March 2003
This month we begin our first look at ‘the school of the future’ and start with a comparison of today’s students with those of a previous generation. We ask questions about the changes in the role of the family, differences in the use of time, the impact of dietary changes, look at ways in which we use technology and look at the brain of a fourteen year old. We provide two excerpts from Case Studies from the Northern National Conference on April 11th in Manchester. We have further news about our conference programme, a new member of staff joining Alite and Will Thomas contributes an article on Coaching for Performance. We conclude with the next in our 20/20 Vision Series.
Generations of difference
Dig out your old school photographs and ask yourself, ‘did the generation of children you are looking at in the photograph have the same learning needs as those in today’s school photographs?’ We would argue that this generation of schoolchildren bring a significantly different set of qualities and experiences to their learning than those of previous generations and that alone means we should constantly re-think what we teach and how.
1. Family unit.
Fifty years ago, 1 in 20 children were born outside of a nuclear family unit. Today, in the UK the figure is nearer 1 in 5. The concept of ‘the family’ has changed. More combinations of ‘units’ are understood and are acceptable. Roles within families have also shifted. Changing patterns of employment, including more time-shifting and portfolio working has meant the end of the ‘bread winner’.
2. Leisure
Leisure activities now take place in two sites - and neither is outside in the street! The first is the home and the second is the shared leisure space – the leisure centre, multiplex or mall. We now adapt our leisure to suit individual preference. . In the UK, more people than ever before play soccer regularly but fewer than ever before play 11 a side. Much of our leisure now involves vicarious participation. Most homes have a personal computer. We watch sport on large flat screens, with a choice of camera angles from the comfort of the sofa.
3. Longevity and life expectancy
More children are surviving birth. The evidence of premature babies surviving is startling. In fifty years in the UK an increase of nearly 80%. This comes with attendant problems of low birth weight including; learning difficulties, higher susceptibility to illness and long-term health problems.
4. Diet and Exercise
The annual UK marketing spend on chocolate is £161m and the spend on marketing fruit is £5m. children are bombarded with messages about convenience food. Serious scientific debate is considering whether junk food is addictive. Obesity amongst children in the UK has never been so high. One in 4 ten year olds is overweight and 1 in 9 obese. Research shows again and again the link between improved academic performance and regular exercise.
5. Multi-taskers
The contemporary fourteen year old can multi-task beyond the dreams of previous generations. Your son can be on three floors of an internet chat room with three different personalities, listening to music they have selected, collated and downloaded, texting their friends and doing their homework at the same time! Using the prevailing technology of the age, they become foragers, surfers, novelty seekers and migrants.
6. Asynchronicity
The timelines within which we live our lives differ from those of previous generations. More and more we are encouraged to live 24/7 lives. In the US, Cereal manufacturers such as Kellogs are discovering that boxed cereal sales are dropping because many adults do not find the time to eat at home. Cereal manufacturers are developing finger friendly products which can be eaten on the move. It is suggested that in the home it is the fridge - where as many as 250 face to face interactions take place in a day – which has become the social centre. Individuals in the home operate on different time regimes.
7. Scripts differing
Life in the UK has fewer certainties. We are actively encouraged to create our own ‘design for life’ and create our own scripts. We buy into stories which support our chosen life script and the agencies in our lives pander to those stories. Reality television sells the dream that anyone can be a pop star.
8. Social groups and peer modelling
Many children are driven to school, picked up later and no longer go as a social group with those who live in homes nearby. Which groups do they relate to and identify with? Where are the role models for maturing youngsters? Role models abound but often they promote uncertainty rather than remove it. Pop stars flirt with androgeny, sports stars look angelic but have their aggression analysed in fine detail, politicians have their family relationships and their house purchases turned into soap operas.
9. Pervasive technology
In my childhood it was said that hover technology would change our lives forever. It never did. This was in part because it never became pervasive. Information technologies are changing lives in a way which is unprecedented. Statistics about internet hits, text messages sent, hours spent watching any of the worlds half a million television channels compel, because of what they say about penetration into our lives. Sources of information abound, but in the midst of this there remains a powerful need for a guide to help navigate safely through the information. This is why the educators will never become redundant. Educators teach the skills of scrutiny, the ability to discern propaganda and bias, the capability of using the information tools in a life shaped by moral and value driven considerations.
