Barry Smith - Learning about Learning

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.