Barry Smith - Learning about Learning

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.

I’m doing a lot of reading at the moment about leadership. Both from the point of view of trying to understand myself better but also to understand the preferred styles of those around me and the effect they have on the community they inhabit.  It has given rise to some enlightening conversations with colleagues around the subject.  It seems to be one thing everyone has an opinion on.   I’d recommend Micheal Fullan’s Leading in a culture of change if you are interested in a discussion of the issues.

The interesting thing for me is that both our own preferred style of leadership and the style that we perceive from those around us in daily interactions can(if we allow it) heavily influence our job (and life) satisfaction.  (Think of your parents’ style of ‘leadership’ with you if you don’t believe me!)  One style may work briliantly in a particular context but fall flat in another or we may inspire some people and at the same time ‘turn off’ others.  Is there a perfect leadership style that works in all situations or is the perfect leader someone who can adapt their style intuitively to suit the context? 

What does distributed leadership actually mean in the school context and can we really dismantle the hierarchical model.  I think we are engaged in interesting times in East Lothian at present on that front. I am keen to see how this ‘virtual’ hierarchy-free model could translate to a physical entity like a school.  People take initiative in this environment and to a great degree do so unsupervised or directed.  If this happened in school would we have anarchy or unbridled creativity?  A Curriculum for Excellence may begin to ask, and answer, that question.

After a fantastic Easter break it’s been back into the fray today.  It’s great to get back to school feeling totally refreshed.  My perception is that for most secondary teachers this is term in which things ‘ease off’ a little with exam leave.  That was certainly my experience as a Maths teacher. 

It’s not quite the same, again in my experience, for those involved in Guidance/Pupil Support.  Despite the reduced numbers there still seems to be as much going on, maybe it’s just that other things that may not have been as far up the agenda suddenly have the chance to come on to your radar.  There are also primary visits and transfer information to consider.  Anyway, not a bleat, I’m just glad I had a relaxing break to prepare me for the coming term. 

This term also takes care of SQH Unit 4.  We have an oral presentation to do as well as a written assignment.  I’m actually looking forward to this one because we are focusing on our school improvement project which has been really interesting for me so far. 

Pre-vocational education selection time is here too, so that will take up a large chunk of time with the organising, preparation, interviews and induction.

After all that it’ll be time to go to Chamonix in activities week, woohoo! How time flies!

I read two very interesting books over the holidays.  I recommend them both.  Hegemony or survival by Noam Chomsky and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. 

We got wind of an excellent opportunity today for all schools and teachers in East Lothian.  It was from Learning and Teaching Scotland on the Scottish Continuing International Professional Development Programme (SCIPD).  It is for international exchange and visits for teachers.

More information here. 

Having just returned from another excellent 3 taught days on the SQH I have, increasingly, been considering the apparent dichotomy between what schools and school leaders are being asked to deliver and the reality of the world in which we live. 

We are currently in the midst of very exciting times with A Curriculum for Excellence and the changes it will bring to Scottish Education.  The focus seems to be shifting, quite rightly in my opinion, away from an emphasis on summative outcomes and more towards a process, connectedness, deep, ‘rich’ and skills driven view of education and learning.

Furthermore, as professionals, teachers are being asked to embody the essence of lifelong learning, constantly improving and innovating with practice, engaging in debate and generating,  evaluating and reflecting upon data in relation to ’what works’ and why.

At the same time, the message to school leaders it seems to me is that any changes made have to be lasting, long term and embedded within the curriculum.  I am thinking that this creates a tension.  If we live in a world that is constantly changing, as it seems clear that we do, then how do we define long term and lasting change?  In fact, the very question of what constitues ‘long term’ and ‘lasting’ I believe is something which we need to explore.  Certainly in terms of the way now organise our working lives, long term is no longer thought of in decades.  People no longer expect to be in the same job for 10, 20 or 30 years. 

So how does this translate to education?  I believe that there is still a view in some quarters of education that, in fact, people ’should’ remain in the same place for 5, 10, 15 years or more to ensure that they can make ‘a real difference’, and somehow not to do so shows either a lack of commitment or flightiness in attitude.   However, if we are preparing our young people for a world in which change is taken as the norm, both in terms of the development of technology, the way in which we work and the way in which we live, how can the teaching profession regard itself as in any way separate or different?  It seems to me that we will have to come to terms with a higher turnover of staff in the future as people make choices about where they live and work and how they organise their time and make their path through life.