10. Zeitgeist
The spirit of the age differs from thirty and forty years ago when 1 in 6 families owned a car, few owned their own houses, rationing was a near memory and mass production shaped employment. This generation of children experience more autonomy, more choice, more freedoms with fewer responsibilities and yet have more tests and examinations, more physical constraints and more anxiety in their lives. Are children older earlier? Some anecdotal evidence supports the view that puberty begins earlier for this generation of schoolchildren. This is the generation with Ritalin at one end and Prozac at the other. A generation being ‘taught’ emotional intelligence and who turn up on bus trips with their parents to look at flowers placed by the bereaved.
Source: Essential Accelerated Learning by Alistair Smith, Mark Lovatt and Derek Wise in press.
And in the midst of all of this there remains…
The fourteen year old human brain, which
- Is not yet fully developed
- has frontal lobes - controlling impulsive response – which are not fully developed until the early twenties
- is not yet fully functioning for inhibition
- Is assisted by parenting which acts like the missing frontal lobes – offering options, reflecting on choices, time-lining ahead, operating as an auxiliary problem solver
- Develops in spurts and plateaux and not in a nice, neat continuum
- Is better at reading the intent of others, emotions and motivations in the male versions than in the female versions. Boys use more of the right and girls more of the left
- Is going through massive reconfiguration and is at its most vulnerable to some addictive patterns of behaviour – drugs, smoking, alcohol
- Is beginning to decline for the development of fine and large motor control and co-ordination of voluntary movement, with about 50% of the brain tissue that controls motor skills already pruned away
- Is still able to learn new languages but has become less efficient at doing so. Research shows that after puberty different areas of the brain are involved in learning additional languages.
Two books which will tell you more:
The Brain’s Behind It, Alistair Smith, Network Educational Press, 2001
Why Are They So Weird? What’s Really Going On In A Teenager’s Brain, Barbara Strauch, Bloomsbury 2003
Clever Keys to Motivation and Success at Wren’s Nest Primary School
Gail Mason is currently the Year 3 and 4 Team Leader at Wren’s Nest Primary School, Dudley in the West Midlands. She has joint responsibility for integrating the Accelerated Learning in Primary Schools (ALPS) principles into Wren’s Nest’s curriculum. She will be presenting at our Northern National Conference The Best on Motivation and Learning – Manchester, 11th April. Here she gives some of her thoughts.
“ One of the first things that you notice about the children at The Wrenner is their lack of self-confidence. A large majority do not feel that they are good at anything. This is one of the major drawbacks to learning we have in the school. But when I first heard of Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory on an accelerated learning course in October 2001, I immediately thought that this might well be the means to motivate our children. The idea that we might all be intelligent, but in different ways, was the key I could use to unlock their self-confidence.
Wren’s Nest Primary serves the needs of a council estate of the same name in Dudley. About two thirds of the children are entitled to free school meals and 24% of pupils are recognised as having additional educational needs. Approximately 10% are from minority ethnic backgrounds.
I was chosen, along with one other colleague, to take part in additional ALPS training to become a Lead Learner in school. As part of the training I took ideas back to school and experimented with them to see which would be of most benefit to our children. I decided to focus on raising self-esteem to improve motivation and learning, choosing to target a small group of children who were making limited progress within my Reception class. I soon realised that it was just as appropriate to focus on the whole class.
I began by paying more attention to the language and tone of voice I used with the children and focused on being far more positive (than I was already I’d like to add!). One important factor that I kept at the forefront of all my planning was that I focus more positively on the children’s present skills: what they can do now and what they need to do to move on, rather than what they can’t do. I became more aware of the different strengths of the children, especially those ‘non-academic’ abilities that often show themselves outside the classroom. I also became more sensitive to the fragility of self-esteem and how easily a few words can damage or improve it. Now, it is second nature for me to think about how the child is feeling and how my behaviour can so easily affect that.
The first thing I did was to make a set of posters and certificates linked to the eight intelligences. I was very unsure of how my Reception class would cope with Howard Gardner’s terminology, but decided to try it anyway, adding a simple explanatory sentence. I needn’t have worried – the kids loved them! Firstly, they were thrilled with the ‘big’ words, and secondly every single child finally felt that they were good at something in school! It was not long before the children were able to identify for themselves which type of intelligence they were using in different lessons, they were aware of the purpose of each activity and what it was helping to improve.
More importantly, they knew which intelligence they possessed. In only a few short weeks, the vast majority of children were referring to themselves as intelligent and giving themselves credit for being good at something. It was not long before they became more confident in those areas that they struggled in, as I constantly reinforced the fact that they were already intelligent in that area and could become more so with practice.
