Where goes the river?

Ofsted and the Missing Year

2012-01-26T14:28:00.001-08:00

"Ofsted: they want the impossible."

I'm sure I've heard someone actually say that and I know many disgruntled teachers must have felt that over the years.

But today I have actually seen it with my own eyes.

You see we hired a fully trained HMI Ofsted type person to come in to our school and tell us the kind of things that inspectors like to say. Gluttons for punishment, you might say - masochists even. Actually the experience was rather cathartic. We now have a clear picture of the things we're good at and the things we need to improve.

With the new Ofsted framework just enacted in January, schools such as ours - a one form entry Primary school in a deprived part of Birmingham need to be prepared for what's coming. For a start, small schools are more likely to be hit by cohort-specific effects - with each child being worth over 3%, it only takes a few children to have a bad day in their SATs test to generate the dreaded blue boxes on the RaiseOnline, which indicates that the school has become significantly below national average in a particular area. In addition small schools are more likely to affected by staffing issues - one or two people our on maternity might not have a big impact in a secondary school with 80 teachers and 140 support staff, but in a school with only 10 teachers it can make a big difference.

So theory apart, many of the things that the inspector lady told us we knew anyway. We know it with more clarity now, but we did kind of know it in the first place. However one thing has really surprised me - Ofsted expect primary Sschools to be able to create a whole year of education. They expect us to warp some temporal field, maybe by harnessing the power of a nearby singularity and actually create time. A whole year of time.They expect 7 years of education from Reception to Year 6 to be worth 8.

Here's how I know this.

You're going to have to bear with some numbers now.

Most children leave our Reception class on about Early Years Foundation Profile point 6. This is out of a 9 point scale in a range of areas. Leaving at point 6 is about national average. Early Years Practitioners and Experts get very cross if at the notion that there is any correlation between the Early Learning Goals and the Level Descriptors within the National Curriculum. So cross in fact, that some will literally shout at you if you suggest such a thing. Nevertheless Ofsted have deemed that there is a correlation. What they say is that if you leave at the average point 6 from Reception, then by the time you get to Year 2 (in two years time) you should have made it to a secure level 2 in the National Curriculum.

Now I should explain at this point that there is a numerical scale that helps both Ofsted and geeky-data-crunching-school-leader-types like me to drill into the data provided by the National Curriculum Level Descriptors. It divides each broad brush stroke level into 6 points called APS (standing for average point score). And the progression goes something like this:

Level 1 >> APS 6-11
Level 2 >> APS 12-17
Level 3 >> APS 18-23
Level 4 >> APS 24-29
and so on.

This APS system means you can say that normal progress is about 3 points progress per year, which good progress being about 4 points a year. Now working backwards from Year 2, Ofsted say that most children should get a secure level 2, which is about 15 or 16 points. Working backwards 3 points a year, this means that children need to start Year 1 (having just left Reception) on about 9 or 10 points (a secure level 1).

However, in reality children leaving Reception at the average 6 points on the EYFSP tends to start their Year 1 class at the start of the National Curriculum at a low level 1, or the equivalent of 6 or 7 points. This means they need to make an additional 3 points progress just to catch up with where they need to be - a full year's normal progress.

To make matters worse, Ofsted say that children leaving Reception as high flyers on Point 9 of the EYFSP are the equivalent of a secure National Curriculum level 1 (i.e. 9 or 10 points on the APS scale). It would be reasonable to assume that these children could make good progress to secure a high level at maybe 17 points on the APS scale. But no, Ofsted expect these children to make 11 points progress in 2 years to 21 points by the end of Year 2.

There are various possible consequences for this missing year:

Schools can remain doing what they are doing - making normal progress and then watch as their Key Stage 1 department gets labelled as inadequate for not making enough progress with their children.
They can increase the quantity and quality of the staff in Key Stage 1, to intensify the learning there, allowing teachers to teach to smaller groups, thereby increasing the progress.
They can cheat. This could happen at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage or at the end of Year 2, but cheating would certainly help make the data look better than it is.
Schools could actually invent that time machine and give the children the extra year's education required to make the progress they need.

When shall we have Teachmeet Brum?

2012-01-20T08:59:00.001-08:00

So I'm looking to organise a Teachmeet in Birmingham sometime in March.

My preferred date would be Friday 9th March of Friday 16th March. I have a city centre venue with free parking that's about 5 minutes walk from Broad Street, so I'm figuring we could go for a Teachmeet and then a TeachEat at a decent Birmingham balti place.

But here's the thing - I'm not quite sure about Fridays. Being an inexperienced Teachmeet organiser (having only done one previously and that was mid-week), is Friday just to late in the week? Are we all too tired on Fridays?

So here's a chance to influence the decision. Please fill in this spreadsheet to answer the question: When shall we have Teachmeet Brum?

What I learned from BETT 2012 #2: Grass isn't always greener

2012-01-17T12:38:00.001-08:00

I've never experienced a different education system than the British one, but of course the odd snippet or two has come my way over the years which have led me to the following beliefs about education in different countries:

The district structure in the US is ideal with between 10 and 20 schools in each district.
Hungarian education is best at teaching maths.
Finland is perfect.

This BETT washed those beliefs away like the chaff they really are.

I spoke to a Norwegian lecturer bemoaning the loss of small rural schools and the devastating impact it is on their community.

I spoke to US educators tearing their hair out at the slow pace of change exhibited in their state's education system, with each district being stalled and blocked by what they really want to do.

I spoke to teachers from Germany decrying their assessment regime in the way in categorises students into 3 categories of achievement at the age of 9 or 10 - you know whether you'll be going to university at that age.

I spoke to an Italian teacher shocked at how much technology was available to British schools and how little to Italian schools.

And I thought, it's not actually that bad here.

Planning for serendipity: #DoMoreEdu meets level 3 students at my school

2012-01-17T07:46:00.001-08:00

I had the fortune of being invited to the #DoMoreEdu event at BETT on Saturday by the team @DellEDU. Whilst I couldn't stay for the full event I was impressed with the way that the discussion created engagement of its own accord, regardless of the content of the discussion. Led by Ewan Macintosh and Tom Barrett of Notosh.com

One of the earlier topics in the conversation was about how we use space. Now I have to admit that I'm pretty nonplussed about the issue of 'space' in schools, firstly because I'm of the belief that the relationship between teacher and student is so crucial that the issue of space makes only a tiny fraction of a percentage of difference to education, and secondly because I work in a serviceable 30s built school. It isn't perfect but it works and we get decent results.

What surprised me however was that the discussion engaged me. Motivated me, even.

On to serendipity. It's not the kind of thing that one associates with schools. So much so that I had to ask the guy sitting next to me what it actually means. The top search in Google gives me: The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way: "a fortunate stroke of serendipity". So it's something about happiness, good luck and benefit. Yet our planning and our timetabling is so tight, so rigorous, so full of targets, that I struggle to see how we can 'plan for serendipity' within the current system.

But maybe the answer was right there before my eyes - it was in the discussion that I was engaged; through the growing relationships around the table that I was motivated. It wasn't the content of the discussion that mattered so much at that time - more the process.

Back to school on Monday and I was preparing my first lesson for a group of level 3 students who are really struggling with maths. Disengaged, with low self belief, they find maths extremely hard. Both their attainment and their progress is below where it should be. I knew all that and realise that I have awful lot of content to teach them if they are to make level 4 by May (when they sit their SATs tests). Could I afford to give up a single lesson just to engage them?

I decided I could and so on Monday we sat around a conference table and held our own #DoMoreEdu. We talked about moments of unhappiness and happiness in maths learning. We talked about how we should organise the space and how we could find more time. The children made suggestions for how and what they should be taught. They resolved to meet online at 6:00pm on Tuesdays for an extra revision timetable. Some of their discussion is recorded here. We also wrote our first blog post about that session. Since then we've had our first real maths lesson, which did actually contain some real content.

It was by chance that I booked an extra night's stay at BETT that allowed my to take advantage of the kind offer from @DellEdu. It was also bad planning when I realised that my train ticket actually said 11:23am, not 1:23pm, meaning that I had to dash off earlier than expected from the session. But that chance and bad planning allowed me more time to reflect on the experience in the light of teaching nine disaffected maths students on Monday morning, and already they have shown a higher level of engagement than I expected. Is that serendipity? Maybe it is. Certainly giving up one lesson of content and direct instruction to gain more motivated students who are willing to participate online in their own time is a win for me.

planning_serendipity.mp4 Watch on Posterous

What I learned from BETT 2012 #1: Cloud is the new Interactive Whiteboard

2012-01-15T14:01:00.003-08:00

1. Cloud is the new Interactive Whiteboard

My first visit to BETT was last year and I was struck at that time by just how many companies were marketing interactive whiteboards, or products that somehow augment interactive whiteboards. They just weren't there this year. The obvious few had stands - Smart, Promethean and so on, but I didn't notice many more.

