharing at all levels
• cross phase education, such as middle schools
• reduction of primary phases from 3 to 2 (foundation and primary)

Interestingly, the CPR does not mention ICT explicitly in its recommendations pertaining to schools of the future (86-109), and in its cautionary summation on the role of ICT in the new curriculum is firm in its placement within the domain of language, oracy and literacy. I find this particularly perplexing since in its detail the CPR notes several significant concerns expressed by well informed stakeholders. The GTCE warned that ‘New pedagogies need to develop in line with new technologies and teachers need structured supported opportunities to enquire into effective and creative use of these technologies for learning, and to develop their teaching practice accordingly’.  One Yr6 pupil explained that ‘if every child had a laptop or interactive pad, then children could do more of their own research – when we find things out for ourselves we learn more’. Whilst Futurelab also suggested that ‘mobile devices not only allow us to learn in more varied locations, they also enable the transformation of learning experiences to become more inspiring, dynamic, relevant and creative activities’[23].  For me, the CPR lacks a strategic vision for ICT, preferring instead to lower its current status and to reduce it to a subset of communication. However, perhaps even more worryingly, the CPR appears to have no vision for the professional development for teachers required to ensure that our children capitalize on advances in new technologies. Without such vision, organizations such as the GTCE may well end up (in a well meaning way) pressing for NOF2, which would be a disastrous waste, just as NOF1 has now proven to be (whom amongst you are still saving work to a 3.5” floppy drive?).

Further, the CPR seemed to have little vision for learning in the community. Noting some concerns about the community restrictiveness of PFI contracts, the review noted that some headteachers eschew iconic design, preferring instead just space. Yet the CPR did not use this to consider the use of existing community facilities to acquire this space and to contextualise learning. For instance facilities within the library may be used for writing, the supermarket for mathematics, the rugby club for sports. School developments in New Zealand, Australia and Sweden have each seen this de-centralisation of the location of learning transform schools and communities, yet the CPR fails to investigate international alternatives. Indeed, whilst the CPR may claim that its remit only extended to reviewing the English curriculum, in suggesting 23 observations and aims about future schooling, we might be forgiven for thinking that the description of the vision might need to draw more widely than our own countries organisations and agencies in crafting its proposals.

Interestingly, when it comes to school phases, the CPR does look towards international models. Noting that schools in New Zealand run from 5/6 to 12/13, schools in Germany from 6 to 12 and in Sweden from 6/7 to 16, the CPR expressed concerns that in England divisions between infant, junior and adolescent phases have hardened since the introduction of the National Curriculum. The CPR is particularly concerned[24] with the double transition at the start of a child’s school life, with the suggestion that premature advancement to a more formal curriculum could cause long term disaffection. Similar concerns were expressed for those children transferring from one school to another in separate infant and junior settings.

In terms of class size, the CPR found little long term evidence for increased performance and standards if children were taught in smaller classes. Initially, there were signs that low attainment on entry children benefited, or that literacy learning generally benefited. However, returning to these children later in their school lives revealed that initial gains had not been maintained. Similarly, the CPR found that ‘the adoption of structured ability groupings has no positive effects on attainment, but has detrimental effects on the social and personal outcomes for some children’[25]. The teachers quoted in the CPR who were in favour of setting seemed to echo the emphasis on progress as achievement, a notion which some feel has undergone relegation at the hands of the recent  revision of the OfSTED schedule. Those researchers against setting favoured a Vygotskyian perspective on the benefits of mixed ability role modeling and scaffolding. Clearly both approaches have merits, yet it would appear that mixed ability groupings hold most sway in the academy, of which the Cambridge team is part. Indeed the CPR seems to suggest[26] based on international models that in their early years of school children should work towards common goals ‘and that it is the task of the teacher to ensure that they stay together – rather than drift apart and having so drifted are forced further apart by differential treatment’[27].

This approach needs to be unpacked much further and with far more evidence if it is to convert a generation of teachers nurtured, or even force-fed, a diet of the supremacy of differentiated learning. Indeed, what will be required will be a system-wide discussion of the conception of learning, assessment, target setting and inspection if teachers are to be confident in its implementation and its merits.

Concluding Reflections

The CPR is a significant and wide-ranging review. Its remit is broad and necessarily some of its connections between different perspectives can become strained or even lost. Nevertheless, as a launchpad for debate it deserves a wide reading, and perhaps a wider political reading than was indicated as likely by the first wave of sound bite missives issued by our political leaders of all persuasions.

