Every Parent Matters

Alistair Owens www.keen2learn.co.uk

It ever it was difficult to educate children to understand the practical use of maths this case will dash all hopes of logic. To protect our interests a consortium of surveyors called CLM have been appointed to keep the bill for the London Olympic Games under control. A laudable task and meant to reassure. Last year they were paid £87m for their efforts. I am staggered by the audacity, but what do I know. This year the fee, yes it is an annual pot of gold, has risen to £151m.

Last year the taxpayer stumped up the cash gap that appeared in the funding for the athletes village and media centre. Presumable CLM were protecting our interests by passing the buck when push came to shove. But apparently they made a splendid job, as buried in this years fee payment was a bonus of £60m.

Estimates that total fees to consultants will top £680m by the opening of the games isn’t desperately reassuring. But the government believe it is value for money, but not perhaps money for value.

After 10 years in operation the Government plans to extend the number of educational academies. But are they working? Has the right decision been made by the DCSF (department of children, schools and families) based on fact or is this way to offload problem schools to third parties?

The debate looms; the protagonists either claim Academies offer fundamental benefits to children by providing schooling based on the needs of the real world, or an experiment fraught with difficulties. Many are struggling to prove the point and numerous Principals have fallen by the wayside. Operating outside many constraints of the National Curriculum these self funding and governing institutions have considerable operational freedom. Critically they are able to adopt a syllabus tuned to local commercial requirements. Matching the needs of local employers improves job prospects, surely a fundamental role of the entire educational programme. The commercial sponsorship of their operation instils a real world environment, many have become hugely successful. But others have not.

It is this situation that worries the conventionalists. The lack of detailed evidence that categorically proves the benefits of academies is causing concern. The government’s proposal to extend to 400 the number of academies has caused a stir. With the total number of secondary schools amounting to 3500, academies now represent a significant proportion of the national educational output. Maybe some of the negative comment stems from envy of their dynamic operational, although they are still subjected to Ofsted review.

Schools must evolve with the commercial demands of the employment market. It is as pointless educating children for jobs that do not exist as much as failing to provide an acceptable quality of education for the now global opportunities. Critics of the falling quality are legion, with constant concern over falling standards and the narrowed bandwidth in subject areas created by the “teach to test” syndrome. Concerns levelled by teachers, parents and employers alike over the current performance await a radical review of the schooling process. The solution is complex and will require a courageous plan from the DCSF to correct. But concern over educational matters doesn’t stop at the school gate. We now see a worrying trend developing in universities. The number of graduates finding employment in the discipline of their degree is extraordinary low. Many find that to gain employment they must now achieve a master’s degree. In the prevailing reduced employment demand employers can afford to be highly selective, but this presents additional cost in time and fees to archive a masters. Graduates who find their first degree devalued carry a sizeable financial debt as they enter the job market in a lower paid or qualified role

Academies may therefore be the answer. Tuning education to the changing needs of the now – global employment market may well be the key that academics can adopt dynamically. Their controlling influence from commercial third parties will reflect the changing market needs more readily. Certainly they stand a better change of introducing radical development programmes than the conventional school limited by systems and procedures that can isolate and frustrate new ideas. They may have their critics and still have long way to go, but academies have my vote to become established. To stick rigidly to our current system of schooling which is constantly attracting criticism is of far greater concern.

Teaching four-year-old children to write is nonsense says literacy consultant Sue Palmer. “As useful as teaching a dog to walk on its hind legs.” So why has the National Curriculum in the UK adopted new assessments to measure handwriting skills in the first year at school?

Concerned opinion asks why the government introduced a scheme which is immediately openly criticised by a leading expert. How does this happen?  Surely Palmer is the one of the key people to assist or review the development of a new school policy in literacy before it is launched.

Setting targets that are too easy seems pointless; too hard and those not in contention become demoralised. Sue Palmer believes the long-term effect of the new policy would do more harm than good. The scheme, part of a four billion pound investment into early learning scheduled over the next two years, is therefore questionable.

It is an unfortunate start. The scheme has the right motivation but perhaps lacks the accountability which may have ensured it was thoroughly tested before launch. If government departments could be measured on results the efficacy of many schemes would be more closely reviewed.  The problem starts at the top. Ministerial appointments are inevitably transitory. The tenure of the secretary for education historically has lasted around 18 months. But the measure of the effectiveness of educational policy takes a generation of children to measure its impact. Historically it was always a predecessors’ idea – unless it worked.  But is Sue Palmer right this time?