I felt it was important to use a range of intelligences in each lesson. In the Literacy hour we would begin with a song focusing on a specific skill (e.g. naming the letters of the alphabet, building CVC words, capital letters and full stops). Sometimes the song would link in with the main learning objective, but generally it was used to consolidate previous learning. The whole class session would mainly involve the linguistic and kinaesthetic intelligences. A typical whole class phonics session could involve the children moving around the room holding large phoneme cards and building words, or using letter fans to identify phonemes or building words, or writing on small whiteboards. Making the activity highly kinaesthetic usually ensured the children remained on task for quite a considerable time (15 minutes at this age is a long time). The independent part of the hour would generally involve the interpersonal and intra-personal intelligences, ensuring that across the whole week all children would have the opportunity to develop their learning in different ways. Music was always played in a lesson, either to help create a particular mood or to demarcate the time for a task.
Although in a Reception class it is generally accepted that children are highly kinaesthetic, in KS2 the opposite is usually believed. When I was moved into a Year 3 class, I decided that I would use a very similar approach (to the horror of my experienced KS2 colleagues). The present Year 3 children have responded brilliantly to this style. For example, our History topic was World War II, which was mostly taught with the use of videos, role-play, songs and artwork. We made posters, gas mask boxes, helmets and ration books and used these to tell stories based on the facts we had learnt. The wartime CD I made was so popular that the children always asked for it to be played and, as I had carefully chosen tracks to reinforce a range of moods, I always had something suitable to play for any other lesson. Most importantly, the children were highly motivated and keen to learn.
As a result of the change to my style of teaching, I noticed that there was a happier atmosphere in the classroom and that the vast majority of children were now more eager to take an active role in their learning. I have always been a firm believer in sharing objectives, but found that children of this age did not always make the connection between purpose and activity. Now they do this. One other thing I noticed was that my class’s attendance figures improved!
Some of my colleagues had not been fully convinced about the value of this approach at the initial training course, and needed a little more persuasion. But after seeing and hearing four and five year olds talking about multiple intelligences with confidence, they were happy to have a go in their own classrooms. Class sets of posters and certificates were made and distributed and can now be seen all over the school. And we are now moving towards becoming a school where everyone recognises that they are intelligent in one way or another.
Find out more about Wren’s Nest at The Best on Motivation and Learning – Manchester, 11th April. For full details visit the Alite website at www.alite.co.uk.
It's thinking Jim, but not as we know it! At Kings Norton City Learning Centre
Jean Maund has been a teacher for the last 14 years after a change of career from what she describes as 'a proper job' as a microbiologist. Until she took up the post of Head of Kings Norton City Learning Centre she was a primary school deputy. Pat Salt has been teaching for 26 years and is now the Deputy Head of Kings Norton City Learning Centre.
Kings Norton City Learning Centre is one of six CLCs in Birmingham funded by the DfES through the Excellence in Cities initiative. Excellence in Cities (EiC) tackles the particular problems facing children in our cities. Through a combination of initiatives, it aims to raise the aspirations and achievements of pupils and to tackle disaffection, social exclusion, truancy and indiscipline and improve parents' confidence in cities. EiC is based on four core values:
high expectations of every individual pupil and all young people;
diversity of provision;
networks of schools;
extension of opportunity to bring success to every school.
City Learning Centres are school-based, state-of-the-art, technology-rich centres that are innovative and very different from traditional schools. We provide access for a wide range of clients (both school pupils and members of the wider community) to the very latest technology and the most up-to-date teaching and learning methodologies. We work very closely with schools and other agencies to provide an extremely broad curriculum; one day supporting a primary school's geography project through video conferencing, the next offering professional development in digital storytelling techniques. We integrate technology into all areas of the curriculum and from the beginning of the project have been keen to infuse all our work with the latest ideas in Accelerated Learning.
We feel very strongly that having a positive environment to work in is essential for students' success. In the centre, the whole atmosphere is calm and positive. We achieve this by furnishing all areas to the highest standards and ensuring that they are well maintained. Music greets you as you walk in and, depending on our mood and the mood we wish to invoke, this could be Kylie or Mozart. Visitors often comment on the oasis of calm created in the centre: one visitor even claiming that the front door was like the wardrobe to Narnia in that another world was behind it! Everyone is always made welcome and we pride ourselves on being positive and non-threatening to children and adults alike. Rules are few but made explicit early on and behaviour problems are extremely rare. Students find the centre and the activities on offer inherently motivating, to the point that they don't want to go at the end of a day.
