EMAP:Implementing Personalised Learning in Secondary Schools Conference
Thursday June 7th 2007 at the Earles Court Conference Centre.
Probably one of the best conferences I have attended.
As mentioned in previous blog entries, the virtues of ‘personalised learning’ are widely extolled but there is still a lot of confusion about the meaning behind the term. With the pressure on to choose a suitable Learning Platform for proposed Managed Learning Environments, it is important than ever, that school communities develop a shared understanding of what this term means.
With this aim in mind I attended the conference yesterday and was pleased to see a staff representative from Langley Park School for Girls and Newstead Wood School for Girls in attendance.
Key speakers at the conference included Kathy August (Principal Manchester Academy), Kathy Baker and Andrew Hudson (General Teaching Council for England), John Baumber (Executive Principal-The Brook Learning Partnership), Sonette Schwartz (Headteacher Cornwallis School Kent) Liz Cresswell (Deputy Head Teacher Brighouse High School ) and Kai Vacher (Specialist Schools Trust).
What did I learn about Personalised Learning in Secondary Schools?
Kathy August reassured the forum that it did NOT mean individualised programs for each student. Based on the work at her academy she managed to demonstrate that personalised learning was a highly structured, responsive link between teaching and learning where assessment for learning is the heart of the process.
John Baumber took this theme a stage further, based on the learning policies of the Kunskapsskolan in Sweden. Students are encouraged to take ownership of their learning program based on the principals of placing the pupil in the centre of the learning program. Working with their tutors and parents, each pupil sets their personal long term and short term learning goals and strategies which is then translated into a negotiated learning plan. These goals are broken down into a plan with term goals and weekly goals. They are reviewed each week by the tutor and the student. Learning resources are available on the school VLE system. For further details about the Kunskapsskolan pedagogy please visit this link. John Baumber can be contacted on jbaumber@rbhs.co.uk
Sonnette Schwarz (Head Teacher Cornwallis School) provided practical ideas and solutions based on the schools’ VLE project. Cornwallis School is a mixed non selective school with about 1630 pupils and has been rated as ‘good’ by OFSTED. It is a recognised Micorsoft School that has received a variety of awards including BECTA Awards and SSAT Value Added rewards. The school has managed to transform the standards of education it provides over the last 10 years (From 12% A*-C in 1996 to 67% A*-C in 2006). Sonnette is passionate about personalised learning and the learning outcomes it has provided for her students. The school’s personalised learning agenda has been driven on the principles of Functionality; Staff Ownership; Organic development and Built in replication. With this in mind the school has constructed their VLE based on functional specifications provided by the teachers and the students. Cornwallis ‘own’ their solution!
Liz Cresswell from Brighouse High School has been responsible for leading and implementing a personalised curriculum for KS4 students. The success of this scheme saw an improvement in results from 60% 5 A*-C’s to 83% 5 A*-C’s
For copies of their presentations from all theses speakers and other conference speakers at this conference, please leave a note on the blog.
