Learning about Learning

Having had an extremely encouraging Friday morning, both from the point of view of the first tentative steps along the road towards creating an Alternative Curriculum provision at PLHS and with the Pre-Vocational strategy group meeting, I was full of enthusiasm for taking the plunge into the ‘wikisphere’! 

At our early morning meeting we had a great turnout from both staff members and other agencies; Angie Davie from the Pennypit, Karen Steedman from the Shed and Alan Bell and Frances Lamarra of the Integration Team.  The lure of free coffee and croissants at 7.30am had a power which astonished even me!  ‘Mental note’ most definitely taken, although I think it might be toast and tea this week, variety being the spice and all that.

We got through our agenda with some excellent input from all concerned, and once again I owe a major debt of gratitude to everyone, especially to the members of outside agencies who came along with open minds and some excellent ideas to take the notion forward. 

Friday afternoon saw me try to make sense of all the information we had gathered and create our alternative curriculum ‘wiki‘ space which I have managed to make a start on.  I was frustrated at being unable to satisfactorily represent a ‘Mind Genius’ mind map on the wiki because it was not a ‘jpeg’ or some other type of picture file.  That’s one I’ll have to work on. If anyone has any ideas then please let me know.  I’d also like to invite anyone reading this to please have a look and contribute any thoughts or ideas to our wiki pages.  There is a long way to go, especially in ironing out all the potential obstacles already identified and the more input from others the easier the process will be.

I had the privilege of playing the djembe with Waa Sylla at a multicultural event at St Margaret’s Academy in Livingston on Sunday.  What a great use for a school at the weekend, truly a ‘community’ event with the school at the centre, I was really impressed.

Having spent this evening pulling together my information and ideas for the Alternative Curriculum project I’m raring to go for our first working group meeting tomorrow.

I’ve split the main areas for work into three, the programme content, consultation and selection.  My plan is to use a SWOT analysis in small groups for each section and see what comes out of it.  Once that is done it is my intention to set up a Wiki to open things out to a wider audience to see what we can learn from others and where it takes us.  I’ve taken inspiration from the Extreme Learning template.  It has been a very ‘organic’ process of development thus far involving input from all.

I’m really excited at the prospect of what could be done with the idea, especialy with the initial interest both from within the school and from the Pennypit, Graham Rae at Telford College, the Integration Team and Sally Harris of Active Steps.  One aspect that is missing at this stage is an input from our local business community and I feel we have a potentially bountiful resource untapped there.  I am hoping to move on that front in the near future. 

Today has been a day where the potential we have, as a profession, to positively influence the lives of others has really been writ large in my mind. I had some excellent feedback from parents about the positive influence attending a pre-vocational college course has had on their youngsters.  This was a heartening message to hear given that it has been difficult to fit in the college courses with the mainstream curriculum and that we are trying our best to ensure that the youngsters are fully supported in preparing for their standard grades by adding a period of ‘catch up’ time in Maths and English.  I also had an interesting discussion with a parent about the merits of having the college course delivered on a Friday afternoon, a pilot we are currently trying with S3 youngsters.  There are pros and cons as we are finding out, not least the difficulty of motivating youngsters to attend outside ‘normal’ school time in a location which is alien to them.

I later attended the Extreme Learning meeting in th North Berwick and was further inspired by the enthusiasm and free thinking of those at the meeting.  The more I think about the concept the more I’m sure that we are ‘on to something’ with the idea of Extreme Learning. As we discussed how assessing the projects would be organised, I was reminded of Howard Gardner’s ideas on Multiple Intelligences and how close our ideas of assessing the Extreme Learning projects come to his markers of Individual profile, Mastery of facts, Skills and concepts, Quality of work, Communication and Reflection.  However, I believe that the idea of collaboration which is embedded in Extreme Learning builds upon these ideas further and is a hugely significant ’shift’ in mindset in terms of assessing the work of youngsters.  I am really excited by this as I think we are moving towards a model of making learning both relevant for the learner and motivated by intrinsic as opposed to extrinsic factors.  Can’t wait to get started!