There is a little doubt that the CPR acts as a healthy alternative perspective to the Rose Review and that whilst there is of course significant overlap between the two reviews, there is also much substantial difference. Whether the forthcoming political debate around education will make clear the political will towards or between either of these reviews only time will tell. However, whichever route the future of the primary curriculum takes, we will all have to reckon with, engage and possibly even embrace much of the content of this important publication.

Thank you for taking the time to consider this very brief and cursory glimpse in to just some of the issues raised by the CPR and its impact upon one headteacher. I would welcome your thoughts and contribution to the debate over how best we might contribute to shaping the future learning experiences of our most cherished possessions, our children.

---

[1] CPR 2009: 1. All page references refer to CPR unless otherwise stated

[2] 5

[3] 6

[4] 511ff

[5] 506

[6] 283ff

[7] 295

[8] 257

[9] 265

[10] 268

[11] http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/newprimarycurriculum/

[12] 269

[13] 269; also Hargreaves 2008

[14] 263

[15] 397

[16] 398

[17] 398

[18] Cabinet Office (2007), ‘Think Family’: 28

[19] 401 quoting LGA, DCSF & IdEA (2007)

[20] 401

[21] 401

[22] 402

[23] All quotes in this paragraph from 353

[24] 370

[25] 377

[26] Reynolds and Farrell (1996); Alexander (2001)

[27] 379

How do we go about improving schools?

Creating a Climate for Continued Improvement to Learning and Leadership

Developing successful deep leadership across a school or federation is, in part, an act of ongoing learning. Teaching staff need to expand their repertoire of pedagogical tools to make lessons engaging in differing contexts, to deepen children’s skills and understandings, to prepare them for a life time of learning. Teachers, quite simply, need to be learners themselves. Administrators and support staff need to adapt their skills and resourcefulness to the changing needs of partnership in times of economic hardship, whilst Children’s Centre staff and inter-agency partners need to collaborate and dig even deeper to intervene more effectively than ever before. As leaders we should put this new learning at the heart of the school or federation and be relentless in its pursuit for all.

How this is realised, I have illustrated below. In short, whether for children or adults, learning is best and deepest if it is facilitated by deep experiences, buoyed by deep support mechanisms and nurtured through deep leadership.

Deep support drives standards when instead of the OfSTED clipboard after-the-event-feedback model of observation or performance management, colleagues are mentored towards improvement. This real-time coaching involves intervening at the point of learning for staff, just as teachers do for pupils. By working with mentors who help them to hone their skills whilst actually performing their job, staff are able to achieve higher standards quicker, in a less threatening process, with more bespoke delivery for their context. This is the very heart of schools: mentors and mentees both benefit from the giving and receiving of expert guidance as critical friends. Mentors accordingly come from schools of all sorts, thus eliminating any notion of inequality. As staff skills develop, the model shifts from mentoring to coaching, where instead of offering advice, coaches help colleagues to navigate their own route to solutions. This transformation places autonomy and personal responsibility at the heart of the support process and as such is ideal for soft federations.

Deep support demands of staff a commitment to deep learning by assessing and challenging their own practice, learning from the best practitioners nationally and internationally, in order to refine and hone their skills. In this sense it respects the reflective practitioner’s voice, giving them greater responsibility but also greater accountability to achieve our aims.

Inspiring a Collective Community Effort to Social and Economic Development

In order to reach disenfranchised families we need to have a deep experience and understanding of the challenges they face. The success of a school or federation’s aim to raise leaders and deliver outcomes will be determined by the depth of the staff’s understanding of these challenges.  The work of extended services is vital to this aspect of our social understanding and systemic emotional intelligence, as is our staff’s face to face contact with families. We should know our families and be known by them and this is achieved by expanding the public profile and accessibility of all staff, including the Executive  or Headteacher, in the playground, church, workplace or homes.

To support staff in their engagement with our families’ needs we must provide the very best CPD from within and beyond education,  but we must also see the impact of that training in the effectiveness of our leadership across the school or federation. Each member of our organisations can exercise leadership in their area of expertise when positively supported and encouraged, and we should distribute leadership to individuals and teams across the entire organisation to reflect our expectations for the very highest levels of commitment to raising standards and increasing life opportunities.

