Barry Smith - Learning about Learning

Generating assessment information using web 2.0 tools.  This will be old hat to some readers but it is interesting that the ideas are appearing on SQA website amongst others.  If you already use web 2.0 technologoies in working with young people it gives some ideas about using these tools as part of ongoing assessment.  Worth a look.  There is also a full paper, published in April of this year which also makes interesting reading.

I am interested in how the ‘bottom up’ process espoused in the CfE documents is becoming a reality.  I wonder what changes individuals have made to their own practice.  One aspect that CfE focuses on is the change in emphasis from content to methodologies based upon formative assessment to improve outcomes for young people.

Do you think the changes that are happening are at the methodology level, ie people’s thinking about learning and teaching(beyond the inevitable early adopters group), or at a more superficial level(by the wider teaching community) in terms of the way things are organised and the content that is ‘delivered’?

It is an interesting question, because I think that we are, potentially, at a point of such monumental change in Scottish Education that we might end up with a big shuffle in the way things are organised, but not impact upon the deeper levels of thinking about learning. 

This may also be compounded if the NQ consultation returns a framework for qualifications that basically reflects what we already have without any move towards a recognition of teacher judgement that is being promoted in BtC3 as a necessary condition of CfE. 

Any thoughts?

I have taken the opportunity to be a part of the East Lothian secondary learning team with the hope of improving my classroom practice and learning from others.

First up, improving my learning ’success criteria’ in PSE lessons.  How will youngsters know when they have successfully achieved the aims of each lesson?  The idea is to generate clear success criteria for the main points of the lesson and share these at the beginning and review.

Summary of my notes from the event on Jan 17th

Keynote : Sir Robert Smith(Scottish and Southern Energy) - Smith Group

Self appointed, business and entrepreneurs group.  Interested in supporting MCMC youngsters.

Only Turkey and Mexico have worse stats  for OECD countries for NEET 16-19 year olds (35000)

Key to have college/school/business triangle of provision.

Smith group offering work experience placements, being rolled out across Scotland this year.

Using federation of small businesses, providing vocational ed opportunities and work experience for youngsters.

Keynote: Graham Hollowell

NEET Strategy Coventry & Warwickshire

Government strategy

Careful tracking

Range of voc ed programmes

Personalised support & guidance for youngsters

September Guarantee is a guarantee that every youngster who applies for a learning opportunity will get one

Early identification / indicators

Workshop 2

Glasgow’s vocational education.

All under one central group including training for work, apprenticeships etc

Special Programme for looked aftger youngsters : EVIP

Programmes include recognised qualifications like lifeguarding and CITB

Referrer (school) will decide who goes on the course, not the college or central agency group

In S4 they have an employability day, with a mock interview from an employer

Co-ordinated support plan is in place for every young person taking part in vocational courses

Opportunities:

EVIP(enhanced vocational inclusion programme)

YOUTH START

SOCCER SUCCESS

WINTER LEAVERS

Development of alternative curricula

EVIP (full-time programme)

Vocational coach

CSP

Intensive employability input

Development and recognition of soft skills(Step it up) youthlink website : (it is an evaluation tool)

Transition planning and support

Funded (until end of financial year)by external funding from Scottish Government, european funding etc

Glasgow City Council have one round of ‘corporate’ recruitment for which every youngster who is on a vocational programme is guaranteed a first level  interview and prepare for this with their vocational coach

The loss of the Community Liaison Team Active Steps outdoor education provision from our ALPs programme due to funding not being renewed will be a major blow.  Sally Harris and her team have done a fantastic job working with our youngsters in the past year and it will mean a re-think of our programme at the school.  I know that the team have done similar, excellent work throughout East Lothian in the past few years with many different groups of young people and their provision will be sorely missed.  A great shame.

We are about to develop at our new ALPs programme and there will be some changes to the format of the programme based upon our experiences and successes.  We are also taking into account the views of the current participants and facilitators. 

A full report of the new structure and any changes will appear in the coming weeks and months.  I’m particularly keen to build upon the enormous success of our outdoor education activities as well as developing the ALPs website further to make it even more interactive and ‘live’.   I think there is scope for collaborating with other local secondaries too, especially as the cost of some outdoor education activities can be limiting.

If anyone else has been doing anything similar in other schools I’d be interested in hearing about your experiences. 

I’ve just completed the interim evaluation of the ALPs programme, reporting on progress thus far.