Finally I’ve had my wife’s cousin visiting for the past couple of days, she is an English teacher in the South West of England.  This evening we got on to the topic of the positive (and negative) influences that teachers have had on us all.  She recalled an assembly with a new depute head of her school who quoted a statistic about a survey that had been done asking adults who were the three most positively influential people in their live thus far.  Ninety-five percent of respondents  mentioned teachers, in both the positive and negative lists!  Obviously this is a second hand story with perhaps a 3rd hand statistic, but I think the sentiment is not far from the truth. Teaching is one of the few professions in which there is a very real opportunity to make a lasting impression on someone’s life.  It may sound cliched, but is no less true for it.  How lucky we are, and what a tremendous responsibility. 

A good(if lengthy, as arriving home at Ruaridh’s bath time reminded me) day at the office!

This attention grabbing title was the subject of our in-service day today.  Sue Palmer ex-headteacher cum educational writer and researcher gave an extremely thought-provoking session on the subect of how boys learn and why we may be expecting too much of them at an early age in terms of the mastery of spoken and written language. 

She argued that some boys may be ‘turned off’ education at an early age because they don’t feel they can have the same success as girls in learning to read and write, an issue that seems to be backed up by research suggesting that the young male brain processes symbolic language on one side of the brain as opposed to both sides in girls, which apparently gives them an advantage.  Another factor was that boys are not allowed to ‘play to their strengths’ in terms of developing their spatial awareness and risk-taking skills which are more inherent in boys than in girls, a developmental hangover from when we really were hunter gatherers apparently. 

The whole nature/nurture debate was again sparked off and discussed through the course of the day and I have to say made for a very stimulating sesson. 

To what extent can schools intervene and provide necessary skills to promote the ‘fully rounded’ development of both boys and girls in this age of blurred gender roles? I won’t get involved in further conjecture on this matter, because I certainly don’t have answers, but I will be reading more on this fascinating subject. 

I was further impressed today by the presentation of Yvonne Binks, currently seconded to Better Behaviour Scotland,  who was launching the ‘Be Cool in School’ behaviour programme for primary 6/7 youngsters while also giving us secondary teachers a chance to look at the draft of the secondary version which will roll out in August.  At an early assessment, it is the closest attempt I have seen at teaching emotional literacy amongst young people in a ‘mainstream setting’ and as such I think is a real step in the right direction.  I can’t wait to have a look in more detail.  All in all a top quality in-service day. 

I think I have also ‘firmed up’ my idea for a comparitive study on the SQH.  I am hoping to go into on of the companies shortlisted in the National Business Awards for the corporate social responsibility to see how they have put their policy staements in to practice and how they monitor and evaluate the impact they have had.  The only thing I have to do now is to get someone to agree to take part!

I have a full week ahead with parents visiting to discuss support we have put in place to help our youngsters in S4 who are missing out on some of their standard grade subject time through going to college, the next Extreme Learning meeting, my first alternative curriculum working group meeting and the Pre-vocational strategy group meeting this week too!  On top of that I’m trying to organise and advertise an African drumming workshop a week on Saturday for my Senegalese Teacher who is coming up from Bristol for the weekend.  I’m extremely lucky to have all these great things happening, just hope my head can keep up!

The title of the blog today is inspired by a comment/question that I’ve recently heard a few times in conversations about blogging. I know other people have talked about this in various blogs but until recently I hadn’t really had much cause to consider the question, ‘who are the blogs actually for?’, because for me the answer has been very clear from the start; my blog is for my own reflection and learning and if someone takes something from it in whatever guise then great, it has had a positive effect on someone else, a win/win situation if ever there was one.

During conversations I’ve had with colleagues, the idea that blogging is for some a sort of ’self gratification’ or ‘massaging of the ego’, has been mooted. My initial thoughts as a (relatively new) blogger were to defend my own position and that of others. Thankfully I’ve managed to hold my tongue and let the comments pass. But the words have stayed with me and made me think about what purpose blogging serves.