We felt the idea of Multiple Intelligences to be one that would be meaningful to the students and, initially, worked with a paper-based assessment tool. This was a popular activity but had drawbacks, and we soon decided that an online tool would be much more appropriate. In conjunction with the Birmingham Grid for Learning (BGfL), we have developed such a tool that has proved enormously successful, with well over 10,000 people taking the test in less than a year. After completing a set of 40 questions, the student is presented with a visual representation of their intelligences profile.
In all of our planning we ensure that we cater for as many of these intelligences as possible. We utilise the latest multi-media technology as much as possible and make time for group discussions as well as individual work.
Pupils in Year 7 are introduced to knowledge about the brain and its infinite capacity for learning. Via a PowerPoint presentation, they find out about the two hemispheres of the brain and the left/right faculties associated with them. This concludes with a graph showing that the VAK combination is the most effective way of learning.
To develop Thinking Skills further, two detective problems have been devised and put onto web pages: the mystery of the body at the side of the road and the mystery of the bodies in the bog. The first encourages pupil to investigate the mysterious death of a young man found in a ditch. He dies without regaining consciousness and the only clues to his identity are the contents of his wallet. By examining these, the pupils have to found out who he is and how and why he died. By stressing that their theory should include all the evidence and not just a selection, the more exotic explanations are weeded out! The second activity builds upon the Thinking Skills they develop here. They look at a real historical mystery featuring the discovery of Iron Age bog bodies in Europe. By looking at historical background evidence, photographs and the results of scientific tests carried out on the remains of a number of these bodies in Denmark, the Netherlands and England, the pupils, working in groups, research individual bodies. Their conclusions can then be compared and theories, backed up by the research, advanced to explain the deaths.
A separate but related activity revolves around forensic science procedure. Pupils receive an introductory booklet to work with in advance of their visit, watch a video made in conjunction with the local police and discuss the skills involved in police forensic work. Using the “Who Is It?” web pages developed by BGfL and material produced within the CLC, the pupils identify a “body” from dental records, blood groups, fingerprints etc. The scientific background to all of this is explained on the site. Computer microscopes allow the pupils to carry out fibre analysis also.
Sessions with Year 11 pupils in advance of their GCSE examinations focus on revision technique. First of all, they discover their preferred learning style via the Multiple Intelligence wheel. The importance of the VAK method is shown to them via examples and different techniques for memorising facts are demonstrated e.g. the use of acronyms and stories. Mind mapping is advocated as a way of organising their knowledge and using the brain’s preference for colour, images and links to boost exam performance. “
Find out more about Kings Norton City Learning Centre at The Best on Motivation and Learning – Manchester, 11th April. For full details visit the Alite website at www.alite.co.uk.
Research requests
If you are busying away on your own educational research and want to communicate with a wider audience you can do so via the Alite newsletter. Where we can, we are happy to promote your work to our network so that you can extend your contact base.
Mindful of Learning
Scientists say they have found evidence that meditation has a biological effect on the body. A small-scale study suggests it could boost parts of the brain and the immune system. Meditation has been practised since ancient times, mainly in the East. There is increasing evidence that meditation is a useful and, for some people, a powerful therapy
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States enrolled 41 people in a trial of so-called "mindfulness" medication. It is a technique developed by an American stress reduction specialist - Jon Kabat-Zinn - for helping hospital patients deal with pain and discomfort. Twenty five of the subjects attended a weekly class and one seven-hour retreat during the study; they were also given exercises to carry out at home. The others did not receive medication training and acted as a control group. After eight weeks, the researchers measured electrical activity in the frontal part of the brain. They say this region was more active on the left side in the individuals who meditated and was associated with lower anxiety and a more positive emotional state. Participants were also given a flu jab at the start of the study and those who mediated had higher levels of antibody, say the researchers, led by Dr Richard Davidson. "Although our study is preliminary and more research clearly is warranted we are very encouraged by these results," he said.
Source: BBC Online News
Muddled Metaphors of the Month
With thanks to Frank Burke and Alan Flinton. The following are taken from English language exam papers.
He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as
if she were a dustcart reversing.
She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was
room-temperature British beef.
Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first-generation
thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.
It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to
the wall.
Journeys Within: Coaching for the Teacher of the 21st Century
Will Thomas gives his views on how coaching can better equip teachers and learners for the challenges of the 21st Century
Shuttles to the moon and colonies on Mars. These indicators of our progress edge closer every day as we settle into the 21st Century, yet once they were mere dreams. Other individuals and institutions may have different dreams of how they wish to move forward. Increasingly, personal space travel is attracting the attention of many. The idea of tapping into inner hidden potential is not new, but people are doing it in their droves under the supportive gaze of their personal coach. For teachers of the future, such journeys closer to home may yield more fulfilling results for themselves, their pupils and their schools.