In an age of computerised communication; e-mails, texts, technology with built in spell check and predictive text, the need to write anything may seem to be superfluous. Cheques are virtually obsolete, even the signature on credit card slips has been replaced by a pin number. Mind you we do get to sign the back of the credit card every two years, and a passport application every ten years. But do you find you have to practice your signature before signing the secure strip that makes it unreadable anyway. Hardly a burdensome task, so do we need to write anything?

Shopping lists could shortly be replaced with bar code scans, or even the fridge could order online for you. Purchases are made more and more on line requiring typing skills and the deft control of the mouse. Even the mouse could be replaced by a touch screen.

Obviously handwriting skills intermesh with spelling. This leads us to another quandary. Teaching children to spell and write words as they sound involves the definition of “phonic.” Where the P and H of phonic of course being pronounced as an  “f.”  But no worry, as the device the kids will ultimately use to communicate will be a cell phone, with camera, spell check and predictive text – assuming that text abbreviations don’t completely take over.

If a more complex message is required then one of the new mini laptops, or knee tops is ideal. These incredible devices incorporate all the functions of the PC in a case weighing 1kg and a screen of 7inches. Highly portable they could tuck into a small backpack – or even a hood. Not as daft as it sounds. I once met a Berber in Morocco who wore the long traditional cloak and used the hood as a vast pocket.

If handwriting and spelling skills are an essential form of communication they are under attack, but they have one great defence. They work when the powers gone, the battery’s flat, the pc has crashed and credit is exhausted. Yes, in this rapidly developing technical world we still need to learn how to read, write and spell!

Alistair Owens http://www.keen2learn.co.uk

By Alistair Owens keen2learn

The best people to manage a situation are those on the ground, at the sharp end of operations. Teachers are therefore eminently more able to use their operational skill and judgement to maximise school performance than a remote theorist.

The National Curriculum has been played around with for all of its 22 years existence. Results published in April 2009 show we are failing badly in the educational standards at primary level in maths and English; the essential bedrock that influences attainment in secondary education. Although the rate of improvement in numeracy and literacy shows a marginal improvement over last year the rate of improvement is slowing. The numbers being left behind are massive. Can we continue to fail 160,000 11 year olds – a quarter of the total are still missing the target?

Teachers are locked into targets that see some of the brighter students abandoned in favour of addressing the needs of the struggling children. Hardly an altruistic move when the motivation is primarily the need to move the overall numbers up.

We are in the midst of a national financial crisis that bears similar markers. Although the jury is still out, the economic collapse was heavily influenced by government policy to get banks to invest in social markets and areas of risk to improve performance. The judgment of the banks became clouded by people in high places who knew little about the operations at the sharp end. Stressed bankers took risks in order to meet targets. Incentivised by greed the odds were too high and beyond the expertise of many individuals. The resultant spectacle of the banks and the system as we know imploding did little to instil confidence in the hierarchy.

Are we seeing the corollary in our education policy? The fun has gone out of schooling, SAT’s and GCSE milestones, the measure of educational standard, have burdened the “Best years of their life” designed to nourish a lifelong quest for learning. Yet some success stories are around.  A top performing school in Bradford broke free and introduced “brain breaks.” A combination of fun and exercise to encourage learning has been a great success. The teaching resources are there they just need to be released. Let the profession responsible for the results use their skill and judgement to achieve success.

Children who see education as a fun activity thrive. Putting fun learning back into the schooling process is not taking some easy route. Managing the process needs skill and energy, but the results can be extremely rewarding. There is another hidden asset. Engaging parents in the process at home is vastly easier with educational games than conventional exercises.

Homework in this form can also be seen as enjoyable and as children spend 85% of their waking time outside school could capture a huge and predominately untapped resource. The homework process seeks to get children to practise the lesson content. This improves learning retention and gives children the experience of working without the teacher around, an essential feature when considering SAT’s and GCSE exams.

The choice between a tedious text book exercise for homework or an educational game played with family or friends… humm let me think.

Who would want to be Ed Balls the education secretary? Sorry, the Secretary of state for children, schools and families (DCSF). Maybe therein lays the answer. This hugely diverse role fails to mention education in the title, yet it is education that will set the future course for the UK, and it is in education where we are failing, badly.

