In paraphrase, Sean Harford's second question is: "Wouldn't students learn more if we just spent the last week of term hammering in more subject teaching, instead of this Participatory-nonsense?" The answer is found in the framework. [4 minutes to read] Last week, Ofsted's National Director kindly helped pin down what he foresees as the two... Continue Reading →
A big thank you to the National Director for taking the time to see me yesterday at Ofsted's Birmingham HQ, where he helped formulate the two key challenges to a Participatory Budgeting programme in schools. This is the answer to his first question on the puzzle of mapping PB to the curriculum. [4 minutes to read]... Continue Reading →
The current paradigm perceives schools as machines producing clearly delineated and measurable outcomes. The current paradigm has apparently not met Mrs Humby. [6 min read] Two apparently disconnected events, yesterday’s teachmeet hosted at Ormiston Venture Academy in Great Yarmouth (#IgniteTM) and Monday’s social enterprise conference at Sheffield Hallam University serve to profoundly contextualise Sir David's... Continue Reading →
Know your Value: An introduction to what I found to be the most impactful session of Saturday's wonderful event. And given that the list of speakers included Sean Harford, Christine Counsell and Clare Sealy, that does say something for Miss Hollie Jones, Lead for SMSC and Character Education at Joseph Leckie Academy. Building restraint -... Continue Reading →
Something as true-to-life as Participatory Budgeting in schools will invariably need to include some Project-Based Learning components across multiple work-groups simultaneously - So, how does that measure up to Barak Rosenshine's principles of instruction? Here's a take on how Cooperative Learning helps us cut through that discussion, using Tom Sherrington's booklet. On 20 May this... Continue Reading →
For reasons outlined in the previous post on the shortcomings of EduTwitter, I am convinced that only by meeting in the controlled and safe environment of a Co-creative Conversation can antagonists successfully meet across the troubled waters of the education debate. [ 1-minute read ] With this in mind, Shared Future and I were quite... Continue Reading →
Next one-minute read on our collaborative initiative to introduce Participatory Budgeting into schools. Never mind core subjects: The format of debate and its associated behaviour will, literally, mean life or death for the democracy of the future. Forget seedy sites and Brexit: It is sufficient of a safeguarding issue for students to visit EduTwitter. Before... Continue Reading →
This is the second one-minute read on the outcomes of Monday’s workshop Empowering KS2-5 Learners through Participatory Budgeting. How do we up-skill learners to generate, present and vote for proposals on the school budget in harmony with the 2019 inspection framework? Certainly not in a vacuum. As any English teacher will tell you, there is... Continue Reading →
This is the first in a new series of one-minute reads on the outcomes of Monday’s workshop Empowering KS2-5 Learners through Participatory Budgeting: How do we up-skill learners to generate, present and vote for proposals on how to best spend a slice of the school budget? (And meet an endless range of curriculum objectives in... Continue Reading →
What do schools, universities, public bodies, professional networks, global corporations and national governments all have in common? That an enigmatic blob of human beings is their key to success. [1 minute read] More monitoring tech, more management and more "evidence-based" intervention consistently fail to tackle 'poor performance' and other challenges when they approach human nature... Continue Reading →
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