Summary

Coaching and mentoring, leadership programmes, high quality CPD and a challenging yet supportive distributed leadership culture will all contribute to the development of schools and federations. However, sustaining this drive will be determined by each individual’s sense of ‘having made a difference’ to each child in each place. As leaders we should work tirelessly to enable each member of the school or federation to see and be inspired by the essential part they played in making a difference together to children’s lives.

R.I.P. VLE and LMS?

This week we were contacted by a University conducting research into the use of VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments). I explained that we might not be a great subject for the research project as we DON’T REALLY THINK VLEs ARE AN EDUCATOR’S IDEA. Apparently, however, this was why we had been chosen for the project. We are, it seems, the misfits.

So what exactly is the state of the debate on VLEs? If you have a little while take a look at the video below for some interesting views from this year’s ALT-C conference in Manchester. Niall Sclater, Director of Learning Innovation at the Open University claims that the VLE is far from dead. He says that he has ‘always felt that learning systems are basically “learning neutral” and are at the mercy of the learning content and activities which are made available through them. [If there is] no valuable learning taking place in VLEs then is that due to the lack of imagination of the teachers using [them]?’ However, I think that the architecture/design of many VLEs is such that ‘learning neutral’ is probably the best they could hope to be described as: ‘learning uninspired’ might be more appropriate. In fact, Steve Wheeler suggests that many commercial VLEs that only allow entry to registered users actively prevent students from connecting with other learners from outside their own institution.

James Clay counters, quite correctly probably, that VLEs at least are more reliable and faster than some public providers of Web2.0 connectivity such as Twitter and Facebook, however, whether speedy uninspired content is better than occasionally off-line globally based personal learning networks is questionable.

Isn’t the real issue here mirroring the debate that has surrounded the nature of personalised learning? A couple of posts ago I reported on the work that we have done here with Esme Capp in developing a negotiated curriculum with the children, harnessing their passions and interests and making ourselves do the hard work in ensuring that the learning outcomes meet those interests. In the current debate over VLEs a similar situation that gave rise to the call for a personalised rather than centralised curriculum seems to have arisen for learning environments. Surely it is the case that the technology should be centred on the learner and not the institution, on the provision of a personalised learning environment and not a generic one?

However, as they note at Bath Spa University, the very nature of learning itself has yet to meet its moral obligations:

• “How many of you have a VLE?” (all hands go up)
• “How many of you go to your VLE when you want to learn something?” (one hand goes up)
• “How many of you go to Google when you want to learn something?” (all hands go up)

Amusingly the next speaker replaces question 2 with;

• “How many of you go to a lecture when you want to learn something?” (one hand goes up)

In any case, I am not convinced that our unrest with pedagogy in general is any reason to extend a failing model in to a virtual world. As  Sarah Bartlett suggests ‘The VLE homogenises content, and yet the student body is understood to be increasingly diverse… the large-scale discussion facilities are poor, and block interaction beyond the institution.’

Is the VLE dead? Probably not in many instituitions, but intellectually, I suspect it has been dead in the water for some time.

done

Leading Culture Change with New Technologies

As innovation in technology increases exponentially, many school leaders doubt whether they could or even should try to keep up with the pace of change in the technological experiences and lives of their students and communities. Spiralling infrastructure costs, hardware life-cycles and all-too-brief relevancy to student interest suggests that the battle for engaging interest is at best an uphill struggle and at worst cannot be won. For many, one thing is certain: if there is a solution, there will need to be a culture change…

the Challenge:

Managing costs

Buying wisely with a view to all the ‘hidden’ costs of licensing, maintaining and

updating technology, is a sensible starting point (www.becta.org.uk/achievebestvalue). However, more fundamentally, schools must face up to the fact that whatever they invest in

will very quickly appear slow, unimaginative and dated, compared to its more contemporary rivals. The contrast between the immediacy of a student’s recent purchases and the long term investment of a school’s purchases mean that this technological shelf-life is impossible to avoid. A common student’s refrain runs, “How am I supposed to do 21^st century learning with 20^th century devices?”

Staying current

Printed curricula and teachers’ reluctance to relinquish previously successful projects have conspired to keep many schools’ ICT programme relatively static and certainly unrepresentative of recent newer technologies. Professional development programmes can also face difficulties in meeting the broad range of requirements of a school’s staff. Isolated from innovation or overwhelmed by the task ahead teachers often need a more bespoke one- to-one training package than the school can provide or afford.