I suppose for me blogging is a very functional thing, it serves a purpose and so far has fulfilled that purpose very well, to allow me to document and reflect upon the stages gone through and issues arising during the course of my SQH. Even if it was purely for self gratification I don’t think there would be any problem in it from the point of view that nobody is forced to read it, I’m not doing it ‘on company time’, and I’m pretty sure I’m not offending anyone!

Where blogging’s enormous value and usefulness arises is in the interaction that others have with what has been written. I can truly say that I had not used the internet for meaningful learning until I started blogging. I have learned in a superficial way by gaining new facts and such like, but not in a reflective, deep sense. That may say more about me than the usefulness of the internet(!) but in the past few months I have used my own blog, and those of others to reflect upon my own educational values and views of learning. I have taken information from other blogs and used it to inform my own viewpoints both in agreeing and disagreeing with what has been said, and I have used and shared resources with others.

I’m definitely an advocate of blogging, not as an end in itself, but as another tool that we can use to further our own learning and the learning of others. But as with anything new there will be suspicion and distrust in some quarters until real benefit can actually be ’seen’. If anyone reads this who is not a blogger, I’d say start your own educational blog and see where it takes you, only then can you truly guage its usefullness and you can also have an opinion based on a practical understanding of the processes involved.

I was fortunate enough to attend a meeting chaired by Sandy Paton of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce today, to discuss work experience for S5/6 youngsters in businesses who employ Maths and Science graduates. The idea is to give prospective University students a ‘taste’ of the types of companies and jobs that they could potentially be employed by on leaving University having gained a degree in Maths or Sciences. This will, it is hoped, in turn have the knock on effect of encouraging more youngsters to follow a Science or Maths course at University.

The businesses involved obviously have a vested interest in turning out many high calibre Maths and Science graduates to fill vacancies that they project they will have in the next 5 to ten years, but I have to say that I’m delighted that successful businesses (Oracle were represented today and already working with 40 Scottish educational institutions) are beginning to work with schools and colleges in partnership to provide meaningful opportunities and experiences for our young people.

I think educators inevitably feel a note of caution when business plays the ‘Corporate Social Responsibility card’, but the reality that we are living is that opportnities for providing such high quality experiences for youngsters in ‘higher end’ businesses are limited at present and they are, in my view, an untapped resource. I am looking forward to seeing where the pilot scheme leads.

The thought also struck me today that the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce may be an excellent place to find a host organisation for my SQH comparitive study. I will be following that lead up with vigour too!

Tomorrow the school are having a 5km walk around Prestonpans that every youngster in the school will be involved in. It is a real community event with students, teachers, parents, the local Rotary, the Police and others involved. It has been organised with military precision by our HE department and they deserve enormous praise for their efforts, not least for getting us all off classes for the day!

After that it’s out for a meal with colleagues, a couple of ginger beer and limes and then October holidays and SQH mania start in earnest.

We made further progress towards getting ideas and input for the Alternative Curriculum today. I had an encouraging conversation with Stevie Siegerson of the
Columba 1400 project and despite them not, at the moment, working directly with youngsters of the age of our S3 students, he was upbeat about the prospects of putting something together in the near future that would be suitable. I would love to get the youngsters involved with an organisation like Columba 1400, which aims not only to bring out the confidence and positive aspects of each youngster’s personality, but also develop leadership skills. What a potentially wonderful opportunity.

I also had contact through another colleague, from Sally Harris who co-ordinates the
Active Steps outdoor activities project. Sally is keen to find out more about our Alternative Curriculum and hopefully have some input to the programme. Things are definitely looking up.

Further good news is that I have almost finalised my working party to look into the structure and content of the Alternative Curriculum. I’ve had a great response from interested members of staff in the school, as well as having representation from outside agencies. One thing I’m struggling with is deciding on pupil consultation and parental consultation and involvement at the planning stages. I’ve ‘up-skilled’ myself enough to be able to set up my own ‘wiki’ to allow anyone to have their say in the design of the programme and will be putting it together in the next week, therefore potentially giving parents and pupils a chance to contribute. But my gut feeling is that I really need to have representation from parents and pupils in the working group, otherwise how can it be truly representative? That’s one I’ll have to sort out this week.