What I noticed instead was the word 'cloud'.

It was everywhere, usually alongside some alliterative slogan that also used words like 'connect' and 'collaborate'.

It seems to me that loads of companies are on the cloud bandwagon, hoping that schools will invest in some product somewhere on a server in a secure room on a business park in Milton Keynes.

Now I'm not averse to cloud stuff. As a Google Apps for Education user I have a lot of time and effort invested in the cloud and it has begun to make good efficiency savings at my school. It's even helped some kids do some learning. Alongside Google Apps (which is free), I've also invested in Incerts, Purple Mash, Education City and Espresso, not to mention other free Cloud-based products such as Manga High, PixlR, Prezi, Aviary, Wordpress, Posterous and Khan Academy. That's quite a daunting list, and if I'd had the school check book with me I could have quite easily come away with another half-a-dozen products from the show. Moople was particularly interesting as it presents a kind of one-stop wrapper for a load of different cloud-based products, effectively providing a single sign-on for all users. Single sign on is critically important for younger users as they often have difficult remembering one username and password, let alone twelve.

What concerns me with all this is not really the huge range of products, but the fact that they can act as a barrier between the teacher and student. One-to-one teaching is the most effective way of raising a child's attainment and skilled teachers spend their time finding opportunities for these one-to-one's to take place throughout the course of a school week, no matter how big the class size is. One danger is the temptation to think that teachers can facilitate the use of these technologies to somehow engender learning. But teachers are trained to teach - the proven way of developing a child's knowledge - and using cloud-based technologies can, if used incorrectly add an extra layer of complexity between the one-to-one teaching relationships that exist in classrooms across the country.

Similarly, for years interactive whiteboards have been seen as the must-have piece of kit in any classroom, but have also come with cautionary tales of only being used for presentations at the start of a lesson, or being hidden in cupboards only to be discovered by a particularly eager Ofsted inspector. I wonder if cloud technology will become that next big thing - used well be some, touched on by others and hidden in cupboards by a few.

And I also wonder if it really matters - I mean to education as a whole. Would students at my school really be disadvantaged at their secondary schools if they've never collaborated on a Google Doc before they get to Secondary school? Of course I'm going to continue using Google Apps and the many other cloud products I've brought into my school - but where's the evidence that it really makes a difference?

What I learned from BETT 2012 #1: Cloud is the new Interactive Whiteboard

2012-01-15T14:01:00.001-08:00

1. Cloud is the new Interactive Whiteboard

What I noticed instead was the word 'cloud'.

It was everywhere, usually alongside some alliterative slogan that also used words like 'connect' and 'collaborate'.

It seems to me that loads of companies are on the cloud bandwagon, hoping that schools will invest in some product somewhere on a server in a secure room on a business park in Milton Keynes.

Moments of learning from #domoreedu

2012-01-14T01:18:00.003-08:00

My happiest moment of learning was sitting with my Year 4 teacher some 20 years ago and really 'getting' long multiplication. I remember thinking this is what I can do - I've never forgot the process or that moment.

My least happy moment of learning was realising what I thought was good practice was actually rubbish. It forced me to change quickly.

Moments of learning from #domoreedu

2012-01-14T01:18:00.001-08:00

My least happy moment of learning was realising what I thought was good practice was actually rubbish. It forced me to change quickly.

Welcome to my fully armed Lapsafe Chromebook trolley

2012-01-05T11:19:00.001-08:00

It wouldn't strike many to be that important, but over the next few weeks I reckon I'm going to be counting my blessings that I forked out for a top of the range trolley from Lapsafe.

Surely it's the quality of the technology - the laptop, the iPad, the Chromebook - that's important. Surely it's the product support / the software / the training that is the key to succesful deployment.

Nope. I think it's the quality if the charging trolley (or Cart if you're US).

The next few weeks will prove me right or wrong.

"Wow - Purple Mash looks ace!"

2012-01-04T12:50:00.001-08:00

Today was the first time that all the staff got their hand on the Chromebooks.

It was a mixed success, mainly because of the ongoing problems we're having with how Chrome Os talks to the proxy server. I've already written about those particular problems. I had put the Chromebooks out before the staff arrived and of course they all started playing with them. That's great - I normally encourage such practice. However I knew this time it would augur a disaster. You see I had 'backdated' all the Chromebooks to version 14, which has no proxy problems. But unfortunately version 14 automatically updates itself to the next version, which does have proxy problems. So of course, those staff that started playing with the Chromebooks first couldn't use them by the end of the session.

However, for some staff (those teachers who had left their Chromebook lids closed), the experience was very positive. They accessed our new learning platform and played around with some of the tools that the students could use, including Purple Mash, which was a real hit. From the simplicity of software such as Simple City - great for Early Years children, to designing your own cut out car, it all looks great. My particular favourite, though I admit it's quite gimmicky, is 'Mashcam' where the children take a photo of themselves using the Chromebook webcam and it gets pasted into an outline of some other figure, like a spaceman or a police man. I'm particularly looking forward to the Year 3 children picturing themselves as Tutankhamun in a few weeks time as they get their Egyptian topic underway.

I really think that Purple Mash is an ideal match for the Chromebooks - sitting alongside our Google Apps domain, I think it will enhance the children's experience and give opportunities for younger children in particular to access 'The Cloud'. I've been aware that it is mainly our Key Stage 2 classes that have been using our Google Apps domain and Purple Mash looks just the right thing to draw in the younger children (especially the teachers of those younger children).

Back to the technical issue with the Chromebooks. After the session was over, the post arrived and there were the flash drives sent from Google Europe in Ireland with the experimental patch for version 16. Hopefully it will soon all work.

Cue the imposition of another fad in education

2012-01-03T00:52:00.001-08:00

Many people who will have read the announcement from the Prince's Trust I found on the BBC this morning will have dismissed it with the thought Oh anyone could have told you that. That's just common sense. The headline reads, "Princes trust: school grades hit by lack of routine." In the article, the vital statistic is that 30% of students with poor grades had no set routine as a child, contrasted with 14% of students with 'better grades'.

Certainly it would seem to make sense. Children who go to bed whenever they want don't do so well at school. I've experienced that myself - eight year-olds staying up watching TV into the early hours then demonstrating zombie-like engagement with lessons the next day. In the famed Birmingham Quake of 2008 (what - you didn't hear of that one?) some students were woken at 1:06 in the morning by the terrifying shaking. Myself, I slept through it. However I was particularly concerned the next day when a Year 6 child (aged 10) told me: "Yeah it was so bad I dropped my Playstation controller."

So what is my response to that as a teacher? A conversation with the child perhaps. Maybe I mention it to parents at the next parent's evening. If I'm really concerned that the late nights are affecting school performance I would make a phone call home.

However, I worry that someone in government is looking at that story right now and thinking they really have to do something about it. Something big. Something governmental. I fear the conversation may go something like this:

Concerned minister: Have you seen this article? We need to bring back routines into family life.
Junior minister: How can we do that? We don't control every family.

Concerned minister: Hmm. What do we control?
Junior Minister [Thinks]
Civil servant: There's always schools. And Ofsted.
Junior Minister: Yes. We could make schools teach their children to have better routines at home.

Concerned Minister: Yes. It could be a new criteria in the Ofsted framework.
Civil servant: So... you'd like a glossy pack going out to every school, perhaps? An instructional DVD? A website?

Concerned Minister: Yes, that sounds good. I could really... Oh I mean, this will help the whole country.
Junior Minister: I'll prepare a press release...
Civil servant: Might you also like a pilot study? Some academic research to back up what we want to do?

Concerned Minister [eyes glowing a baleful red]: Yes! Yes!
Civil servant: Right away minister.

(Apologies to the script writers of Yes Minister)

Of course, the coalition government have said they want less paper work in schools. Less government and local authority control. More self governance. But when something like this comes along will they really be able to resist the urge to send that glossy fad-pack into school? Will they really have the confidence in the country's teachers?