The debate into statutory assessment tests (SAT) has become acrimonious. The secretary for the DCSF wishes to change the format and add to the list of already abandoned tests. The reaction at sharp end in teaching is unequivocal. One teachers union bearing the substantial title of The National Association of Schoolmasters and Women Teachers ( NASUWT) claims they will strike if the tests are abandoned, another The National Unions of Teachers will strike if they remain. Ed Balls states he is “caught in between a rock and hard place.” But also caught in the middle our children anxiously await sense and reason. It’s their future we are mucking about with.

The demands of society and the global economy are evolving dramatically during the schooling journey of any child. Apart from tweaks to the curriculum, the standard of learning achievement has failed to match the pace of change. The system has certainly failed to track consistently with developments in technology. Advances in nearly all avenues of modern achievement have been largely unmatched in the field of education. Our systems and procedures continue to fail children at primary level delivering an almost impossible catch-up challenge to secondary schools.

The current debate centres on the SAT’s. Ostensibly tracking the achievement of a child and a key measure of the effectiveness of the teaching resources, they unfortunately follow the twists and turns of many target driven corporate objectives, and fraught with an unhealthy degree of manipulation. Critically, teaching capacity has been focused on the “teach to test syndrome” where children are groomed to pass tests at the expense of a wider broader based education that would enthuse both children and teachers alike. The desire to inflate achievement has taken the fun out of learning. Maths games and English games to stimulate educational interest are abandoned in preference to test drilling exercises.

The current debate concerns the removal or rescheduling of key stage 2 SAT’s taken by 11 year old’s. In view of criticism of the testing versus teaching focus this seems a good move, but as ever the devil is in the detail. Unleashing a knock on problem of additional bureaucracy and work load has created the rift within the teaching fraternity. Testing at primary level is essential to identify potential performance at secondary, as without this secondary schools initially run blind with each years intake. The new scheme requires this to be completed when the child is ready rather than at set times. Teachers state this will cause a massive increase in workload and create even further disruption and depletion of the educational resources.

Thus some alternative measure of a child’s performance system is essential. Ironically the SAT key stage 2 replaced the 11+ which had the same function in 1987. Some improvement. Ed Balls says he does not want to rush into any decision. Perhaps this will give him the opportunity to listen to the guys steering the boat. Teachers have profound knowledge of what works and what does not in their own environment. Surely they should command the solution rather than costly bureaucrats whose theory appears to fail. In view of the cut backs in education wasting valuable resources in an in fight is not the way forward and would avoid the leviathan drawback of the National Health where managers now outnumber doctors.

Ed Balls has the unenviable task of sorting things out. Decisions taken now have an implication for generations to come. Daunting perhaps but he also has the opportunity to evolve an educational programme that could be the envy of the world. We are not alone; most English speaking countries have similar issues with schooling. Ed Balls could stand high as the first Minister to evolve a new educational policy that is fit for purpose for the next 20 years. We would all dearly thank him.

The UK primary school curriculum is in the throws of a massive positive update, or another upheaval depending on which way you look at it. Clearly the current system is ailing with many performance targets being missed despite the inclination to manipulate the results -inherent with any target based system.

The “teach to test” syndrome is leaving children with an incredibly shallow depth of knowledge and unprepared for the ardours of the global changes that will affect their adulthood. Will the next series of educational games be a  positive move?

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Keen2learn blog

“Beating swords into ploughshares” took on a new relevance  recently when toys shops in Trinidad said  children were abandoning toy guns for educational games. Whether it is parental influence or the  choice of children it is good to see toy weapons are being ditched for educational games that are now appearing on the market. Many games are now linked to the curriculum so the lasting fun at home can bring real benefits to achievement in the classroom.

Alistair Owens =>
educational games

Children in the North East of England are being given free bowling sessions in a scheme to encourage them to attend school. Six primary schools will take part in the reward scheme introduced by Stockton Council’s School Attendance Team. Children must have 100% attendance each half term to benefit from the opportunity.

It is an indictment of our schooling system that children have to be incentivised in this manner. The attendance reward offered being outside of school holds a clear message. Why do children abhor school in the first place? Perhaps the lesson content, skill of the teacher, teaching resources and curriculum conspire to turn education into a slog.

Cllr Alex Cunningham of Stockton Council said: “Poor attendance at school is clearly detrimental for children where it affects their level of educational achievement as well as their social and emotional development.”

“We are keen to raise standards in Stockton and children respond well to praise and rewards and I’m sure they will be striving to shout their name out at registration every morning knowing they have a target to achieve.”