Skill sets

Prensky’s (2001) notion of ‘digital natives’ is a contentious and for some at least, misrepresentative characterisation of the contemporary student. However, it remains a powerful influence on school leaders’ perceptions of the ‘upward pressure’ applied on the curriculum by students’ familiarity with technology. Staying ahead of students’ knowledge is for some teachers an unreachable ideal, with many teachers resigned to playing catch-up at best or teaching yesterday’s technology at worst. Isolated from cutting-edge professional development in New Technologies, teachers and their leaders are often unable to close the gap between student expectation and what the curriculum can deliver.

(http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf)

Embedded curriculum

Curriculum reviews and the inspectorate’s expectations to see students developing and honing their ICT skills in embedded activities present school leaders with a significant challenge. For schools with traditional arrangements of long corridors punctuated by classrooms on either side, even the very fabric of the building can become a barrier to more flexible pedagogical developments (www.becta.org.uk/schools/capitalbuilding). In other schools, fading batteries, elusive laptop trollies or crammed suite timetables all mitigate against an embedded curriculum.

Stakeholder engagement

Universal access promises to close the gap in 24/7 learning between the ‘haves’ internet access and the ‘have-nots’ (www.becta.org.uk/schools/extendingopportunities). However, who has access to what, and how much that actually supports learning remains a thorny issue for school leaders to solve. In many schools the learning platform or virtual learning environment is heralded as the solution (www.becta.org.uk/schools/techstandards), whilst for many students and parents it remains uninteresting, unstimulating or unhelpful. In fact, in using technology to engage stakeholders, schools often find that one size really will not fit all.

some Possible Solutions

Managing costs – something for nothing

There is much for school leaders to learn from students about new technologies, and not only in how to control devices. A key difference between a school leader’s and a student’s approach to new technology is that the former expects to pay handsomely for access to services and products, whereas the latter wants something for nothing. The new technologies market changes not just in the speed or capacity of its devices, but also in the philosophy underpinning the market and as school leaders we need to shift our understanding to capitalise on this change. The move from charged for dial-up internet connection over copper wires towards free bundled access over optic fibre paid for by advertising is hard to comprehend for many school leaders. However, this shift has changed the dynamic of software production. Now advertising has become the chief revenue source for companies and sophisticated software simply a tool to secure brand loyalty. Schools no longer need to pay for costly site licences when open access equivalent packages are available for free. For more specific software schools can select free web-based online versions rather than be tied to purchased and installed versions which soon become dated. The result is that the only requirement a school has is to get its students on line. Even this process is open to cost reduction. Encouraging students to bring mobile phones to school and allowing them wifi access rather than banning them is a cost-neutral way to expand massively access to online resources. Other handheld devices, such as mp3 players routinely have high resolution displays and so provide a cheap alternative access to the school’s online suite. Small ultra portable devices such as netbooks offer an even more power platform for the same access. Tasking the student body with finding viable free alternatives to the school’s proprietary software, school leaders will soon find that it pays to expect something for nothing.

‘Free software online’ in Wall Street Journal July 2009 http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090713-712990.html

Staying current – personal learning environments

An unanticipated ‘glitch’ or resolutely awkward aspect of some new technology can soon bring a project to a standstill. Hitting a number of just such false starts can often leave teachers with little choice other than to play it safe – with the resultant effect on student engagement and interest. What teachers often want is to ‘phone a friend’, someone who will respond quickly and offer possible solutions. This desire has seen the rise of professional networks in teachers’ personal learning environments. Unlike learning management systems (LMS) which are school or course-centric, the PLE can contain whatever tools an individual teacher needs in order to support their own learning. For many this will include a professional network of fellow teachers from around the world, all of whom are on hand to offer advice and solutions to intractable problems. Whereas search engine results will deliver thousands of results to a teacher’s questions, many of which will be irrelevant and unhelpful, members of a teacher’s PLE will often pinpoint problems and offer multiple solutions. The personal learning environment offers a truly international and asynchronous space for the exchange of ideas and presentation of evidence of successful approaches to learning.

Personal learning environments http://zope.cetis.ac.uk/members/ple

George Siemens http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2007/04/15/ples-i-acronym-therefore-i-exist/

Skill sets – everyone a leader

Whether or not Prensky’s notion of the digital native / digital immigrant divide is correct, what is more generally acceptable is that a classroom environment will contain some people with higher levels of competency than others in using New Technologies. Sensible school leaders would therefore expect the more competent users to support those who are less capable. However, the key shift in thinking for teachers that are concerned about being on the receiving end of this support, is to consider exactly what expertise they bring to the classroom. Rather than considering teacher expertise to concern the operation of New Technologies, the key cultural change is to see the teacher’s role as pedagogical rather than technical, i.e. the application of New Technologies, rather than their operation. What is required by the more able student is not support for using technology, but to put it to some purposeful use. In this regard the teacher acts as coach for the student’s thinking about how the features of the technology might be applied to achieve an outcome. This change in perception in the role away from teaching and towards coaching is common place in the sports world and enables the coach to extend the problem solving capabilities of the student towards thoroughly embedded contexts for ICT.