The King of shapes: the stellated icosahedron

2012-01-01T07:13:00.001-08:00

There's nothing quite as good as mathematical toys for Christmas. After I had wrested this 'geomac' off the children, I made my very favourite shape - the stellated icosahedron.

I just love adding points to a platonic solid.

With 60 faces, 90 edges and 32 vertices, Euler's formula still holds true: 32+60-90=2 (vertices+faces-edges=2 for all solids without holes in them).

The question for young mathematicians is "do all the 3D shapes you know follow this rule?" and following on from this "can you make a 3D shape that doesn't follow this rule?" [clue: try making a donut out of geomac].

Egyptian masks @bm_ag

2011-12-31T03:46:00.001-08:00

There's just enough interactive stuff to keep the children interested for a couple of hours at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Chrome Os and its Serious Product Failure

2011-12-15T14:24:00.001-08:00

In the last couple of weeks I've had to erase the stateful partition on several occasions, upgrade to the Beta Channel and even upgrade to the Dev channel (which, by the way, happens to be very unstable). In addition, I've had to block automatic updates, which is the same as saying go to manual override. It's a mercy that I haven't had to reverse the polarities or change the Dilithium Crystals. No, I'm not re-enacting an episode 1960s' Star Trek, rather I've been trying to get my Chromebooks to work.

I know that in my last post about Chromebooks I wrote that I intended to delve into the depths of the Google Apps Management Console, however the next day they stopped working.

You see Chromebooks update themselves automatically, as many things do these days, but unfortunately, version 15 didn't work. Version 14 had worked fine, swimmingly even. You might possibly say dreamily. The students, even after two sessions had started to: Love. Their. Chromebooks. But version 15 let us down. A crucial part of the Chromebook experience had stopped working - the sign in screen. So I upgraded to the Beta channel - version 16 and that did work. Then to the Dev (Development) channel but that didn't work either.

It was something to do with the proxy setup in my school and authority. You see, Birmingham runs a system where a local 'Squid' server, based at the school, links to a central parent server somewhere in the depths of a shady building in the city centre. With this setup the local server caches the internet sites that students visit. This means that the first student that visits a website will bring the content both onto their computer and onto the Squid where much of the content is cached. Any students that follow up will then have a much faster experience because most of the content can be delivered to them down the metres of cable on a 100Mb connection, rather than down miles of fibre on a 10Mb connection. The central parent server has the job of filtering out unwanted websites, which it generally does a very good job of doing.

Something to do with that setup didn't work in Chrome Os 15 - it just didn't hold any of the proxy information or network information, so any new user wanting to use the Chromebook couldn't do so. The Chromebooks were dead in the water. As the guy at Google told me - it looks like a serious product failure.

However the marvellous thing about Google is that their product support is absolutely brilliant. If you ever want an experience of being spoken to politely and humbly by people who really know what they're talking about - go talk to Google product support. Within a couple of days some flash drives containing version 14 of Chrome Os were winging their way towards me from Dublin. The instructions, which included the use of the paperclip shown in the photograph, demanded that I block the update server: it would be a nightmare if I fixed the Chromebooks by downgrading them to version 14, only for them to re-update themselves to version 15. The technical guys in Birmingham were equally quick at sorting this - responding to the request to block the update server within a day and also providing me with some insightful tips on how proxy servers work (which in fact helped me right the paragraph above).

It amuses me somewhat that, after all that technical stuff about proxy servers, it should be a paperclip that I would need to sort the problem out. I've all but had the Chromebooks inside out over the last couple of weeks and it has finally been a paperclip (and version 14 of Chrome Os on a flash drive) that has fixed them.

Onwards and upwards then - I'll have a full set of working Chromebooks by tomorrow and I'll look forward to version of 18 of Chrome Os with considerable anticipation.

Low attaining pupils in low attainment shock

2011-12-15T05:19:00.001-08:00

The BBC article on the school leagues tables surprised me this morning. According to both the BBC and various politicians, low attaining children don't attain well. Let me put that another way: Children who are less average when they are 7 don't become average by the time they are 11.

It reminds me of when Tony Blair, newly in power back in 1997, was alleged to have said that he wants all children to become better than average.

So what is supposed to happen? Bearing in mind that the National Curriculum is divided into 'levels', which are broad descriptors of a child's knowledge in each subject area, children are supposed to make 2 levels of progress between Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. Also, children are expected to finish Key Stage 1 at level 2, although some low attainers finish at level 1, some high attainers at level 3. This progress that children should make means that, if all goes to plan the children

move from level 1 to level 3; or
move from level 2 to level 4; or
move from level 3 to level 5.

Apparently a quarter of children who are 'low attainers' actually made it to level 4 - this means moving from level 1 to level 4 - a great achievement. Disappointing then that Steven Twigg, Shadow Education Secretary should see his glass as being half empty with this statement: "The fact that only a quarter of low attainers at age seven go on to meet the expected Level 4 in English of maths when they leave primary school is not good enough."

Fortunately we have a country with such amazing secondary schools that they will pick up these disastrously low expectations from primary schools and make good their low attaining pupils.

I'll write next about how this announcement is akin to thrusting a red hot poker into the nether regions of all secondary schools, given the current SATs regime.

Is Michael Gove doing a good thing, but in so bad a way as to spoil it's beneficial effect?

2011-11-26T17:40:00.001-08:00

My title is a shameful paraphrase of Gladstone from his third Midlothian Speech (Tuesday 27th November 1879). What he actually said was:

"Even, gentlemen, when you do a good thing, you may do it in so bad a way that you may entirely spoil the beneficial effect;"

and he finished his sentence by saying:

"and if we were to make ourselves the apostles of peace in the sense of conveying to the minds of other nations that we thought ourselves more entitled to an opinion on that subject than they are, or to deny their rights - well, very likely we should destroy the whole value of our doctrines."

The reason I've made this quote is that Michael Gove quoted this same speech in his recent address to Cambridge University. I understand that Gladstone was talking about foreign policy at the time, whereas Gove was talking about Education, but I wonder whether I can make a comparison with a speech that's 130 years old. After all, Gove did.

Some real positives hit me from Gove's speech, for example: "I want to proclaim the importance of education as a good in itself. I want to argue that introducing the young minds of the future to the great minds of the past is our duty." and "I think any society is a better society for taking intellectual effort more seriously, for rewarding intellectual ambition, for indulging curiosity, for supporting scholarship, for feting those who teach and celebrating those who learn."

These are sentiments that ring my bells - they make me think this is what I got into education for. They are: A. Good. Thing. I think it's great that he doesn't want to subordinate education to purely economic ends; that he believes our current generation of teachers are the best ever; that he wants us to be connected with communities of learning such as those at Google and Apple. Marvellous. FAB!

However I think Michael Gove is a bit disingenuous about some things and just plain wrong about others - and it's this that Gladstone was hinting at in his speech with the 'apostles of peace' phrase. You see Gladstone's arch-rival, Disraeli had waited through the early 1880s as the Liberal party tore itself apart (partly due to the rigours of getting the country's first Education Act through Parliament). Disraeli was offered the chance to form a minority government in 1883, but could see that the Liberals would only make it worse for themselves and waited for the general election of 1884 to form a majority government then. Disraeli seems to have been characterised as cunning and cynical and it was these characteristics that Gladstone was railing against.

Gove casts a vision of acadamies bringing the excellence into the education system. He talks about a 700% increase this year. But this is nearly all at secondary level, where a school's large size can help undertake the structural change necessary to become and Academy. I don't see a model which works for Primary schools unless there is a significantly active community group ready to support them.

What Gove doesn't say about Gladstone's speech is that there is a common theme of Christianity in it - there is an assumption that his entire audience are Christians. If you then look back at the Education Act of 1870 you see that at that time over the half the children in the country were being educated by the Anglican or Roman Catholic Clergy. The National Education League was set up by mainly secular industrialists, such as Joseph Chamberlain to demand a state education system for the benefit of industry. When the Act went through it was a victory for the League, but the first Education Boards were often dominated by non-conformist Christians such as the Quakers. So the motivation for providing schools was either from religion or from industry.

In Gove's speech he talks about education for education's sake - for the love of the art, or the music, or the literature and I want that as much as anyone. But it isn't right to suggest that Gladstone's audience thought the same thing. The 'rude mechanicals' would have valued education because of their religious beliefs, or because they wanted their own children to have a better quality of life than they, because of their education.