Therefore, there may be more instances of people taking a job on for 2, 3 or 4 years before taking the next step in their career path.  This then throws up the question of how effective teachers are with their time in each post.  I have no doubt that a motivated, talented and committed teacher can make a difference to a school in one year, never mind 5 years. The big question for schools is how, if that is the only time you get from a member of staff(we are already seeing this with probationers), can we ensure that the ‘good bits’ are left behind as a legacy and employed by the new staff member who comes in. This is the long term and lasting change part.

On of the possible solutions must surely be a much more open view of classrooms, in order to share good practice.  Peer observation needs to be the norm, not the exception for one day a year or some other tokenistic gesture by school leaders to tick the HGIOS/HMIe box.  For the new generation of teachers coming through peer observation should hopefully be second nature.  We must ensure that we keep observation, team teaching and sharing good practice with high quality ‘in-house’ CPD at the forefront of our priorities in developing staff. To return to the days of closing your door and ‘getting on with it’ would be a disaster at this crucial time.

We had an interesting session on Thursday afternoon from Margaret Alcorn, CPD co-ordinator for Scotland.  While I did not agree with all she espoused in relation to the future direction of school leadership and CPD, she did make an interesting point about Chartered teachers.  She talked about our expert Chartered teachers as being the drivers of school based CPD, sharing good practice and developing others in the school community.  I believe that this is a particularly important point.  The potential of those involved in the Chartered Teacher programme to develop others is tremendous.

A final note, I heard an interesting statistic this week.  Over the next ten years, the Scottish executive will have to employ on average one head teacher per working day to replace those who will reach retirement age during that time, some 2000 new headteachers.  They will be times of perpetual change indeed.  It remains to be seen if and how we define and deliver lasting change.

I had my first telephone coaching session today.  It was made available to the wider teaching population after depute heads and heads had the opportunity to take part, as far as I understand it.  I think it is going to be some of the best money I’ve never spent!  Taking the time to really explore important issues in relation to effectiveness at work and future possibilities I’m sure will be an invaluable piece of personal development.  Reflecting with immediate feedback, great stuff! 

I have six sessions over the next few weeks and we’ve set out a few markers on what I’m hoping to gain from the session.  The first is a ‘nuts and bolts’, operational target, improving my efficiency in dealing with the large amounts of information you are faced (bombarded?) with as a Pupil Support teacher.  To that end I’m meeting with Rob Jones, an information officer at ELC, this week. I’ll no doubt be blogging more about the sessions as the weeks go by.

I also had a great lesson with my S4 PSE class today.  We were discussing what a Curriculum for Excellence is and what it may mean for future generations of school children.  I asked the question, “What would happen if we abolished exams?” and sought feedback from the class.  Exams are obviously close to their hearts at this time so we had an interesting discussion.  Here is a selection of their responses.

Plus Points of abolishing external exams

Less stress for students

More prepared for working life (comment based on a change in curriculum structure)

Less time spent revising and ‘regurgitating’

Your teacher could assess you (This was seen as both positive and negative!)

Minus points

No evidence of qualifications or skills

Harder for employers, colleges and universities to select the ‘right’ people

Students might not know what they are good at

There is no ‘proof’ of what you’re good at for others

We also tried to think of alternatives and I was surprised by how difficult the students found it to perceive of a different way of doing things.  I suppose in some respects it says a lot for how clearly they identify with the current system and how and where they fit in to it.

Suggestions were things like an online ‘evidence bank’ detailing work they had done and skills they had obtained with evidence.  This was seen as a multimedia ‘package’.  Similar to this was the idea of a skills ‘passport’ (rings a bell with something I heard at the PT Conference).  Finally, the idea of teacher assessment/endorsement was strong, but beyond that not much else.  It made me think what a lot we have to change even in relation to youngsters really understanding and engaging with things like peer and self assessment and how this embeds itself in the curriculum. 

It’s great fun having these sort of discussions with the youngsters and I was interested that many of the themes that emerged were along the lines of current educational debate.  Out of the mouths of babes and all that!

We have our next SQH residential next week.  It is going to probably be the most intensive yet, and certainly will be the most taxing in terms of preparation.  We have to prepare four different pieces of work , three informal, small group presentations and one formal presentation in front of the larger group. In addition to that I’m out of school for three days, so organising three days worth of classes does not fill me with unbridled joy!