Making it happen – embedding the curriculum

Ubiquitous technology, or ‘everyware’ (Greenfield 2006), refers to the development in embedding technology into all aspects of modern life. Achieving the same in the school context is difficult to achieve without a significant culture change in how learning is conceived. Heppell refers to the ‘nearly now’ world that students inhabit outside of school through social networks, messaging and microblogs (such as twitter) that facilitate reflection, retraction, research and repetition and which represent a great world for learning. To replicate this environment much research has been undertaken by Professor Kenn Fisher in to learning space design, where the seating configuration, use of walls, lockers, light and power all contribute to the style of pedagogy promoted and supported. By treating the room as an additional ‘teacher’, Fisher (2000) creates a variety of working contexts for students and teachers which enable project based learning and teacher as coach as well as more formal teaching scenarios. Drawing a variety of portable new technologies in to this space starts to blur the boundaries between in school and out of school learning methodologies and offers a step towards 24/7 learning.

Kenn Fisher http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Education/Schools/Buildings/KF

Fisher et al (2000) http://www.rubida.net/Rubida_Research/html/place_space_edu.pdf

Stakeholder engagement – all aboard

Universal access and the availability of ubiquitous computing means that schools can start to address more fundamental questions about where learning takes place and how to reach out to the community. In part, communication with the school community requires simple changes to communication. Blue tooth transmitters at school gates to alert parents arriving to collect their children can be used to send simple reminders, as can whole school text messaging systems. Rolling electronic display systems at the front of the building or even turning a projector to project on to t afrnt facing window can all lead to increased parental engagement. Twitter and RSS feeds add dynamism to school websites and monitored blogs allow interction between home and school. However, Stephen Heppell of Heppell.net, Chris Dede of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Yong Zhao of the Confucius Institute at Michigan State University all suggest that ubiquitous computing enables working out in the community, such that literacy learning may take place in the local library, history in the museum archives or geography in the local fields. Conversely, the school’s resources are then opened out to the community for adult education and vocational training. This blurring of the school boundaries both in time and space enables schools to engage and transform the school community.

Chris Dede (2004) Planning for “Neomillennial” Learning Styles: Implications for Investments in Technology and Faculty

Stephen Heppell reflects on school learning space design

One of so many insights from the remarkable Leigh Technology Academy (schools within schools, vertical age groupings, so much responsibility given to older students, project based work, etc etc) was this: so many of the 21st century schools that I have seen leaping forwards in ambition and performance have a certain “wow factor” when you walk in – it is part of the self esteem growth that you always see in the students. A big part of that  ”wow factor” comes from an absence of what the US calls “cells and bells” – the old boxes and corridoors of the factory school era. However, not only are the tiny boxes missing (Leigh Technology Academy teaches a lot of classes in groups of 60 in big spaces, but with three or sometimes four adults present) but one design feature that stands out is the complete lack of right angles! It seems like a small thing in design terms but the impression it gives is of a series of interlinking agile spaces that are a very long way from boxes.

And watching the teaching and learning that results, reading the research too, it clearly works.

Deep Learning in the 21st Century

From theory to practice – deep learning in the 21st century – article from NCSL Futures website

Australian educator Esme Capp was visiting Birmingham to work with the National College and with Robin Hood Primary School when Future journalist Bill Hicks caught up with her.

How do children learn? And how should schools organise themselves to ensure that all their pupils are able to learn in the most effective way?

These deep, fundamental questions about education are constantly brought to the foreground by Esme Capp (pictured), the former assistant principal of Wooranna Park Primary School in Melbourne, Australia – the school whose successful implementation of  a fully collaborative, “negotiated” curriculum based on learning by enquiry – is now one of the leading exemplars for primary school transformation around the world.
 