The 'push' for Academies that religious groups could have provided in Victorian times no longer exists - those Christian groups just aren't there any more in large enough quantities. So it makes me wonder what will happen to the rest of schools when all those who have converted into Acadmies have converted. When Gove says he'll be putting greater demands on headteachers and academics, does that mean in supporting those schools who aren't yet elite? And is it elitism for everyone - so that when everyone is elite, nobody will be (I'd like to be quoting Aldhous Huxley at this point, but I realise I'm closer to quoting 'Syndrome' from 'the Incredibles'.

There is also the odd thing in his speech that I consider to be just plain wrong. Like for example when he says that 'children in Singapore are exposed to calculations involving the foundations of algebra' before children in the UK. Our children meet their first algebra at the age of 4 - children in Singapore don't even start school until they're 5 so how can this be true? He also claims that the government are reforming the whole exam system and yet Key Stage 2 SATs remain unchanged. It is KS2 SATs where education starts going wrong for many of our young people, but I'll be looking at this in another post.

The final thing that is wrong with this speech is the context. I have read at least three of Gove's recent speeches and each one has impressed me - I love his ambition and the vision he casts in them - I want to be in the education landscape he paints. However the speeches I have read have been (a) to the Conservative party; (b) to the Royal Society; (c) to Cambridge University. It would be nice to see Gove trying to inspire (like I do) 60 young parents about the virtues of education - then I would see that he was not only doing a good thing, but doing it in such a good way as to enhance it's beneficial effect.

Is this the beginning of the end for the proxy server?

2011-11-26T06:55:00.001-08:00

Proxy servers have been great for schools. The ability to apply policies, filters and firewalls to a range of academic establishments has helped keep millions of students protected from less than savoury websites. In Birmingham, UK, Europe's largest education authority, nearly all the 420+ schools use the same proxy, meaning that the costs of maintaining it are much lower than they would be should each school have to manage their own one.

Essentially a proxy server is an extra computer that sits between your network and the rest of the world, although if you want a more technical article, see the wikipedia article.

In short, proxy servers do a good thing and they save money.

As an ICT co-ordinator, I have seen the proxy server as a necessary evil.

It does more good that it doesn't.

I need the proxy - but it does often cause me problems.

For example, to make the school Kindles work, I have to take them home to set them up (where I have a direct internet connection). This is a bit frustrating.

In addition, some websites are rightly filtered by the proxy for all the schools in Birmingham, but on occasion it would be useful to open them up. Facebook is a good example of this - not only do I manage a school Facebook page that I can update from school via email but cannot see in school unless I borrow a child's mobile phone, but I would also like to offer parent workshops about safe Facebook use. The people who manage the Birmingham proxy server (Link2ICT) are very responsive and offered to unlock Facebook and similar social media sites for a specific computer at a specific time - but this does require extra organisation and time - it would be handy if I could control this myself.

A further problem is a clash with external providers. Increasingly schools such as ours are forging stronger links with external software providers. 2Simple are an excellent example - they provide software that is just perfect for the primary child - uncomplicated, powerful and fun to use. However their support solution involves a tool called Logmein, where they can access a computer remotely from their offices whilst speaking to me on the phone. Now in the past I have been literally shouted at by a colleague from Link2ICT for daring to experiment with Logmein as it jeopardises the integrity of the whole Birmingham network, apparently. This is a bit of a conflict - do I turn to the software company for support, or do I only rely on the services of our local people?

And when schools are increasingly asked to be accountable and autonomous at a school level, not a local authority level, is there a balance to be struck between the systems that work at a local authority level (like Proxy servers) and between commercial software providers?

Managing my own proxy would be completely out of the question. Not only would I not have the time or the inclination to learn the skills, but I'm sure it's far cheaper to share a proxy between a range of school like we currently do.

However, just in this last week, I have noticed something in our Google Apps domain that does some of the jobs that the proxy server does.

This week I have been experimenting with our Google Apps management console to set up our Chromebooks in different ways for the different user groups. For example I can set up the teachers so that the school calendar and their email open at startup. Or I can setup the year 6 students so that they get straight to a Google spreadsheet we have been working on for our Switched on ICT scheme of work. Or I can setup the Year 3 students so they get straight to Purple Mash, that they have been trialling this term. I've noticed too that I can control the Chrome extensions and web apps from the chrome store - I can make Angry Birds appear as an icon in the corner of the desktop. Or I can ban it so it never appears.

What I am most excited about is the URL blacklist / whitelist section (pictured above). I can blacklist everything, and then whitelist all the websites I want the children to access. I can use this to have complete control over the Chromebooks and change their accessibility according to the needs of the students and the curriculum. The question I need to answer now is how much work is this - managing a blacklist / whitelist filter? Is it the kind of thing I can do for my school or do I need to share the responsibility with other schools? And if I can find those other schools to work with, do I still need a proxy server - does it offer some functionality other than a web filter that I am ignorant of?

Lots of questions, I know. Hopefully answers will come in future posts as I begin to look at how the Management console affects learning.

Good teaching decreases mathematics anxiety

2011-11-21T09:26:00.001-08:00

This weekend, I found myself doing something I've not done before - disagreeing with Professer Derek Haylock. Giving his second lecture to Edge Hill MaST cohort 1, the man who's seminal work "Mathematics Explained for Primary Teachers" has pride of place on my shelf, said some things that didn't quite hang together for me.

His lecture was on the subject of mathematics anxiety - something that most adults have either experienced or can empathise with. His main point was this: if you teach mathematics well, you don't get students who are anxious about maths. As someone tweeted on the day "My God I never thought of that. I hope the person giving this advice is paid a fortune." Given that the audience was a room full of primary maths specialists, or 'maths champions', the advice is more purposeful if given a more negative slant: don't allow bad maths teaching in primary - you'll just get adults who are anxious about maths.

Briefly I will sum up what I thought were his main points and then I'll say where and how I disagreed with him.

Many adults experience anxiety in maths when they are afraid to make mistakes in public, or given a mathematical challenge they cannot think clearly to carry it out.
These adults can trace their feelings of anxiety back to a single experience usually between the ages of 9-11 at primary school.
This experience is always a negative interaction with a teacher - Prof. Haylock quoted adults saying that their teacher had shouted things like "why can't you just get it right?" There was a real emphasis on the negative experience being when maths is thought of as either right or wrong.
Many of these adults reported they could only learn maths by learning a rule by rote and couldn't master any conceptual learning.
Some of these adults become primary teachers.
Teaching styles are to blame for mathematical anxiety - 'traditional methods' create more anxiety; a 'problem-solving / relational approach' creates less anxiety. Quoting from Newsted, he described a traditional approach as one of direct instruction, followed by practice and application, whereas in the 'problem-solving approach' the teacher acted as a facilitator, with the children suggesting their own methods and strategies for solving problems.

Aside from the dangers of telling rooms full of teachers that 'rote learning is always bad' and 'this is the only way to do it', my main disagreement was the way he linked the single negative experience with a given teacher to the traditional teaching method. It doesn't take the room being in rows or table groups for you to have a bad experience with a teacher. Neither does it mean that you if are using a 'problem-solving approach' then teachers can't lose their tempers and make everyone frightened of maths.

In my own experience I've tried both traditional and 'problem solving approaches'.

I would call them using a rigid scaffold and using a negotiated scaffold. In the former, the teacher plots the course through the learning (the scaffold) and takes the students through that course through direct instruction, practice and intervention; in the latter the student and teacher negotiate the path through the learning.

Both approaches work.

In fact this time last year I did an experiment where I did 6 weeks of negotiated scaffolding in maths, then 6 weeks of rigid scaffolding in maths. The children made progress in both periods.

Delving a bit deeper into the Newstead report I see that the traditional approach includes: "The teacher decides what is right or wrong and intervenes in the case of mistakes. Later word

sums may be used as application of methods. Social norms are more static and involve more discipline, rewards and teacher authority." Now to me that's not traditional teaching. Traditional teaching is where direct instruction is followed by practice, yes, but then appropriate intervention from the teacher. And so now it leaves me thinking that Haylock, quoting Newstead isn't comparing 'Problem Solving' with 'Traditional', but is comparing 'Problem Solving' with 'Bad Teaching'.

I'll go on to say that Haylock is right by saying that for a student to have one-to-one negative interactions with an authority figure such as a teacher will cause anxiety, in any subject. The teacher that chooses 'traditional teaching methods' but can avoid the negative interactions can still teach a class without causing anxiety amongst the students. And a teacher that attempts to be a 'facilitator' but then loses their temper when the students don't choose a method they were anticipating will also cause anxiety. It's not about the style, or dare I even say it the teaching, it's about the teacher themselves.