But are we just treating the symptoms and not the disease? Certainly children need to be motivated which includes what they are taught and the way they are taught. A considerable number of teachers are highly inventive, therefore surely they should they be encouraged to develop lesson content, style and rewards that interrelate with education. A trip to a bowling alley is certainly rewarding but it could be more educational. I recall winning a prize for attendance at school. I was granted an extra 20 minutes playtime on the day of the announcement. I remember it vividly, the initial pride was quickly offset by the fact I was the only child to gain the award. 20 minutes on your own in a deserted playground lacked appeal and the following teasing in the class, plus having to catch up on the missed 20 minutes of the lesson conspired to make this a one-off award.

The thought was there but the reward inappropriate. Perhaps the incentive offered by Stockton could be attendance at some form of educational games. These could amalgamated with other councils into local, regional and national events with increasing level of content, perception of value and incentive to achieve.

The actual lesson content could be revisited to ensure a level of entertainment and fun is present, overcoming the attendance issue. Enthralling children is an art; to maintain the momentum is a huge task. Lessons hold huge potential to develop educational content that is intriguing, entertaining and functional. Seeing lessons as fun would be a huge influence on children to attend. If a central reward is needed maybe the event could be designed by a team of games designers and TV directors to develop a national Educational games event with the kudos that all children would aspire to. Maybe attracting international figureheads, pop stars, entrepreneurs and inspirational figures would inspire and encourage children as the ulterior motive such that attendance at the event would be a significant reward. In the meantime six children from Rosebrook Primary School, in Stockton, will be the first to benefit from the attendance scheme, receiving a free bowling game. It’s a start that could precipitate a whole new approach

Alistair Owens educational games

1. Interest.

I found school, 40 years ago already, to be boring; my excuse for poor performance.  The use of one dimension low-tech teaching resources did little to help. To get kids interested they need a challenge that is fun and absorbing.  The subject area needs to be dynamic; “Explosive maths games – 100 things you never knew about quadratic equations” would hold more interest that “Maths Text Book Volume 3.”

Practical applications and realism help improve the relevance of the subject.  In physics; what happens when a jet engine goes into goes into reheat?  Massive increase in thrust and acceleration, plus a massive increase in fuel usage! How far can you fly on reheat? What vehicle weighing 20 tons can accelerate from zero to 175 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds? Eat your heart out “Top Gear” it isn’t a car – it’s an aircraft being launched by the catapult on an aircraft carrier, but how does it work?

2. Fashionable

Got to look the part.  Needs great product name, impact packaging and user benefits. Games that let kids “beat up” their parents in a game whilst improving and testing their knowledge and dexterity.

3. Street Cred.

Needs to attract friends, relatives and schoolmates in a must-have game to let them collectively join a particular challenge. Must be reasonable cost so not to exclude kids in low income families ( or funded by the educational authority) and offer a challenge with a purpose. Could replace some of the £20 billion spent in the UK every Christmas on plastic junk toys and games that are played once.

4. Modern Technology

Develop educational games that can be played on host of equipment: Cell phones, MP3, Netbooks, Mum or Dad’s last years Blackberry, Pc’s, Mac’s. Ideally all platforms should all have access to the same game title.

5. SCORM

Include SCORM, the Sharable Content Object Reference Model, is a technical specification that governs how online training (or “e-learning”) is created and delivered to learners. Developed by the US military it forms the basis of a common monitoring system that can be used by a school and parents to check progress by children using educational video games linked to the system.

6. Parental Support.

Getting parents involved by setting them to support or even spar with their children. Eighty percent of a child’s academic success is influenced by what they do at home! Get parents interaction by resetting the game, increase the challenge rating or add extra facilities. Parents could also monitor performance using an in built appraisal of the child’s achievement.( More in item 10)

7. Subject Area

The curriculum needs constant adjustment to capture changes in technology, global developments and career opportunities. The internet, email and many careers didn’t exist when children now entering the job market first started school. Similarly many careers have ceased to exist. The world needs more engineers and scientists. Some good scientific games can stimulate and develop interest tailored to future career prospects.

8. Peer Support

Children learn a huge amount from other children – who else taught them to use a mobile phone?  Interactive educational games such as math games can attract great support from other children. We  just need to give them the focal point to encourage this support. Email, MSN and text can provide an almost instant help desk.

9. Feedback.

Create spirit of competition through educational games linked to class, school, district, county, regional and national league tables.

Update the challenge, create new ideas and gain feedback from other users.