I’m delighted to say that I have also passed SQH Unit 1, I found out on Thursday. What a massive relief! That has given me renewed energy and motivation, really a great boost.

I’ve been reading Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences - New Horizons, an update of the original 1993 version. If you haven’t read it and are interested in the way that we, as a species, learn and also the way we recognise ‘intelligence’, then I would throroughly recommend it. It throws up many interesting questions about how we recognise and value different kinds of achievement and different ‘intelligences’. I just wish I had read it in 1993!

Have just finished two incredibly inspirational SQH taught days at Moray House. The focus was our Unit 3 Comparative Study(CS). We have to take some facet of leadership and management and compare our school situation with that of another organisation, either a business, public body, school from a different sector or not-for-profit organisation. The aim being to highlight similarities and differences and see what we can learn from one another.

We had the privilege of listening to Joan Stead, senior research fellow at Moray House who gave us a fascinating insight into the ‘messy’ world of
qualitative research. Whereas
quantitative research by its nature is generally easily measured, recorded and analysed, the world of qualitative research is a whole lot more ‘organic’, messy and less easily ‘boxed’, therefore tending generate data on a much smaller scale. Joan described having to battle against the mindset which dictates that anything which is not easily measured and cannot generate a large amount of data is not valid in the world of research. We have to ask what inference can we draw from the subtle nuances of semi-structured and unstructured interviews, as opposed to vast amounts of numerical data where the set of responses is known before the outset?

A quote Joan used that I think I’m going comandeer is, “Say a lot about a little rather than a little about a lot”, a great way to describe being focussed and aiming your sights on a smaller target rather than using a ’scattergun’ approach.

We had a fantastic input from Derek Walker, a director of
The Tree of Knowledge, who described the benefits to business of becoming involved in an SQH comparitor study and also gave some extremely useful tips on ’selling’ your research idea to a prospective partner. Derek was both animated and realistic in his description of the potential PR gains for businesses of becoming involved in an Education-Business partership as well as the possibility of a reciprocal study being set up in the future and how that may strengthen links between business and schools. It throws up many interesting questions.

The Value Creation Process is a kind of SWOT analysis which outlines Dangers, Opportunities, Credentials,Plan and Path and the Evolution of an idea, in this case a partnership, which the Tree of Knowledge and other businesses use widely. Derek encouraged us to open up a dialogue with our prospective CS partner about the dangers they saw in having an outsider come and do research in their organisation. In this way we could then go back with the opportunities or solutions to those dangers, thus removing the barriers to the collaboration taking place. I have taken note and will go to my potential CS partner armed and ready!

I am trying to reduce the scope of my initial idea, which was to compare change management in my school with a technologies business, such as a mobile phone company who, by their very nature, must continually change if they are to keep up with the technology that drives the business.

How is the management of change embedded in their processes and in the mindset of employees? How can teachers suffer from ‘change/initiative fatigue’ and other professions cope well? Is it a cultural, process or management issue or a combination of them all? These questions are far too big for my purposes so hopefully I can strip them down to something manageable. So many ideas so little time!

I sit tonight feeling somewhat bewildered at the task facing me. I am attempting to analyse the school’s capacity for change and improvement usisng Barbara MacGilchrist’s ‘Nine Intelligences’ model. I have to submit a section of this analysis along with the school improvement project rationale and plan in draft form on Thursday. I’m having real difficulty understanding the task fully so I think some input from my tutor will be required. At this rate it will be a flimsy draft.

I presented the current state of play of the alternative curriculum at our joint Pastoral/Learning Support Team meeting today. One of the striking features of bringing the information together was the large drop in numbers of young people involved in pre-vocational college education in the school. There are a number of reasons for this which I don’t need to go into here, but it made me realise how things are changing in terms of the provision of vocational experiences for our youngsters and how very important it will be to find local solutions in the future. This is an important area of education for many of the young people at Preston Lodge High School and I think we will have to be creative in the future in finding appropriate opportunities for them.