Good teachers reduce anxiety.

How the decision whether to strike or not has become harder, not easier.

2011-11-21T07:07:00.001-08:00

SN00405.pdf Download this file

I can't decide whether to strike next Wednesday (30th) or not.

A few months ago, the decision felt a lot simpler: pensions are the one good thing about teaching - I have to strike. But now I'm not so sure. Over the next few paragraphs I'm going to sketch out my indecision in more detail.

Pensions are not the one good thing about teaching.

The first thing is that pensions are not the only benefit of being a teacher. I didn't become a teacher because of the pension. I had finally found something that I was good at and I enjoyed doing. I had previously tried engineering, selling computers and even being in a band, but I either wasn't good at them or didn't enjoy them. I enjoy teaching. And I'm good at it (most of the time).

The pay isn't bad either. When I started teaching the highest pay I could expect in about the year 2000 was about £25000. Now I could expect £39000 - that's over a 50% increase in 10 or so years - well above the rate of inflation in that time.

The holidays, hours and general flexibility are brilliant. Like most teachers I work late some evenings. I work at home. I work in the holidays. But I don't work all the time. Being a teacher

The exaggeration of my union

I'm disappointed with the language coming out of my Union. According to them I am "demoralised" and desperate to have my "classroom released from the shackles or paperwork". I am, in fact, neither of these things. I am concerned about pensions, but I've been taken aback by some of the mouth-frothingly* emotive language I've had emailed to me over the last few weeks. What's more, I did some digging and found a report that I've posted (above) which seems to indicate that the teaching unions were in a no-compromise mood from as long ago as 1997 when the at-the-time New Labour government took office and set up a working party to look at the Teacher Pension Scheme. The government in 2004 was frightened off making significant changes to the pension scheme by the teacher unions. It made me wonder whether a more conciliatory stance back in the 2000s (when we were all living in our heady credit bubble) might have led to a more constructive dialogue now.

In addition today my local association have been tweeting: "Remember there's no requirement to tell your Headteacher if you intend to strike on #N30. NASUWT advises you do NOT tell them #sufs #nasuwt" Now that may be true, but it's really unhelpful to school leaders, some of whom are in that union are just trying to find out whether they can keep their school open or not. Most headteachers have a positive relationship with their staff and it seems a shame to jeapordise it by telling union members to communicate less with their senior leaders.

Two issues in one strike

There are two issues that dominate discussion on pensions - the pension age and the pension contribution. I'm a primary teacher with the belief that a certain amount of role modelling is important to the primary age child. My pension age is 68. At that age I can't quite imagine myself being able to perform a Cruyff turn, or somersault or even jump off a bench. I'm sure some sixty eight year-olds may be able to, but many won't. I know some may find that a rather fey reason, especially when firemen are expected to work until 60 these days, but a reason it is. The contribution for me is another matter - I know paying more represents a pay cut, but the sliding scale that hits teachers on the leadership spine worse than teachers who aren't seems fair to me. Why shouldn't the rich contribute more? It's an idea that old Labour would have been proud of.

Suffice it to day that I'd like to see these two issues separated. Strike about the age thing - yes I'll go with that. Strike about the contributions? Not for me.

The mandate of the vote

I've been told twice, via email and letter, that an 'overwhelming' 82% voted for strike action. But it's an 82% of only a 40% turn out. That means about seventy thousand teachers in my union positively chose to strike out of a possible two hundred and twenty thousand. I don't see that as overwhelming. Given that this is a really important issue that could affect the future of many people and will cause many families a severe headache next Wednesday, how can only 40% have bothered to vote about it? And how can that justify this strike action? What I suspect is that many teachers aren't that bothered about it, but quite fancy 30th November as a Christmas Shopping Day. Letting a keen minority make the decision for them, they will gleefully take the day and when challenged say "well my union are striking, I can't go against them." Worse, I suspect that some staff are hoping to tell their schools that they are not striking that day so that they can still claim their pay, but that the school will have sufficient strikers out to close the school. OK, maybe I'm getting a bit paranoid here - I've certainly not seen any of this behaviour in my own school - but now the thought is there I'm struggling to get it out of my head.

The importance of unions

The flip side to my previous argument is that I really believe unions are important. For many years, my union has given me helpful advice, great opportunities and that legal protection just in case something should go wrong at school. I also think that it's important to stick together about key issues - for my part I think the changes within the new curriculum might be more important than changes to pensions. I don't want to go against a union decision, because I think unions are important.

School is important free day care

I hear a lot of teachers moaning that parents just view school as free daycare and yes I agree, school is a lot more than that. Schools provide knowledge, understanding and skills for future life. They are important social structures within our communities. But they are also free day-care and as such form part of our economy. With our economy being in such a fragile state at the moment, is it wise to close them for a even a day?**

My prior experience of strikes

As a secondary school student in the 1980s I was negatively affected by teachers' action. All the clubs stopped. As a twelve-year old treble I had sang that part in Carmina Burana at the Town Hall. I never got the chance to develop my baritone, because by then the choir club had shut down. It also seemed to affect the teachers badly too. I remember them being bright and happy at the start of secondary school (1983), but gloomy and miserable by the time I left - I'm sure there were other factors, but such things stick in the mind.

My conclusion

I read articles like this and I float one way, then I think about the whole 40% turnout again and I float back the other.

I think about the looks I had from other dads at my son's scout group and how each of them in the private sector have had to make all sorts of financial sacrifices over recent years just to stay in work and I think "Nope, I can't strike." Then I think about myself teaching PE to 30 ten year olds and I think "I really should strike."

My union tells me I don't need to tell my headteacher, but he's given me until Wednesday.

* - note how I've used some emotive language of my own here.

** - you could argue with all the teachers Christmas shopping, it may actually boost the economy.

Product support: the efficient, gentle arrogance of Google

2011-11-18T14:39:00.001-08:00

It's no secret that I'm a complete Google fanboy. You know how some people are so keen on Apple products they almost froth at the mouth. Well I'm a bit like that with Google. Given that, you may find it surprising that I've used the word 'arrogance', which for many people has negative connotations.

One of the things that has made buying Chromebooks from Google so pleasant is the amount of positive interactions from Google people during the process. When I first contacted them in about June there were no plans to extend Google Chromebooks for Enterprise into the education market in Europe. But during the summer break someone from Google Europe emailed to say that Google had formed a Chromebooks for Education in Europe and we were "good to go" (that's a shameful use of US expression).

Since then the interactions have been many and positive, helping us through the purchasing agreement, which was of a type we hadn't seen before at our Primary School and making sure the Chromebooks were delivered in good time.

Shortly after arrival I received a phone call from a friendly chap calling all the way from Mountain View. He'd got into work really early to speak to me mid-afternoon, given the 8 hour time difference. This was our deployment advisor, Hubert, who would guide us through the steps to successfully deploy our Chromebooks. And guide us he did. 2 Chromebooks didn't work at all at first and it was looking like I would have to go through the faff of having to put them in boxes and send them back to Dublin. However Hubert saved the day. His precise advice worked perfectly and the 2 Chromebooks were resurrected - they now work perfectly with our wifi system.

When all was sorted, he rang me one more time as a kind of debrief of the whole process and we went through my deployment experience. It concluded with a conversation in which I managed to express some of the things I'd like to see on the Chromebooks or in Google Apps - like a child-friendly version of Google+ for example.

In the email that followed he went on to say that I had "been one of his better customers."

Now I know my school is only a tiny primary school and Google is a huge multinational company with thousands of employees, but it struck me as remarkable that any company would say this to their customers. I asked one or two friends who run businesses and they agreed that saying such a thing might make them lose business. It would be a bit like me saying to a parent: "You're one of our better families." I suppose there's a certain sensibility - maybe even a 'Britishness' - that might be offended by this. It could produce comments such as: "fancy rating us as a customer... how arrogant!" But of course for me (the Google fanboy) I just felt like a seventeen year old who'd just been told he was really good looking, despite his spots and gangly legs. I walked around the school just that little bit taller for a couple of days. If it is an arrogance, it's a gentle one, because I didn't mind it one bit.

And since then the support has been equally as good. I'm currently experiencing a glitch with our Google Apps Chrome Os Management Console (I'll be blogging about what happens with this in a few days time). I emailed at the start of the day and already two people have contacted me from Google until I've got the email from just the right expert, who will be giving me a call next week.

