GREAT LEARNING

Tonight i've been thinking about 'what makes great learning?'... for me it's imagination, creativity, engagement and fun. Great learning is about inspiring learners to dig deeper.

I find great joy as a teacher in designing learning experiences for the learners I teach, I find even greater joy when an experience is led by the learner. Tonight this West Base Blog Post, reminded me of Caine's Arcade -

I think we should share this video with our learners and see who is up for taking part in the Global Cardboard Challenge?

Hot-Desking in School

As the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy becomes closer to beginning work and ultimately moving into our multi-million pound Maritime House Campus, I am using this time to reflect. To reflect on our experiences, our shared beliefs and our vision for the future. Tonight, I am drawn to this article from the Australian Financial Review -

Hot-desking – the office interior trend disliked by everyone except cost-cutting chief financial officers – has come to children.

At Sacred Heart Primary School in Sydney’s Mosman, rows of individual desks have been replaced by circular booths and shared tables for collaborative working. Furniture is at different heights to facilitate sitting and – should any eight-year-olds be concerned about their sedentary lifestyle – standing. It’s tidy, but there are no tidy trays.

The thinking behind the classroom arrangements, installed earlier this month, is not about cost; it is inspired by the contemporary trend of “activity-based working” which has gripped the imagination of many of Australia’s largest companies and made having one’s own desk about as rare as having a ­secretary.

It also shows how the physical worlds of children and adult workers are increasingly mimicking each other.

“You’d walk into our room and it wouldn’t remind you of the classroom I was at or you were at,” says Vince Campbell, principal of the Catholic school. “It would be more like a departure lounge in Barcelona airport.”

The old model of teaching, coming out of a 19th-century industrialised world that prepared children for work in factory-like environments, is broken says Campbell. Rows of seated children who are lectured to by a teacher, then tested on how much they’ve absorbed, isn’t a style of education that will equip today’s kids properly.

“We can cram and cram the kids’ heads full of knowledge, but it’s not going to do any good,” he says. “Know­ledge is increasing at an exponential rate. What we need to do is give the children the skills needed in the workplace today – collaboration, working together, problem-solving, teamwork – all these kinds of skills we’re giving them experience of.”

That this is happening on colourful furniture reminiscent of a high-end workplace is no coincidence. Former principal Rosemary De Bono introduced hot-desking at St Mary’s, another Catholic primary school in Sydney, after visiting Macquarie Group’s Shelley Street head office. Investment bankers have been sharing their desks and playing nicely with each other since 2011.

And ironically, in contrast to adults, children find it easier to respond to the change. “When we visited places like Macquarie, someone commented that adults tend to have problems not having their little places and that ownership,” says De Bono, now the acting head of gifted eduction for the Catholic archdiocese of Sydney. “I thought: this is going to be interesting to see how the children reacted and whether they get upset or don’t connect with this. We didn’t have any problems at all.”

Sacred Heart and St Mary’s are not alone. All of the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta’s 80 primary and high schools – and their 45,000 students – have embraced mobile or activity-based working to some degree since the diocese started rolling it out in 2006.

Just as ASX-listed companies such as National Australia Bank know that success means even the CEO cannot have a desk, the schools have found those at the top need to be fully on board.

“Where we’re finding it difficult is where we’ve got teachers who still have one foot in the 20th century and they’re in the mode of teaching where they say: ‘I find it much easier when all the desks are the same’,” Campbell says.

He has a clinical answer for laggards. “My response to them is: ‘Would you go to a hospital that had fantastic results in terms of patient outcomes in the 1980s but hadn’t moved beyond that? Would you still go there for an operation?”

Parramatta diocese’s executive director of schools, Greg Whitby, says the new methods permit teacher-pupil ratios to vary by activity. This hasn’t meant fewer teachers but it does let staff manage their time and working environment, Whitby says. “We’re finding once we put the profession in charge of their working environment . . . you get them much more deeply engaged,” he says.

And with a start this young, it’s likely that office workers of the future won’t ever complain about not having a desk.

Trillium Creek - Reflection Three - Approach

As the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy becomes closer to beginning work and ultimately moving into our multi-million pound Maritime House Campus, I am using this time to reflect. To reflect on our experiences, our shared beliefs and our vision for the future. This week, I am thinking particularly about my visit to America in October 2014 and my time in one school in particular, Trillium Creek Primary School. This is the third post in a series, for my first post about Trillium Creek Primary School, please click here and for my second please click here.