Esme, who recently moved on to effect a similar transformation in another, very different primary school – Princes Hill in the same city – has a passionate belief in the right of the child to determine his or her own learning, and is a powerful evangelist for theories of learning first expounded by the Russian, Lev Vygotsky. She has put these theories into practice within the relatively conservative educational system of the state of Victoria – and they worked. And she was so motivated that she travelled to study contemporary interpretations of the Russian expert at the Vygotsky Institute in Moscow. Now she’s eager to share her experiences with English primary schools undergoing transformation through the Primary Capital Programme.

Wooranna Park’s transformation began in the mid 1990s, when Esme was appointed assistant principal with responsibility for pedagogy. Initially she focused on Year 5/6 children, where it was most apparent that children had different learning needs and styles:
 
“We began with a focus on gifted and talented – then very quickly realised that all children needed to be catered for individually,” she said.  “That’s when we set up the Year 5/6 autonomous learning unit.”

“But we very soon realised that children don’t become autonomous learners in Years 5 and 6 – they always had been! So the whole school system needed to be looked at again.”

‘We changed the pedagogy, we changed the organisation, and we changed the space’
 
Esme asked herself – and Wooranna’s staff – the question: “If we started with a blank page, and created a new education system – what would it look like?”
 
The answer was, totally different, and with inspiration from the  George Betts’ Autonomous Learning Model and  the pre-school education system in Reggio Emilia, Italy, Esme and her team set about total transformation: “We changed the pedagogy, we changed the organisation, and we changed the space.”
 
The Wooranna story is unusually well documented – not only on the school’s own website but in a number of articles and videos (see links at the end of this article). For Esme, that 10-year journey from 1995 to 2005 had an additional, personal dimension as her own son was in the first cohort that went right through from prep to Year 6.
 
“So I saw it all from a parents’ perspective as well, which was important,” she said. In fact, the parents at Wooranna – a school in a relatively deprived suburb of Melbourne – quickly came on side and had been supportive, active participants in the change, largely because Esme and her team had ensured that the children’s learning was “made visible” to them.
 
The transformed curriculum is again based on the beliefs that all children are autonomous learners, that they want to learn and learn best through inquiry. Thus the school uses project-based learning, and the children’s work is displayed on the walls every day for all to see. On her visits to schools in England, Esme had been surprised by the way everything was packed up at  the end of each day: “I’d say, leave it there! The goal is these children come back tomorrow, they revisit, they build, and they go deeper into the project.”
 
For her, classroom displays are not mere decoration or even celebration, but a vital part of the process of making learning visible, both to the children and to their teachers and parents.
 
She has also been surprised at what she sees as a lack of understanding of how children learn, even among senior educators – a failing that can be partly attributed, she reckons, to the removal of education theory from teacher training courses.

‘Without staff understanding of learning, school democracy cannot be achieved’

One of the most important aspects of her work had been to take the staff with her, and to know that they understood the process of learning as well as she did – otherwise the goal of making the school democratic, with children negotiating their own learning, could not happen.
 
“A negotiated curriculum means children have a voice in every aspect of their learning”, she said. The challenge for teachers in this is great – in that every stage of every child’s learning has to be tracked and documented. At Wooranna, they developed “Learning journey proformas” which the child, then the teacher would fill in each day,  and which would then go to the parents for comment. 
 
These paper forms are being replaced by electronic documentation using PDAs – though these techniques have yet to be perfected, she says.
 
The teachers’ role here is to provide a form of “scaffolding” to support the child’s growing ability to learn independently. The metaphor is extended at Wooranna. Once a learner has learned to learn sufficiently, some of the scaffolding can be removed and they can fly off on their own, to undertake what Esme calls “Passion Projects” – deep inquiries into topics of their own choice.
 
All of which puts new demands on the organisation of the school, not just in terms of timetable but also of learning spaces, and the way teachers teach. Again, at Wooranna, the issue of learning spaces was tackled early on, initially simply in terms of arrangements of tables and chairs. But soon after, the school received some state funding under  a “designing from the  inside out” project, which enabled Esme to bring in school interior design expert Mary Featherston.
 
There followed a deep research project involving Mary, the children and staff: “We asked them. What did the children want to be able to do?” This process continued for “months” as children and staff mapped what they wanted. Everyone was happy with the final design – but it  took time and hard work.
 
“Mary, (perhaps to the frustration of some) won’t put pen to paper with a design until she is happy the pedagogy is totally unpacked.”
 
