Learning out of school

June 07

An ex pupil of mine from Robin Hood School (currently in year 6) recently sent me a video podcast attached to an email. He was one of a small group of pupils who attended the National Student Voice Conference in London. What is remarkable about this podcast is not the content or the technical expertise involved, but the fact that Mohammed used his mobile phone to collect the media and his own time to put the podcast together. No teacher at his school taught Mohammed how to podcast. He was tutored by pupils in the previous year 6 during independence time (the first 20 minutes of the school day is given over to pupil self directed learning). He took the photographs with his phone and recorded the lunchtime pupil quartet, also with his phone. He put the video together at home but decided he needed someone at school to provide him with the voice over (he wasn’t good enough by his own estimation!). This was completed during independence time the following day and the resulting podcast sent to me.

Primary Specialism Pilot

We have been working with the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, the DfES, National Strategies and the Youth Sports Trust on the Primary Specialism Pilot. 34 schools in clusters are developing curriculum specialisms in one of 5 subjects with a view to raising standards in their schools, particularly in the core subjects. Iam linking with the Devon Cluster looking at music and Ann is working with the Warwickshire cluster looking at MFL. We are both supporting the Tower Hamlets cluster who have the Arts as their specialism. Really looking forward to working with the schools on this project and seeing if the development of a specialism can have a positive effect on core subject standards. I have just spent 2 days with the Devon group. The heads seem really up for the pilot and are keen to develop new approaches in their schools. I shall report regularly on the progress all schools are making.

Read the TES online article here

June 07

Working with Hawes Side Primary School – Blackpool

 Spent a great day with the year 5 pupils helping them to develop a school blog. The children wanted it to be a mixture of an electronic magazine and an information service for the school community. I am particularly interested to see how the school council pages work out as the council want to use the blog to survey children about school issues. The problem page is already proving popular with pupils – take a look at the blog here