So in short, it's early days, but the product support has been brilliant - efficient, quick, precise and ever-so-gently arrogant.

Chromebooks to the rescue!

2011-11-18T09:37:00.001-08:00

This Monday my plans were put on hold when as Key Stage Co-ordinator I was directed by the Deputy Headteacher to cover the Year 6 teacher who was poorly. In addition the ICT subject leader proposed a further challenge - the half term's unit from the Switched On ICT scheme of work was as yet untouched and needed to be started. Fortunately I am both ICT leader and deputy headteacher - so it's all my fault really.

It's difficult to get a day of lessons ready with half an hour's notice, but the Chromebooks helped me in all sorts of ways on the day. The students had only had one previous session with them, in which they had mainly been testing them for me and seeing if there's anything decent in the Chrome Webstore. The students were keen to use them again, but I feared they would just want them to play. "Can I play Angry Birds, Sir?" would be the question I was most anticipating. Now while I've seen Angry Birds work in a classroom context, today was not the day for it. You see, I was behind on teaching year 6 the 'We Are Fundraisers' unit in the Switched on ICT scheme from Rising Stars that I quoted above. In fact I hadn't touched on it at all. The unit covers data handling and real life money problems (amongst other things) and I was keen to work with year 6 on developing their skills at using spreadsheets and calendars. The Christmas Market was three weeks away (it takes place on the 2nd December) - and this was the event that the children would actually be carrying out their business ideas in.

So how did the Chromebooks help?

Direct Teaching

I moved the chairs and tables into rows (yes I know - unusual for primary schools) and had all the children facing the board. Each child had a Chromebook in front of them and was logged into a sample Google Spreadsheet I had created for them. In this I taught them how to add, multiply, divide and take away cells; find a total using the sum function and make predictions of how much profit they make if all their plans came to fruition. Each child then copied my sample spreadsheet to experiment themselves with their own business idea.

Group work

The 'communcations officer' in each team was given a Chromebook. Each group then discussed their ideas with each other of how they might money at the Christmas Market. When an idea was sufficiently well formed, the communications officer would input it into a shared Google Doc that was also projected onto the interactive whiteboard. Each group could then see what other groups were coming up with and as a class we could make sure that no business would be duplicating each other - you can have too many lucky dips.

Independent work

Once each business had a rough idea to work on, each individual worked on the tasks associated with their roles. For example, treasurer, advertising, coms officer. Managers would be using Chromebooks to investigate prices and put together costings of prizes or materials they needed. Treasurers would be putting together a projected profit plan, considering how much money they might make. Communications officers would be putting together a list of questions they might need to ask other adults in the school. Advertisers used Google Drawings and Aviary to create adverts for their business. In many of these tasks the quick start up of the Chromebooks, their long battery life and the stability of their systems proved invaluable at keeping the groups productive.

Whole class presentation

At the end of the day, each group presented their plans to myself and the teaching assistant in an almost 'Dragon's Den' atmosphere, with the rest of the class listening in to the interaction. In this we talked about the realism of their plans, suggested new ideas or alterations and then decided whether to approve their business plan. Again the Chromebooks were useful - keeping the Google spreadsheet open was useful to look at how the numbers changed if, say only 30 people came to their stall instead of the hoped for 200. It also helped me, with my ICT hat on, spot whether students had really got the learning about using formulas within the spreadsheets and write down those who might need further work in that area. Of the 6 groups, 4 businesses were approved. The other two went away with ideas of how to improve their plan and return at a later date.

Given that this was the second time the children had used Chromebooks, I was delighted at how useful and glitch-free they had been. Some students had previously moaned that they couldn't get used to the trackpad (which is more akin to the way an Apple works than the PC laptops they are used to), but none complained in this second session. The Chromebooks blend really well with other activities - in one group the treasurer was working on her spreadsheet while right next to her two other children were painting and advertising poster - I love it when technology is so seamless it's just there - just another way of doing things - like picking up a pencil or using a number-line. It's seems like Chromebooks are already becoming that way in Year 6. And what's even better is not one child played Angry Birds, or even asked the question.

See the full gallery on Posterous

What went wrong with the Chromebooks in Year 3?

2011-11-17T03:39:00.001-08:00

It was perhaps a mistake to let year 3 use the Chromebooks before I had fully tested them and passed on a list of 'Dos and Don'ts' to my colleagues. However, the ICT suite was otherwise occupied, the Chromebooks were available and the Year 3 teacher has a proven track record at being highly successful at teaching ICT.

It was with a small degree of apprehension then, that as I walked into the classroom towards the end of the lesson, the teacher was almost turning the metaphorical tearing her hair out into literal follicle damage. Essentially a third of the children had failed to log on, and it appeared to be the Chromebooks fault.

The trouble with Chromebooks is that they only connect to the internet. This means there are 4 barriers to young children using Chromebooks in schools

They must connect successfully to the school's wifi;
They must connect through the school / district proxy server;
The children must remember (and be able to type) their username;
The children must remember their password.

Of course when you've got 30 seven-year old children in front of you, each of them making some kind of demand on your time, all you can see is children who can use the Chromebooks and those who can't.

It's my job, as ICT leader, to make sure the barriers above are minimised. I've tried to introduce usernames and password that balance security with ease of use. I've enrolled and setup each Chromebook so that it works properly with both our wifi and proxy server. Or at least, I thought I had. So what went wrong on this afternoon?

Firstly there were 4 children who didn't have logins at all - two of these were new to the school and two were children who had slipped under the radar in the previous year. A further child had changed her password and forgotten what she had changed it too. 4 more children had problems typing their usernames. Now I had introduced the Google Apps domain 2 terms earlier and the classes containing younger children had used it far less than older children - these children were a lot less experienced at logging on to the Google Apps. I should point out that Chromebooks use the children's Google Apps logins to work. In addition because of less usage, the teacher last year had not noticed the two children who didn't have logins - maybe they had presumed it a glitch in the system and so the problem had not been recognised.

Another child was a mystery - she was properly setup and seemed to by typing in everything properly, but her Chromebook just didn't login. I restarted the computer for here and tried again. This time it worked. It seems that for the odd Chromebook, when 30 are all trying to connect to the system at the same time, one or two don't quite get through - they need a second chance. This was also a problem with the laptops that we had previously used in classes - they too would on occasions not connect properly to the wifi and would need to be restarted. Somebody at Google told me it was about being stuck in a 'portal subnet' - but this just sounds like I'm on an episode of Star Trek, and not wanting to go to manual override, reverse the polarities or indeed change the dilithium crystals, my solution is just to restart and hope. It worked this time.

You see, the good thing about Chromebooks is that they only connect to the internet. And they connect using Chrome. They restart superfast - it takes less than 2 seconds to shut them down and only 8 seconds to start them up again. This meant that in the remaining twenty minutes of the lesson I was able to call each child over to me, identify their problems, sort their problems out restart their Chromebooks and still give them a go.

Next time all of the Year 3 children will be able to use the Chromebooks.

What lessons have I learned in terms of deploying Chromebooks?

Make sure all the students have working Logins to the Google Apps domain.
Make sure that the students are familiar with logging on to the Google Apps domain.
Be prepared to restart the odd chromebook just because it doesn't pick up the wifi network on the first go.

So maybe it wasn't a mistake after all - I owe a big dept of gratitude to the Year 3 teacher for being prepared to experiment with the new technology - she certainly will have made the experience of everyone else in the school more successful.

Chromebooks hit year 6

2011-11-04T10:40:00.001-07:00

chromebook review.mp4 Watch on Posterous

The Chromebooks, having been enrolled over for the past couple of days, were given to Year 6 today.

Their purpose was simple - test them, see what they can do, review them.

Would the children be able to access their favourite internet sites? Would the children be able to access some of our purchased services, such as Espresso and Education City?

The children accessed a shared Google Spreadsheet while they were doing this testing, filling in the cells to inform me of what they were finding (that's in the video above).

Here are some of the results from the spreadsheet:

1. Positives of the Chromebooks

2. Negatives of the Chromebooks

3. Some children went on to find that all of our purchased services - Espresso, Education City and Mathletics do work.

Fantastic.

Next week Year 3 will be testing the Chromebooks on Purple Mash and Year 6 will be using them to plan a fundraising event through the shared use of a Google Spreadsheet. Can't wait.

Chromebooks really only take 8 seconds to start up

2011-11-02T17:47:00.001-07:00

video-2011-11-02-11-45-06.mp4 Watch on Posterous

In my school, we had a laptop trolley about 3 years ago.