The latter part of the 20th Century focused much on looking outwards for judgement, feedback and criticism. External governmental intervention, Ofsted and a whole raft of watchdogs typified the agenda. With proposed changes to the inspection of schools, the future has a very real sense of being about looking inwards, self evaluating, reflecting and building on strengths. Many teachers have realised this and have grasped the opportunity of the coach’s helping hand.
We have long known the importance of working with our students from a platform of strength recognition. Celebration of what is excellent about their learning and building on the development areas is a key feature of good teaching practice. Coaching bases itself on those same principles of building on strengths as it leads the coachee on his/her inner journey. The approach is holistic, recognising the importance of balance, fulfilment and process (Whitworth et al, 1998). The coach holds the client’s agenda and facilitates, without directing, the exploration of issues which assist the client to move forward and to address barriers which hold them back. Whitmore (1992) believes that “those who come up with their own solutions have a better understanding of the issues and are more committed to success.”
Coaching as a non-directive helping process is cited by Lesley Chandler in National School Improvement Network News (Autumn 2002) as having the following benefits:
- Improving job satisfaction by attaching importance to staff’s own ideas and solutions
- Maximising use of everyone’s talents in a time of change and staff shortage
- Encouraging creativity and flexibility
- Teachers who are more involved in their own learning are more likely to focus on the learning of the children
- More creative, flexible, responsive and responsible teachers are likely to be better teachers
Tremendous success with coaching in the commercial world has led to the principles of non-directive coaching being applied to a huge range of non-business applications: lifestyle, parenting, diet, exercise and career coaching, to name but a few. Now, around the world, educational institutions are taking that leap of faith too. They are investing in coaches and developing their own, helping people to step outside their comfort zones and embrace the lifelong learning ideal. Headteachers have been instrumental here and needed to be forward thinking, naturally they want to support staff and have an impact on the performance of individuals and the institution. Coaching is very much about outcomes, looking at where we are now and where we need to get to, and working out the steps to get there. With the growing challenges we face in recruiting and retaining quality teachers, the investment in the intellectual capital that we have in our workforce seems ever more important. So, those Headteachers of the future may well choose to take that inner journey themselves and along the way offer the opportunity to others in their team.
What if every
- teacher was trained as a coach?
- learning support assistant was a coach too?
- teacher had access to personal coaching at least once every two years?
- child had a non-directive coaching package when they came to secondary school?
- student had a personal coach throughout their school life?
- school defined itself as a coaching organizations?
- teacher had an afternoon a week given over to coaching?
At South Bromsgrove Community High School students are involved in a six month motivation and confidence development project. They begin by attending a training day and are introduced to the beliefs and principles of coaching, exploring their strengths and abilities. By the end of the day they decide whether to sign up for their own personal coach. Each student then receives a series of personal coaching sessions conducted over the telephone by a trained performance/life coach. The project is still in its early days, yet already the impact has been noticeable as students are reported to be more confident and self motivated. We keenly await the full results.
Mayfield School in Portsmouth has successfully used coaches to promote the professional development of newly qualified teachers. They are investing heavily in training their coaches in a common set of coaching values and principles, to further enhance the effectiveness of their support package.
Coaches believe that to dream the future is to make it in its first creation and only then can you begin to make it happen. What would you dream for your school? What are the first steps you need to take? What can you influence and what will you influence to make your dream come alive? When will you do it? The educational coaching revolution is about to explode. What part will it play in your institution?
“Beyond the fear there is freedom”. Go ahead. Dare to dream.
References and Reading List
- Chandler L. (2002) ‘Professional Development Using Non-Directive Coaching’ in National School Improvement Network News ISEIC
- Downey M. (2003) Effective Coaching Texere
- Landsberg M. (1997) The Tao of Coaching Harper Collins
- Life Coaching Academy (2002) Soul Searching for Coaches LCA
- Whitmore J. (1992) Coaching for Performance Nicholas Brearley
- Zeus P. and Skiffington S. (2001) The Complete Guide to Coaching at Work McGraw Hill
- Zeus P. and Skiffington S. (2002) The Coaching at Work Toolkit McGraw Hill
Will is running the Performance Coaching Programme on 2 April in Manchester. For further details visit the website at www.alite.co.uk