This evening, I want to focus on the approach at Trillium Creek Primary School which stood out to me as one which is truly child-centred. The school, which is part of the West Linn-Wilsonville School District clearly believed in a character driven approach. This approach was evident in the design of learning spaces, work on display and in the various conversations with learners and staff.

During my visit to Trillium Creek Primary School, it was great to hear from members of the West Linn-Wilsonville School District team who explained the process of reexamination it has been through in recent years to consider its strategic mission.

"Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of a true education."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

The team explained how several community Futures Conferences were conducted and brought together parents, Board members, citizens, business owners, students and school staff members to create a shared vision for a school learning community. The six district Vision Themes were identified for educating the next generation. Further defining the Educating the Whole Person vision theme, the Character Traits honesty, integrity, respect, responsibility, kindness, compassion, and courage emerged as core ethical values that their community believes their children should learn and that all should strive to exemplify. 

The team pointed to a comprehensive study of American high schools, conducted by Lickona and Davidson, which reported that "there is a national consensus regarding the need for character - doing our best work, doing the right thing, living a life of purpose." The concern for excellence and ethics evident in that statement is exemplified in West Linn-Wilsonville with the guiding question, "How do we create a school community for the greatest thinkers and most thoughtful people for the world?". I wonder how we would answer this same question at IPACA?

Trillium Creek - Reflection Two - Spaces

As the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy becomes closer to beginning work and ultimately moving into our multi-million pound Maritime House Campus, I am using this time to reflect. To reflect on our experiences, our shared beliefs and our vision for the future. This week, I am thinking particularly about my visit to America in October 2014 and my time in one school in particular, Trillium Creek Primary School. This is the second post in a series, for my first post about Trillium Creek Primary School, please click here.

This evening, I want to focus on the spaces within spaces that I believe help make Trillium Creek Primary School a special place for learning. At the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy, we have long recognised the value of such spaces whether it was the inflatable classroom at Grove Campus (now based in West Base at Osprey Quay) or the Art Shed in Royal Manor Campus -

At the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy, we believe in Professor. Stephen Heppell's simple Rule of Three at Learn3K that helps define third millennium learning spaces. This includes the suggestion that in many cases three walls are enough. We recognised that in practice this doesn't only apply to commons areas, breakout spaces, places for focus and so on, it has also characterises the many agile little spaces-within-spaces that have proved so popular with children and teachers alike - they offer a space for mutuality, for an intimacy of collaboration, for serious study and focussed conversations, for peace & quiet sometimes, for focus and of course, with always one side open and an eye line in, for safety too.

At Trillium Creek Primary School, the spaces within spaces (or rooms within rooms) were many and varied -

I like to think the above spaces were created at the request of learners to support a particular kind of learning. Ewan McIntosh writes a great blog post about the 'seven spaces for learning' here, in it, he talks about the following -

The Seven Spaces provide a common language that does not make mention of architectural or technological concepts, is totally accessible and lets more members of the school community take part in building a new school or new ways of learning. When the time comes for schools to rethink their physical space or technology deployment, teachers, leaders and students can fall into a trap: rather than thinking about what they know about most (teaching, leading learning and learning for themselves), consultants and architects will attempt to 'teach' them how to 'speak architect' or technology geek talk. The result is that too many educators and learners end up with technology and physical space that is great for teaching the old way, painful for teaching in different styles and which locks learners into a groove for many years to come. The Seven Spaces are changing that.

As we move forward with Maritime House, I hope we can be a community that focuses on leading learning and be prepared to break from the old to foster a new approach for the benefit of all our learners.

Spaces within spaces at Maritime House will be one ingredient in a wider recipe unique to Portland.

Trillium Creek - Reflection One - Overview

As the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy becomes closer to beginning work and ultimately moving into our multi-million pound Maritime House Campus, I am using this time to reflect. To reflect on our experiences, our shared beliefs and our vision for the future. This week, I am thinking particularly about my visit to America in October 2014 and my time in one school in particular, Trillium Creek Primary School.