Wooranna has a teacher-pupil ratio of  1:28 – but you would rarely see one teacher in a class of 28 children. Team teaching runs throughout the school. Ideally, she says, there would be three adults working with 75 children – so that there’s always one adults available to work intensively with individuals  while the others supervise. It could work with two teachers and 50 children – but that is harder for the teachers.
 
The questions of settings and furniture (pictured, right) were also addressed, the school opting (surprisingly to some designers) for a rather old-fashioned  “tablet”-style single chair and desk – but modified to include a stationary tray. These were found to be more versatile.
 
Eventually, having brought about this amazing transformation at Wooranna, Esme almost became a victim of her own success. Everyone wanted to visit the school – “I became a full-time tour guide!”
 
Which led her, last year, to move on to a new challenge – another primary school, also in Melbourne , but with a very different, far more affluent catchment area.
 
Princes Hill Primary was in the process of undergoing a rebuild when Esme arrived as Principal in January. “Wooranna took us 10 years; now I want to see how quickly we can do the same thing at the new school,” she says.
 
Although many of the teachers were using innovative methods, overall the school had a very traditional curriculum. Ironically, Esme says,  a preconception exists that schools in wealthy areas with very engaged, interested parents can be harder to transform than schools in deprived areas: the parent body itself could be an obstruction.
 
She took care to bypass this potential problem by taking the parents, as well as the staff, with her on the transformation journey. Nine months on, she reckons she has succeeded in the most difficult aspect of transforming a school – getting people on your side.
 
The Princes Hill story promises to be just as inspiring – and as relevant to English primary schools at similar stages of change – as the Wooranna Park story.
 
In both cases, schools that were rumbling along in traditional style have undergone, or are undergoing, total revolution: both have aligned themselves to the learning needs of 21st century children. But if you ask Esme Capp what exactly is 21st century learning, she’ll tell you that to understand that you first need to understand what learning itself is – learning, full stop.
 
Meanwhile, to experience an interactive presentation of the Wooranna philosophy, turn to the “Raison D’Etre” area of the schools website. For those who, as Esme often encounters, enthuse about Wooranna but then hang their hands and say, “Of course we couldn’t do that here,” or “What would the parents say?” or “What about the Sats and the league tables?”  – this little bit of inspiration might just tip the balance.
 
 
Wooranna Park Primary School
www.woorannaparkps.vic.edu.au/
 
Wooranna Park Primary School “Raison D’Etre” site
www.woorannaparkps.vic.edu.au/philosophy.htm
 
Mary Featherston Design
www.featherston.com.au/
 
More information
The Wooranna Park videos for the PCP Leadership Programme are now available on the Future website (see below), and further interviews and insights into the shared work between Esme Capp and Robin Hood Primary School, Birmingham, will shortly be added.
 

Related Resources

• Wooranna Park Learning Scenarios
• Wooranna Park – The Da Vinci Project
• Wooranna Park Primary school website
• Tomorrow’s School Today – Wooranna Park Primary

MA in New Technologies starts as we all should mean to go on…

The MA in New Technologies at Robin Hood School in conjunction with the University of Warwick started last week. From a personal perspective, I had hoped that running this course at our school would be a way of encouraging interest and high level reflection of next practice amongst some of my colleagues. However, I couldn’t have dared to imagine the impact that even this first day would have. Over half of the teaching staff here at Robin Hood School are enrolled on the course and have been joined by a similar number from around the UK and Australia. There was an instant buzz about the subject matter and subsequent exchanges on the course’s ning site and twitter have sustained that interest. As colleagues swap ideas that they have employed in class using google docs, wallwisher, voicethread and etherpad, the forum created has been glowing red hot with activity. To be clear, our school is very tech-savvy, but in this course we have stumbled across a new way of invigorating exploration in to practical Web 2.0 tools for use in the classroom. Why am I surprised, after all, we all know that if we raise our expectations of children then they will strive to reach those new heights. It turns out that adult learners are just the same. I am proud and lucky to be working with such enthusiastic thinkers and educators. If you want to join us, drop me a line.

Creativity: Plan your work, work your plan…

What should we do to promote the very best learning in our students? Some would suggest that first and foremost we should nurture creativity… however others have suggested that the route to creativity is not defined by self discovery but by good old fashioned hard work. The Guardian has an extract, A gift or hard graft?, from Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers: The Story Of Success. The piece introduces the idea that a key to becoming extraordinarily successful in a field is achieving early expertise and that to become an expert in a discipline requires on the order of 10,000 hours of practice. The 10K figure comes from the research of Anders Ericsson who in the early 1990s studied violinists at the Berlin Academy of Music.