10. School Interface

Replace the report card, or annual parent’s night with dynamic performance feedback linking parent, child and school. Using technology to measure homework performance without the teacher having to laboriously mark assignments. Spell checking, grammar, maths checking can be automated and feed into a summary report with performance graphs giving immediate assistance to the child.

Summary:

Teachers are constantly being pulled from pillar to post. Compiling reports and marking homework consumes an extraordinary amount of time and effort. Streamlining the job using technology to interface with the next generation of educational games will encourage learning outside school. It will also allow teachers more time to get creative.

The assiduous onset of global warming, reducing oil stocks conspire to threaten the world that will ultimately pass to future generations to resolve. Our school children need teaching resources to be groomed on the significance of alternative energy sources, and receive our apologies for getting it so wrong.

The International Energy Agency projects that the world’s electrical power generating capacity will increase to nearly 5.8 million megawatts by the year 2020, up from about 3.3 million in 2000. However, the world’s supply of fossil fuels – our current main source of electricity – will start to run out from the years 2020 to 2060, according to the petroleum industry’s best analysts.

Unlike fossil fuels, renewable energy sources will never run out. In one day, the sunlight which reaches the earth produces enough energy to meet the world’s current power requirements for eight years.

On a global average, each square metre of land is exposed to enough sunlight to produce 1,700 kWh of power every year. The average output is between 850 kWh/m2 in Northern Europe, 1,200 kWh/m2 in Central Europe and 1,200-2,000 kWh/m2 in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean. Only a percentage of the potential held by renewable resources is technically accessible. According to scientists and the solar industry, acknowledging the current state of technology, this percentage is still enough to provide just under six times more power than the world currently requires. Nature offers a variety of options for producing renewable energy. It is mainly a question of how to convert sunlight, wind, biomass or water into electricity, heat or power as efficiently, environmentally friendly, and cost-effectively as possible.

Renewable energy technologies, which have a positive impact for our environment, include wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and organic bio-energy. These are a lot friendlier to the environment than conventional energy technologies which rely on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels contribute significantly to many environmental problems – greenhouse gases, air pollution, water and soil contamination – while renewable energy sources contribute very little or none at all. Greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrocarbons, and chlorofluorocarbons) surround the Earth’s atmosphere like a clear thermal blanket allowing the sun’s warming rays in and trapping the heat close to the Earth’s surface. This natural greenhouse effect keeps the Earth’s average surface temperature at about 33°C (60°F). But scientists believe the increased use of fossil fuels has significantly increased greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide, creating an enhanced greenhouse effect known as global warming. Both pollution and global warming pose major health risks to humans as this contributes to lung disease, including asthma, lung cancer and respiratory infections. A significant global effort in clean energy technology research is needed to develop, collect, store and deliver energy efficiently without harming our planet.

Securing our energy holds many political problems, especially since the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Foreign oil dependence has resurfaced carrying significant political and economic risks. This conventional energy source is vulnerable to political instabilities, trade disputes, embargoes and other disruptions.

Because renewable supplies are predictable and abundant, they can help stabilize energy costs and free consumers from the volatile price swings in the natural gas and oil markets caused by supply and demand issues. Technological improvements and federal production incentives have made the cost of electricity from some renewable sources more cost-competitive compared to generating power from conventional sources. In fact, technological improvements and market growth are making renewable sources more cost competitive.

Some countries are using renewable energy as one way to encourage economic development and stimulate local economies. In many instances energy needs result in a community going to outside utilities or energy suppliers. By developing renewable energy sources, which often employ native resources and local production, energy money is spent in the local economy, helping to generate local revenue.

A renewable energy teaching resources set has been developed to demonstrate the workings of clean energy technologies on a miniature scale. Using an educational games approach can let children build an entire miniature renewable energy system and configure the system in different ways to visualize the complete system from start to finish. Children can learn about direct renewable power generation using solar photovoltaic technology. Experiments with electrolysis shows how to generate and store hydrogen and discover how hydrogen can be used as a renewable “energy carrier” that can power many applications via fuel cell technology.

The combination of science games provides an excellent opportunity to learn about the exciting prospects of renewable energy, as well basic physics and chemistry principles. Seeing how renewable energy can be harnessed, stored, and re-used is an essential ingredient in children’s understanding that can inspire novel developments of the future. Their inheritance may have been eroded over the last few generations; this is a way to start putting something back for the future.

Alistair Owens  keen2learn.