I went to Portland, Oregon for the CEFPI Annual Conference in October 2014 to present at a Super Seminar. The visit which was fully funded by UK Learning also allowed me to visit a number of innovative schools both in and around Portland and Seattle.  One which stuck long in the mind was Trillium Creek Primary School, click here to see their school website.

At the heart of Trillium Creek Primary School is multidimensional library which has been designed to be the 'living room' and the center of research and inquiry. The open floor plan provides inherent flexibility for student and teacher use and offers a variety of learning environments.

The “tree house” perched on the second floor allows students to meet in small groups or have a quiet space for independent learning. Its natural wood finish and bright colored features are beacons of the student-centered design of the building. Students can return from the second to the first floor of the library via an enclosed slide, I obviously had to try this out -

The addition of the slide in this central and prominent space truly represents the great extent to which the design team went to create a place for children to experience fun and excitement in their school day.

Over the coming days, I will be exploring more how Trillium Creek Primary School inspired me, however, I think above all it was the integrated approach to design that the team took which spoke to me most.

It is my hope that when we reflect on how Maritime House has been designed, we collectively speak with the same passion as the team do at Trillium Creek Primary School. The below video is a great example of this passion -

Different Approaches to Teaching and Learning

As the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy becomes closer to beginning work and ultimately moving into our multi-million pound Maritime House Campus, I am using this time to reflect. To reflect on our experiences, our shared beliefs and our vision for the future. Tonight, I have been thinking about different approaches to teaching and learning.

At Maritime House learning will be divided into four vertical 'schools within school'. This will allow students, staff and parents to get to know each other and support effective learning and achievement based on a real knowledge and understanding of the individual. It will also allow some vertical grouping in both tutor and academic sessions.

The curriculum will be co-constructed and holistic, with this in mind, I particularly enjoyed watching the below video in which we go inside Manor New Technology High School, where an unwavering commitment to an effective schoolwide PBL model keeps both students and teachers motivated and achieving their best -

STEAM - An integrated approach

As the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy becomes closer to beginning work and ultimately moving into our multi-million pound Maritime House Campus, I am using this time to reflect. Tonight, I reflect on how learning can be inspired through an integrated approach.

While thinking about integrated approaches, I came across this post from the #UKEdChat community. The post highlights how Teachers at a Primary School in Northamptonshire have showcased the work of their pupils when the whole school embraced on a Minecraft inspired project called ‘Bridgecraft’. The cross curriculum project became a whole-school theme at Bridgewater Primary School, with pupils re-creating a real new world for the Minecraft character (Steve) whose world had earlier been destroyed.

The cross curriculum element is explained by teacher Stacey Ramm:

“I’d been doing some training with the University of Northampton in an area called STEAM, which stand for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths – so we felt we’d be looking at those subjects with something that the children had been trying to teach me about – Minecraft. So we wanted to see how we could incorporate something that the children were already engaged with and hijack it for learning in school.”

The school have created a video (see below) which showcases the success of the project – possibly being an inspiration for others – and was supported by their own Bridgecraft Blog, which further highlights some of the work completed during the focus.

Example Blended Learning Model

As the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy becomes closer to beginning work and ultimately moving into our multi-million pound Maritime House Campus, I am using this time to reflect. To reflect on our experiences, our shared beliefs and our vision for the future. Tonight, I have been thinking about a student's experience in particular with regard to how learning is blended between teacher-led, learner-led and Digital Learning aids.

The model we will work with in Maritime House is yet to be finalised with staff, students and parents, however, there is lots of inspiration out there. Only this week, I learnt about the below blended learning model from Peru via this EdSurge article.

IDEO MODEL - Taken from 'What a Peruvian School Designed by IDEO Looks Like'

EdSurge highlights how in 2012,  'with intense collaboration between school leaders at Innova and IDEO designers, a blended learning model was piloted to test out some of the initial ideas'. The process designed is described below -

Students spend their day rotating through two different configurations. For about five hours of the day, students are grouped in classes of 30. Then for the last three hours, the walls between classrooms are quickly broken down and students are combined into one class of 60. Here’s how it works -

Group time: 30 students collaborate with each other for peer-to-peer learning while one teacher acts solely as a guide. When students enter the class, the teacher proposes a challenge, which the students then tackle in small groups by sketching out solutions, using the internet or other handouts the teacher provides.