I’ve blogged quite a bit about thinking skills and creativity, it’s something I have a real interest in.  I am keenly aware my own personal development has been positively affected by becoming more emotionally literate and thinking about my thinking, perceptions, mental models whatever you want to call it, and subsequently accessing my own creative thinking in ways I probably didn’t realise I could.  Over the course of my posts about thinking skills I’ve had a number of people respond favourably to my raising the topic and also being interested in finding out more.

It has occurred to me tonight that perhaps this is something that we, as an authority, should be looking at in more detail and perhaps in a more structured way.  It is probably happening already, but if not is there scope for a group of interested individuals coming together to look at current research and educational practice in this area and perhaps recommend a way forward in terms of developing our practice? 

There seems to be no doubt that the development of thinking skills and creativity is high on the agenda in A Curriculum for Excellence.  I’m also keenly aware that I have little or no knowledge of what is happening in primary schools and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only secondary teacher in this position. 

Enterprise education  focusses extremely well on creativity from a mainly, but not exclusively, economic perspective and the link provides an overview of much of the excellent work currently taking place in East Lothian.  I have not however heard or seen much in the way of teaching the skills in a more holistic way, purely from a personal development and understanding perspective.  I’m prepared to be shot down on that one because I’m obviously only talking from my own experience in schools and I may well be wrong.

There is also the idea of development and progression of thinking skills, linked in some way, I would venture, to emotional intelligence.  I’m sure there are many ‘emotionally intelligent classrooms’ around the region and the country who are also employing thinking skills techniques both by chance and by design.  However, I’m not sure if there is much in the way of a real exploration of what works and is appropriate at what stage for youngsters(and adults). 

I think there may be a real opportunity for East Lothian to be a leader in this field, because from what I saw at the ‘Thinking about Thinking’ conference, everyone is pretty much at the same stage of development; ie using techniques such as brainstorming, mindmapping etc but there did not seem to be a huge amount beyond that, especially in the area of emotional intelligence.  Scottish Borders has dabbled with Feuerstein’s methodology but again there has not been an enormous amount of data generated as to its efficacy or usefulness in schools, although it does look very interesting.  Maybe I’m just looking at something which does already exist from a different perspective, I’m not sure.

Anyway, this has really been a bit of and idea in my head without too much basis in fact for it!  I’d be interested in hearing others views on this one. 

Professor Brian Boyd’s keynote speech focused on the place of thinking skills within a Curriculum for Excellence.  The main themes from the speech as I understood them were as follows :

Making the connections

Are we on the edge of a ‘New Enlightenment’ with the freedom being given to educators through a Curriculum for Excellence?

Thinking skills are equally important for the highest achieveing students as for those finding difficulty.  He suggested that youngsters are so well ‘trained’ for Highers that it ends up being more about reproduction than creativity and inquiry, the skills increasingly necessary to succeed in today’s society.  

Looking at the continuity of learning and transfer of skills eg p6/7 to S1

Learning to Learn - Metacognition

Thinking skills theories and programmes.

Understanding is key.  “Demonstrated understanding in new situations is the cognitive challenge that underpins thinking skills”

Co-operative learning.

Curriculum Architecture

ACfE as a focus for learning and an enabling curriculum.

No longer an accountability(as consequence) culture.

Fundamental principles that link thinking, creativity, enterprise, not just the delivery of discrete initiatives.

A love of learning.

What happens next?

Collegiality and collaboration will help both teachers and students.

Can we put the curriculum architecture in place?

Can we focus on achievement and ‘close the gap’ between highest and lower achievers?

Can we help teachers and learners co-create the curriculum?

I’m a fan of Brian Boyd and again, for me, he didn’t disappoint with this speech.  There was agreat deal more to it than my short summary, but I think I’ve covered the main thrust.  It was very interesting to hear someone who had a great stake in developing ACfE speak so passionately about his vision for it.   He also spoke of the practical implications of shifting the focus of what we do towards the skills of inquiry and creation and away from the constraints of exam results.  We are nowhere near that kindof curriculum at the moment and there will be much debate and discussion amongst us all as we move forward wth ACfE, but I for one am really excited about the prospects.  I heard a number of people who had been teaching for more than twenty years saying the same thing; they are more excited by ACfE than they have been about anything in their whole teaching career, surely that is proof, were it needed, of how significant the next few years could be.