16 laptops that could be charged up overnight then trundled into a room for action.

We haven't really used it for about 18 months.

The thing is that by the time each laptop has started up, connected to the wireless network and been logged on, you've wasted 5 minutes of the lesson.

That may not seem like a long time, but it is enough to lose a roomful of 8 year olds, especially when the learning is supposed to be about something entirely different than ICT - the technology is supposed to be supporting the learning. (Think about it another way - if you waste 5 minutes every school day waiting for laptops to boot up, that would add up to 3 school days over the course of the year - too much time wasted.)

In addition the battery life of those laptops was only 3 hours. That meant they could only be used in the mornings, or, if needed in the afternoons, partially charged during lunchtime, only to die part way through the afternoon.

I could go on about other barriers such as syncing the files over the wireless system to our Windows network and how that didn't seem to work consistently on each laptop, but I won't.

Suffice it to say, they were more trouble than they were worth - they got in the way.

Now we've got Chromebooks. These are built in such a way that I'm hoping they won't present the same barriers I've listed above. I hope they really well support the learning.

The first feature that I think will help is the start up time.

8 seconds they claim. And I timed it today. They were right.

Chromebooks really only take 8 seconds to start up

2011-11-02T16:08:00.001-07:00

chromebook_8s.mp4 Watch on Posterous

In my school, we had a laptop trolley about 3 years ago.

16 laptops that could be charged up overnight then trundled into a room for action.

We haven't really used it for about 18 months.

The thing is that by the time each laptop has started up, connected to the wireless network and been logged on, you've wasted 5 minutes of the lesson.

I could go on about other barriers such as syncing the files over the wireless system to our Windows network and how that didn't seem to work consistently on each laptop, but I won't.

Suffice it to say, they were more trouble than they were worth - they got in the way.

Now we've got Chromebooks. These are built in such a way that I'm hoping they won't present the same barriers I've listed above. I hope they really well support the learning.

The first feature that I think will help is the start up time.

8 seconds they claim. And I timed it today. They were right.

Enrolling Google Chromebooks into Google Apps Domain ((tag: Chromebooks, Google Apps)

2011-11-02T15:55:00.001-07:00

enrolling chromebooks.mp4 Watch on Posterous

Today I began enrolling our newly acquired Google Chromebooks into our Google Apps domain.

It was reasonably straightforward as the video shows.

Excitement is..

2011-11-01T03:54:00.001-07:00

A newly arrived order of Chromebooks.

Sleeping Dad Blues

2011-10-25T01:25:00.001-07:00

sleepingdadblues.mov Listen on Posterous

Sleeping Dad Blues

2011-10-25T01:11:00.001-07:00

Recording 0036 2011-10-25 8-58-50.aifc Listen on Posterous

"The Trendy Word is 'Scaffold'"

2011-10-13T13:56:00.001-07:00

"The Trendy Word is 'Scaffold'"

I blogged a couple of days ago about a mistake an Ofsted inspector had made during a headteacher's briefing meeting.

It might be somewhat predictable, that as a teacher who's been through 5 Ofsted inspections, I should seem to enjoy pointing out when an inspector makes a mistake. I've had enough of my own shortcomings identified during inspection that it might look like merely petty revenge...

Here's another mistake anyway.

Part way through the briefing, the inspector, talking about the inadequacies of some aspect of teaching that she had seen somewhere, came up with the quote that makes the title of this post.

"The trendy word is scaffold." She even raised her eyebrows as if it was some kind of new-fangled educational fad.

Wasn't it Bruner who first related the word 'scaffolding' to teaching sometime in the 1950s? He was working on Vygotsky's idea of the Zone of Proximal Development and came up with the concept that teachers could put structures in place to support learning. And isn't that what teaching is? Teachers either fix the steps the students most go through to learn something, or they negotiate the steps with the students and guide them through those steps. Two ways if scaffolding - rigid and negotiated.

So, teachers scaffold learning. Some prefer the rigid approach, others negotiate the learning targets, and some mix it up. I'm not convinced that any one approach to scaffolding learning is better than any others, nor have I met any teachers who don't scaffold their lessons in some shape or form.

I have seen some people get confused between lesson resources and scaffolding. Maybe this is what the inspector was getting at. For example I've seen writing frames given out to support a particular style of writing and been referred to as 'scaffolding'. But that's not trendy, it's just wrong - Bruner referred to scaffolding as the interaction between the student and the teacher, not the handing out of some photocopied worksheet - photocopiers had barely hit the mass market by the time Bruner was doing his work anyway.

Maybe Bruner should be pleased that scaffolding is finally trendy. And maybe Ofsted will be raising their collective eyebrows at the work of others academics - a sly laugh at Piaget or a muffled cough at Vygotsky. Don't worry though, these new fads won't fool Ofsted.

"Leadership is like Clint Eastwood in Easy Rider"

2011-10-11T10:17:00.001-07:00

This was a quote that got my attention today at a briefing about the new Ofsted framework. The presenter, who was quoting someone else, went on to show Eastwood dressed as a cowboy looking all stern and pointing six-shooters. "Leadership is like all guns blazing..."

That's not exactly my image of leadership, but more importantly it's not my memory of Easy Riser, in which I distinctly remember Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper riding around on motorbikes trying to come to terms with hallucinogens, 60s America and rednecks who didn't like men with long hair.

There was a third character in the film, and for a moment I wondered if that was Clint Eastwood, but a quick Google search reminded me that was Jack Nicholson.

There was no Clint Eastwood in Easy Rider.

I hope that's not what the quoter meant - "Leadership is being absent, or mistaken for someone else."

Or maybe something more complicated was intended - some kind of character juxtaposition. I have to admit I can never get away from Clint's "Dirty Harry" character. So joining Fonda and Hopper (and for a short while Nicholson) on their ultimately doomed journey rides Eastwood, magnums in hand, demanding "Do you think you're lucky, punk?" of every hostile situation they face. Try as I might it's still not a helpful image of leadership...

Maybe the film that had been intended was actually 'Pale Rider', in which Clint Eastwood plays a 'mysterious preacher' who saves a town. Again, mystery and preaching aren't the first things that I would associate with good leadership.

So I came to a conclusion that it was just a mistake, too obscure to get at what was being meant.

But then maybe leadership is all of the above - it's an amazing journey with extreme highs and terrible lows where you do meet some people who are actually out to get you. Sometimes you have to go in all guns blazing, and sometimes you have to be almost absent to allow others to develop their own leadership skills. You have to be able to preach - to share your vision - and to show the strength to be able to defend your team. And maybe a sense of mystery helps too.

It's amazing where an Ofsted briefing can take you...

Sent from my thingamajig

Good for the fractions learning; bad for the coffee mug

2011-10-06T09:48:00.001-07:00

Sometimes children hear the word 'fractions' and they turn off.

I saw it on Wednesday when I started my lesson on comparing and ordering fractions. I had barely uttered the words when I saw a few heads drop. A few children joined in when I asked them what they knew about fractions - one knew the word 'third'; someone else knew 'part'; yet another one knew they have something to do with division. But quite a few heads with dropped.

So while the keen had their hands up, and others were looking to avoid eye contact, I slid an empty coffee mug into an empty plastic bag. Then, for security, whilst the conversation continued, I placed the first plastic bag into a second one.

Then I smacked it against the wall. Really hard.

All the children looked - some jumped.

I proceeded to pull pieces out of the bag and estimate how much of the mug each piece had been, from the large chunks (1/3 or 1/5) to the tiny chips that were only 1/1000 or maybe even smaller.

The children were engaged and by the end of the lesson all of them had made some progress about ordering and comparing fractions. Even the special needs group children who, according to their data, struggle to order numbers 1-100.

As a bonus, we even specified that the bottom of the fraction was called the denominator and the top number the numerator - I love it when children learn proper maths words, although it was amusing to hear one child call the top number the nominator and the bottom number the dominator.

So, if you're stuck with teaching fractions - break something. At least you'll stop the heads from dropping...

School Development Planning on Google Spreadsheets

2011-10-06T05:45:00.001-07:00

sdp plan.mp4 Watch on Posterous

So, I've shared the excellence of Google Docs with my colleagues.

And I've collaborated in lessons with the children I teach.

But today came the big test - could I share Google Docs with my fellow senior leaders?