Solo time: 60 students work independently through their content skills, using programs like Khan Academy, Time To Know, and Pearson’s My English Learner. While edtech products for Spanish speaking learners are not widely available, Innova has developed its own software, in partnership with Pontificia University Catolica a Peru, called Modus to teach science and literacy skills.

Teachers simply remind students of the skills they should be on pace to learn, where those resources can be accessed, and then give them autonomy to drive their own learning. While the network is piloting a 1:1 laptop program in two schools using Intel Classmate computers, most students currently leave the classroom and attend the media lab when their assignments call for computer-based learning.

Innovation Program: While the students use solo learning time to build independent thinking and management skills, they also use an Innovation Program to spark leadership qualities within their students. Once a year for two weeks, the school stops everything, and every kid from 3rd to 11th grade works on a specific social challenge. Then they display their solution to this social challenge in a science-fair type of display, allowing the community to contrast a 3rd grader’s approach to an 11th grader approach to the s

STUDENT PARTICIPATING IN THE INNOVATION PROGRAM (IDEO)

'Open Plan' - the wrong teminology

As the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy becomes closer to beginning work and ultimately moving into our multi-million pound Maritime House Campus, I am using this time to reflect. To reflect on our experiences, our shared beliefs and our vision for the future. Tonight, I have been thinking about the dreaded 'open plan' terminology that is so often used to misrepresent.

More and more schools and colleges are focusing on the immense benefits offered by teaching in larger, flexible spaces. At IPACA, we like to refer to these spaces as 'superclasses' rather than 'open plan classrooms' which still hold too many horror stories from the 1970's where teachers competed against each other for space and volume.

With superclasses, the importance is not on competing but on a more flexible and agile learning environment. Such environments support the capacity of teachers and students to work in more open and collaborative way, reflecting on a more responsive approach to future learning needs.

For superclass spaces to work effectively the vision, ethos and operational needs of open spaces need to be well defined in terms of learning and teaching behaviours. Our Academy Patron, Professor Stephen Heppell, offers a great rationale on what makes these 'superclass spaces' work - check out this link for more information.

At design stage, an integrated approach is required to create effective and well-designed spaces to achieve these learning goals and good operational outcomes. This is a big focus for us at the moment with the develop of our Maritime House Campus. Acoustics are central to the debate and are an essential ingredient in the integrated design of our spaces.

For more information about acoustics in superclass or 'open spaces', check out this link.

Organisation of Learning

As the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy becomes closer to beginning work and ultimately moving into our multi-million pound Maritime House Campus, I am using this time to reflect. Tonight, I reflect on how learning will be organised in Maritime House, in particular, the research around 'Vertical Home Bases' which will be such a feature of our new campus.

IPACA is based on two clear philosophies: a “schools within schools’ or ‘Home-Base’ organisational model, and a ‘stage not age‘ learning strategy.

There is a considerable body of evidence, developed over the last ten years, that small schools provide a successful model for education. Human Scale Education and the Gulbenkian Foundation have developed a number of case studies. ‘Fifteen Small Schools’ by Rosalyn Spencer (1999), considered 15 small schools in the UK. It concluded that within these small schools parental involvement is improved, democratic processes enabled, links with local community developed and sustained and that the small scale opportunity provides a pattern for successful mixed age learning.

A 2009 survey of 1,000 teachers from Teach First entitled ‘Lessons from the Front’ concluded that large schools should be divided up into smaller learning communities. Teach First teachers were scathingly critical of the de-personalising tendencies of the traditional secondary structure. The report concluded that, "small learning communities would ensure that every pupil was known as an individual, making it harder for pupils to fall under the radar".

Research by the Human Scale Education Group suggested eight key practices that schools should follow for success:

- Schools or learning communities of 250 to 300 students

- Having teams of between 4 to 6 teachers, learning mentors and learning support assistants who will see no more than 80 – 90 learners each week

- A curriculum that is co-constructed and holistic

- A flexible timetable with blocks of time that makes provision for whole class teaching, small group teaching and individual learning

- A pedagogy that is enquiry-based, experiential and supported by ICT

- Assessment that involves the ‘Assessment for Learning’ approaches of dialogue, negotiation, peer review and develops forms of authentic assessment such as the production of portfolio, exhibition and performance

- Involving students in the learning arrangements and organisation of the school

- Having a genuine partnership with parents and the community

Maritime House will be divided into four vertically arranged ‘home bases’. This will allow students, staff and parents to get to know each other and support effective learning and achievement based on a real knowledge and understanding of the individual. It will also allow some vertical grouping in both tutor and academic sessions.