In summary:

The programme has improved links with partner organisations, particularly Telford College.  There has been siginificant benefit to the young people on the programme as a result of this, providing opportunities on the Sports Leadership course that almost certainly would not have come along without the work done in S3.  There has also been very close working with the Integration team, Active Steps and Mobex.  In particular the links with the Integration team have helped with work being done in the community as the Integration Team are ‘well kent faces’ with the youngsters.

Incidents in school have reduced by more than half for the group, compared with the preceeding 15 week period.

Exclusion statistics were too small to make a meaningful comparison, they remained constant as compared with the preceeding 15 weeks.  What is significant is that there was no third term ’spike’ as in previous years for this cohort.

Attendance was not improved overall, due in large part to the statistics being heavily influenced by the poor attendance of a couple of individuals.  Attendance on programme activities was very good overall.   Two youngsters have left the programme because of family re-location.

The youngsters involved and outside agencies working with them were positive about the experience thus far.  Each youngster has an idea of their desired destination beyond school and is working with the school’s career officer to establish their own individual pathway.

Work experience opportunities are being taken up by the youngsters to help build their portfolio of employability skills.

Every youngster has had the opportunity to undertake a college placement this year.  So far four youngsters are involved in college programmes of one form or another.

In conclusion, we are well on the way to reaching our goal of having each youngster leaving school for a ‘positive’ destination.   It has for me re-inforced the notion that in terms of the school curriculum more choices does mean more chances.

If you would like further information about any of the above or a copy of the interim evaluation please get in touch.

We’re off to Chamonix with a group of 40 youngsters today.  I’ll try and get an opportunity to blog during the week but if not there will be an update at the start of July!

Stephen Heppell’s visit to the school was a great opportunity for me to see some of the incredible animation and film work being created by the youngsters at Preston Lodge High School.  If animation and film-making are your thing it would be worth getting in touch with our Art department, PT Jim Cramb and the other members of staff are helping to create our film-makers of tomorrow. The link above is to an immensely powerful film about the Holocaust used in school for Holocaust memorial week and created by Preston Lodge students.

I then had an opportunity to discuss the ALPs programme with Stephen,  Ewan MacIntosh and David Gilmour and share experiences and views on working with youngsters who are in need of significant support in the mainstream setting. 

Having these opportunities helps convince me further that the type of work we are doing with our ALPs youngsters has the potential to spread much further than just the ‘NEET’ group.  I hope that we will have the opportunity to explore avenues for such development in the coming years as A Curriculum for Excellence broadens out our ideas of the curriculum.

I took a good deal from what May Sweeney had to say in her presentation to the conference on Friday.  To summarise, the message I got (feel free to correct me if you were there and I’m wrong!) was that the curriculum is opening up to allow activities previously viewed as extra curricular becoming an integral part.  For example, clubs and interest groups, tying in with the ideas of personalisation and choice.

Literacy, Numeracy and aspects of the Health curriculum are very clearly the responsibility of all teachers, not just subject specialists.

In new ACE ‘levels’ 1 to 4, breadth is the key element, organised through curricular areas: Health and wellbeing, languages, mathematics, sciences, social studies, expressive arts, technologies and Religious and moral education.  Specialisation comes after levels 1 to 4. (There is debate as to whether the word ‘level’ will be used because of the connections to 5-14)  There is to be consultation over the structure of Standard grade and Higher still this summer.

Pupil voice = co-creation of the curriculum :  Leading to more personalisation and choice.

Building resilience in to the ‘pupil’s toolkit’ is seen as essential.  The ability to meet novel situations with confidence and stick at any given task.  Quick to say but perhaps on of the biggest challenges.

Assessment is for Learning techniques should be more than ‘using traffic lights’ in classrooms.  Deeper consideration of AiFL is needed.

A study of interdisciplinary learning (by Siskin?) has suggested that interdisciplinary learning is vital in helping young people to connect to more specialised, discrete learning.  I think that we are organised in almost the opposite manner in secondary schools at the moment.

Deliberately mixing age groups is encouraged for some activities, with a view to challenging negative peer group influences and encourage leadership roles amongst students.

Opportunities for reflection, both personal and collective, are built in to the teaching and learning experience.

There are still many questions to be answered in all of the areas mentioned above, not least how achievement is recorded and progression is ensured within the more flexible learning structure. 

It was clear that in East Lothian there is certainly action taking place.   In my experience, initiatives like Extreme Learning, cross-curricular projects like those happening at Preston Lodge High School (more about our most recent, The Rhythm of Life, coming soon) and new curricular structures are beginning to be tested and are presenting an early picture of how ACE is developing.