“The curious thing about Ericsson’s study is that he and his colleagues couldn’t find any “naturals” – musicians who could float effortlessly to the top while practising a fraction of the time that their peers did. Nor could they find “grinds”, people who worked harder than everyone else and yet just didn’t have what it takes to break into the top ranks. Their research suggested that once you have enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. What’s more, the people at the very top don’t just work much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”

I’m currently reading Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, by Matthew Crawford. It’s a pretty compelling book that first came to my attention in this New York Times piece. The following passage, on the way creativity is misunderstood (contra Richard Florida, in this case) and how it might better be thought of, is just one interesting section of the book:

“It is a view familiar to most of us from kindergarten: creativity is a mysterious capacity that needs to be “unleashed” (think finger painting). Creativity is what happens when people are liberated from the constraints of conventionality. According to this hippie theory, the personal grooming habits of Albert Einstein are highly significant – how else does one identify a “bizarre maverick operating at the bohemian fringe?”

The truth, of course, is that creativity is a by-product of mastery of the sort that is cultivated through long practice. It seems to be built up through submission (think a musician practising scales, or Einstein leaning tensor algebra). Identifying creativity with freedom harmonises quite well with the culture of new capitalism, in which the imperative of flexibility precludes dwelling any task long enough to develop a real competence. Such competence is the condition not only for genuine creativity but for economic independence such as the tradesman enjoys. So the liberationist ethic of what is sometimes called “the 1968 generation” perhaps paved the way for our increasing dependence. We’re primed to respond to any invocation of the aesthetics of individuality. The rhetoric of freedom pleases our ears. The simulacrum of independent though and action that goes by the name of “creativity” trips easily off the tongues of spokespeople of the corporate counterculture, and if we’re not paying attention such usage might influence our career plans. The term invokes our powerful tendency to narcissism, and in doing so greases the skids into work that is not what we had hoped.”

 

So, questions abound. What are we doing to encourage hard work… do we promote creativity in reaction to our perception of a prescriptive curriculum… how do creative AND industrious environments look in schools… what is the role of self determination/ independence/ autonomy for students and pupils in the work ethos promoted by Gladwell and others?

Free Web 2.0 Leadership and Information Management tools

This third web2.0 post addresses tools that help you to create course content or manage your information data flood…

Tools for Managing Time, Tasks, and Information

Course Management Moodle Engrade Chalksite Haiku Utips Time Management Google Calendar Calgoo.com Yahoo! Calendar Lightning Sunbird Tsheets   Task Management Remember the Milk Tada List Todoist Tudu   Voo2do.com TracksLife 30 Boxes Jott  mySchoolog CollegeRuled Gradefix   Project or Team Management Basecamp Huddle  ClockingIT Tuggle TeamCowboy

Information Management Searching for Information   General Search Engines Google Ask.com  Alltheweb Cuil Yahoo!   Metasearch Whonu Surfwax ixquick  Clusty  Mamma Dogpile Kartoo    Specialized Search Engines Technorati Hakia Schoolr Powerset Librarians Internet Index 2lingual.com Video fetcher seeqpod Search.twitter.com Boardtracker askkids.com Zoeybot

Search Engines with visual display Kartoo Wetmount  Piclens  Viewzi   Search Engine Tools Boolify.org Search Engine Watch   Collecting Information Survey Monkey Poll Daddy Doodle  Poll Everywhere Google Documents   Organizing Information Libra Plaxo EssentialPIM Free    Personalizing your start page and/or reading feeds iGoogle PageFlakes Netvibes Bloglines Google Reader Juice

Bookmarking and Citation Management Diigo delicious Stumbleupon Furl Magnolia Connotea CiteULike Sync2It Only2Clicks Zotero   Notetaking Google Notebook Stickies MyStickies Awesome Highlighter Evernote Notely Notesake Kwout Change to Link

Web 2.0 Communication tools

More Web 2.0 tools here, courtesy of Hammari:

Instant Messaging          GTalk AIM MSN Digsby Meebo Pidgin Trillian   Discussion Forums Google Groups Lefora

Web conferencing and broadcasting Skype Yugma Elluminate qik Ustream DimDim ooVoo SightSpeed Second Life GizmoProject

Tools for Networking Ning Facebook LinkedIn Spokeo Swurl FriendFeed Second Life   Networking around books Library Thing Goodreads Shelfari

Microblogging                Twitter  Pownce Plurk