Students will remain identified with their home base and associated staff throughout their time in the Academy. Previous experience demonstrates that many parents prefer working with a small number of staff where they can develop good relationships and levels of communication.

Stirling House Campus

As the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy becomes closer to beginning work and ultimately moving into our multi-million pound Maritime House Campus, I am using this time to reflect. To reflect on our experiences, our shared beliefs and our vision for the future.

Tonight, I am reminded of my visit with Irene Carney to Abington Vale's Stirling House Campus in Northampton. The campus hit the news (link here) in 2013, when it became the first time Northamptonshire County Council developed a commercial building for use as a school.

At the time of opening, The school's business manager, Georgie Harrison, said: "It is a new initiative in the country, but it's very common practice in Scandinavian countries and the States to turn offices and shopping malls into schools. When we took the whole staff down to Stirling House, we were all really amazed by the space and the light".

During our visit, Irene Carney and myself saw flexible, open teaching facilities with informal break-out spaces and group rooms, designed for individual and group based learning.

This space, which shared many design features with our Maritime House Campus was light, spacious and had accommodation for up to 210 pupils.

#DesigningforLearning Computer Science

Young learners at the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy have been contacted by some of the world's biggest technology companies asking for their help. The project, 'created' by Academy Director of Change and Innovation Mr Gary Spracklen, has seen learners combine their Computer Science skills to support an inspired writing activity.

Speaking about the work, Mr. Spracklen explains, 'we wanted to use our leading work with Computer Science to inspire writing...and what could be better than receiving a ''a very important letter'' from our friends at Google in California'. Speaking about the letter, Year 2 pupil Amelie who attends IPACA's Southwell Campus said, 'It was really special to have a letter from California asking for our help'. Millie, also a Year 2 pupil at Southwell Campus added, 'We had to work really hard because our work was going to be used for a new website and seen by thousands of people around the world'.

The Portland Academy's work comes at a time when the House of Lords Digital Skills Committee, which the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy was invited to present to, warns that the country is not addressing its significant digital skills shortage and an incoming Government urgently needs to resolve this. The Digital Skills Committee also highlights the impact of changing technology on the labour market, with an estimated 35% of UK jobs at risk of being automated over the next 20 years.

Baroness Morgan of Huyton, Chair of the Lords Digital Skills Committee and a former chair of Ofsted, warned that '35% of UK jobs were likely to be automated over the next 20 years', and said the 'report was a wake-up call to whoever forms the next government'. The report comes as no surprise to the Academy Director Mr. Spracklen who thinks, 'we are at a significant cross-roads, it is important that the next government seize the opportunity to secure the UK’s place as a global digital leader by, among other things making digital literacy a core subject at school, alongside English and Maths; viewing the internet as important as a utility, accessible to all; and putting a single ‘Digital Agenda’ at the heart of Government. We are already doing our part here on Portland, let's hope other join us'.

Why Google have got it right (again)

As the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy becomes closer to beginning work and ultimately moving into our multi-million pound Maritime House Campus, I am using this time to reflect. To reflect on our experiences, our shared beliefs and our vision for the future.

Tonight, the video I discuss below made me reflect on our superclass spaces at Osprey Quay Campus. Our spaces (example image below) have been designed to promote flexible and agile approaches to teaching and learning. The spaces have been designed to be reconfigured with ease so that they suit the activity required for learning. Our teachers recognise the value of teaching in such spaces, here one of them talking about this by clicking here.

In the same way we value the need for space to be reconfigured with ease, Google get the idea that interior workspaces need to have the ability to be reconfigured on a massive scale according to the company’s needs.

I encourage you to check out the below video from Google Vice President of Real Estate Dave Radcliffe and architects Thomas Heatherwick and Bjarke Ingels. In the video, Google discuss their proposed Master Plan for their new campus in Mountain View, California -

Without doubt, Google's plan is every bit as radical as one would expect. On a huge scale it is celebrating many of the ideals we hold to here at the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy.