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Sunday 25 October 2015

Five more reasons for an urgent paradigm shift in education

The TES this week provides five more reasons why the United Kingdom education system needs urgent reform:





  1. https://www.tes.com/news/school-news

Robbing pupils of individuality - is that not where we are heading also?


A recent article claims that pupils in China are being robbed of their individuality by their 12 hour school day and rote learning.  Are we not producing our own version by punishing pupils and teachers if OfSTED cannot see improvement in every minute of every lesson even if that child cannot cope?  Today's children are far more stressed and anxious than during my school days in the 50's and 60's, and my generation didn't do too badly as we rebuilt Britain after the Second World War.

Chinese pupils
A leading educationalist says China's education system needs to change or its young and economy will suffer
Full article China 'robbing pupils of individuality'

Wednesday 21 October 2015

Now here is a thought ........  if a third of school syllabuses were delivered in MOOC-style so that children can work from home 2 days per week, then what is to stop them going on a school term holiday and completing work while everyone else is on holiday during term-breaks?  Time to think outside of the box?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34591050

Friday 16 October 2015


The Riba Stirling Prize architecture award, announced last night, has been given to the re-vamped Burntwood School in Wandsworth.  From the images,  it seems to be a bright and colourful set of buildings, although the inset window designs are very similar to an accommodation block in which I lived in Rosyth, Scotland during 1967.  It was disappointing, therefore, to see television footage of the new school depicting desks in regimented rows facing a smartboard, which I suspect was just like the previous design of the classroom.  The school looks very nice, but is it fit for the 21st Century?

The main point is that £40m and three years were taken to produce what would appear to be superficial restructuring for over 1,700 students, not all of whom will be well behaved.  As all educators know, nooks and crannies provide areas very hard to supervise during breaks, lunch periods and going home time giving ample opportunity for bullying and other bad behaviour.  1700 students on-site can be, as I know from my own experience, very challenging to control.

The Headteacher would no doubt challenge my assumption that some bad behaviour will occur, but how much better for students and staff would it have been to build a smaller, high specification school, with classrooms proving interesting layouts and opportunities, with some of the girls working at home or elsewhere on MOOC-style provision of their curriculum?

What is your view?

BBC News - Riba Stirling Prize

Tuesday 13 October 2015

Is there too much pressure on teachers to use technology in the classroom?

Is there too much pressure on teachers to use technology in the classroom?  Here are my views (purely my own) expressed on Virgin Disruptors.

Click here to read Natalie Clarkson's Virgin Disruptor article:  Too much pressure on teachers to use technology

Super-size Schools - Really?

I just wish someone would listen ............. we do NOT need super-sized secondary schools.  We need smaller schools built to very high technical specifications and a student 3-day week at school and a 2-day virtual classroom environment for the rest of the week.  If parents cannot or will not take responsibility for their kids for those 2-days then re-open all of the closed libraries and employ supervising assistants.  We are educating children for a different world than we inhabit.  More and more UK jobs can be done by working from home, so let's teach them how to do that.
BBC News: Super-sized secondary schools

Are we preparing our students for the wrong world?

The UK's primary production is declining.  Our fishing fleets are devastated, and mining almost extinct. Oil production being exhausted, and farming is being taken over by imports.  Manufacturing in secondary production has all but disappeared, with shipbuilding almost non-existent, and the construction industry has reduced owing to austerity.

That leaves the tertiary production sector as the major contributor to the national economy and sources of employment.  Within the sector, more and more professionals and employees are working from home, reducing travel time, the requirement for large offices, and the daily commuter slog.

The only nod to this changing world in education is to insist on computer coding being introduced again into schools.  So the question is ...... what are they going to code.  UK information technology companies, almost without exception, farm their coding specifications out to India, Kuala Lumpur and China.  The level of basic salary that exists in those countries would not be feasible in the United Kingdom.

So what should we be doing?  I believe we should be preparing our students for the new world.  Instilling the discipline to work at home, or in a library, or youth club.  We should be reducing the physical size of schools but building them to higher specifications and upgrading the technology as it develops, not trying to catch up once it has moved on.

More emphasis on the user than the programmer training.

By having a rotating three day week in school, with the additional two days being logged on to a 'virtual classroom' completing MOOC-style courses, that preparation for the future will begin.  There will, of course, be those children who will not or cannot accept these changes, (no different than with today's model) but there are many school refusers and students with long-term illnesses that would thrive along with the rest of the school population.  Those not succeeding would be required to attend all five days at school.  I cannot think of a better motivator for the disinterested than to work towards being allowed out for 'homework days'.

I know that at the moment I may be in a minority of one, because traditional thinking clouds an open mind.  But before shooting me down in flames please at least think about this first.  Something has to change, and soon.  We must stop teaching in a 19th Century way, but using technology instead of slates and blackboards.