The day started normally, with big sheets of paper, post-its and lost of discussion as we tried to hone our school development ideas into a coherent document. But then came the test - would they get collaborating altogether on the same document? And would they mind that it was a spreadsheet?

The answer was yes. The video shows some of the first few minutes (speeded up) of us working together on the same spreadsheet. It's worked. So far. Hooray!

Applying some principles from #uppingyourgame

2011-09-12T11:23:00.001-07:00

Applying some principles from #uppingyourgame

A few months ago I acquired a Kindle to test how it might be used in the school where I teach. My first purchase on said Kindle was Doug Belshaw's #UppingYourgame. For 86 English Pennies I thought I couldn't go far wrong.

And I was not disappointed.

It's a few pages of common sense which refers to lengthier tomes should you wish to read more deeply. I didn't.

I did read #Uppingyourgame. Then my wife did. We both enjoyed it.

That was at the start of the Summer Hols and as you all know, teachers do nothing over the Summer except lie on beaches taking in the scorching British sunshine. As a consequence I've not been able to put any of the principles into practice. I've had no game to be upped.

Now however, term is back into full swing and I thought I'd write a few posts about the putting into the practice of the principles of the Uppingyourgame.

One of the things that impressed about the book is that it doesn't deal in specifics - what follows are my specifics - if you really want to up your own game a bit then read the book, not this blog.

So whether it's me getting fit, or using lists, or using social media more wisely, be prepared to see how I've begun to up my game...

A view from the side

2011-08-11T04:58:00.001-07:00

It's interesting how a different perspective changes things.

I'd spent nearly every meeting in Venue 1 in the same place, but this night I moved.

The worship was freer and I engaged more.

Was that just because I had moved, or do different parts of the venue attract different types of people and so *feel* different?

Community Lunch ((daily life))

2011-08-11T04:40:00.001-07:00

Here's a panorama shot of our community lunch.

Sunset

2011-08-11T04:38:00.001-07:00

There's something about a sunset on a campsite that is special. Better somehow.

Marketplace

2011-08-11T04:35:00.001-07:00

Apparently the marketplace in CSW was much busier than in LSE.

Because of Hampshire, so I'm told.

Whatever that means...

100_0002.MOV Watch on Posterous

100_0004.MOV Watch on Posterous

Day Off Trains

2011-08-11T04:27:00.001-07:00

newwinetrains.wmv Watch on Posterous

The trains at New Wine on each day off are a particular highlight, especially if you have young children to entertain...

Gems shaker

2011-08-11T04:11:00.001-07:00

100_0026.MOV Watch on Posterous

Here's the shaker that my two your old made in her Gems group.

She loved it.

New Wine day 7

2011-08-06T14:20:00.001-07:00

I'm home.

A rather curtailed day at New Wine today brought on by some commitments next week that need considerable preparation.

I'm clean.

I've had a bath and a shower and a shave. It's not that there aren't showers and opportunities to shave at New Wine, but there's nothing quite like having a shower and a shave in your own home.

Today began with another excellent talk from Kenny. Then I got the car and began packing it. The children were a little upset when they came back from their groups to find that we really were leaving and so they would miss their final session this evening. It's not a decision I like to take - we've always stayed to the end before and will do so again next year, but we really did have to get home (I know- excuses, excuses!)

The journey home was fine, unpacking smooth and getting clean highly satisfying. All that's left to do know is to reflect on my notes a little bit more and, err, put it all into action. 24/7.

Dramatic testimonies rarely change ordinary people #nwcsw11

2011-08-06T03:26:00.001-07:00

Wow! A great final talk from Kenny Borthwick. He talked again about the twins of 'Nurture and 'Mission' and how the church in the West had become very good at the former, but not the latter.

But what really struck me was the truth that it is important not to over-elaborate or exaggerate my testimony. Real people don't need whizz bang, they just need to know that there's a different way to live. We don't need over-dramatic testimony.

One of the ten commandments says: "Don't bear false witness against each other." how much worse would it be to bear false witness against God. And then there's Eve committing the first sin by exaggerating to the serpent about what God had really said about the Tree of Life.

I guess it's important to tell it. And tell it true.

"The whole place of repentance and surrender is missing" #nwcsw11

2011-08-05T11:59:00.001-07:00

Kenny Borthwick spoke these words this morning when talking about the two different words for 'word' used by John in Chapter 17 of his gospel.

While both of them have been translated as 'word' the Greek behind them is quite different. One of then indicates knowledge from heaven, the other, the unalterable truth of the gospels.

It is this latter 'logos' that struck me the most and that inspired the quote from Kenny in the title above.

We live in an age in the church when there had sometimes been an over-emphasis on grace. Kenny mentioned various gurus and leaders on the forefront of the emerging church and speedily growing movements who have said that 'doctrine doesn't matter anymore - it is only grace.'

Yet it is doctrine, coming from the Bible and so elegantly framed in much of the liturgy of the Anglican church that speaks of repentance and coming to the cross. It is those words of saying sorry for our sins that open up the whole world of gave that we don't actually deserve. The gospel does matter.

As Kenny put it, God has His arms of love, but you still need to walk into them.

I wonder if it would be worth having a corporate repentance for this attitude at New Wine - we may not have been personally or corporately responsible for these sort of wrong attitudes ourselves - but there may still be a place for saying sorry on behalf of others.

Where are the tent makers at #nwcsw11?

2011-08-05T11:58:00.003-07:00

This was the first title I wrote in my journal as a potential blog post when I arrived at New Wine this year.

I suppose I've always been impressed at how Paul was a tentmaker, working hard by his own hands (1 Corinthians 4). The assumption I've always made is that he (at least) paid part of his way through his own trade. It's encouraging for those of us not in full-time ministry to see how effective Paul was.

I looked through the list of speakers and, not knowing much about them, I had written down the above title, presuming that all of the speakers would be full time ministers of some kind. Now I've since learned that I'm wrong in that - Caroline Cox, the speaker on Tuesday is clearly not in full time ministry, and there's been quite a few seminars addressing Christianity in business.

But what was interesting was when I met an old-friend who's recently left a secure full-time vicar position to plant a church in deprived part of Cardiff. It's been a calling on his and his wife's life for a few years and they've finally got the right timing from God to do it. A brave move.

What I found especially encouraging was that he will be training as a science teacher next year to support the mission financially. He even used the phrase 'tent-making'.

And as I reflected on this and other things - like words that have been spoken over me this week, and the way the New Wine leadership are always encouraging us to step out o the boat - I realised that I had answered my own question. The tent makers are all around me. We are the tent makers. I am a tent maker.

Many of use are much better at our tent-making than our following Jesus. We out our time and effort into our careers, sometimes at the detriment of everything else. It is only at events like New Wine where we realise what the balance could look like. But as Bishop Zac said last night, we need to get out of the 'garage service' and get used to being 'in Jesus' 24/7.

There are only 2 verses in the Bible which refer to Paul's trade - his tentmaking. There are many more that detail his wisdom, his exposition, his reasoning and his deeds that furthers the Kingdom. Maybe I need to think on that when I'm looking at the choices I make about how I spend my time.

New Wine day 6

2011-08-05T11:58:00.001-07:00

Just a short one tonight.

My day has been dominated by that hayfever feeling today. Sneezing, itchy eyes, irritable ears and a bleary head.

Kenny was brilliant this morning, speaking further in John 17. We returned straight back to the caravan to clean and tidy as we will be leaving slightly early tomorrow afternoon.

A journey to the marketplace made us richer in 2 ways - a CD containing some of the songs that the children have enjoyed this week and a book that Mary Pytches recommended.

And that was about it really. I'm now listening to Anne Coles speaking from Venue 1 on New Wine Fm on growing stronger in the Lord.

I may manage a glass of wine later sitting with friends, especially considering that tonight will be our last night here.

Sent from my thingamajig

New Wine day 5

2011-08-04T14:58:00.003-07:00

The day started with rain. Lots of it from about 0:05 in fact - pit-pattering away on the canvas and plastic all around the campsite.

The walk to groups first thing was a slog, but it was worth it - the children had a treat time again and Kenny preached a great message in Venue 1 on Chapter 17 of John.

I spent the next couple of hours wondering around with our smallest child, who was quite content to sit in the pushchair, underneath the rain cover, singing to herself and shaking her shaker that she had made in Gems. I tried to get my phone charged at the Tearfund Cafe during this time although it was slightly delayed because hey had got some water into their electrics.

Community lunch followed and it was timed perfectly with the sun coming out. Sixty people or so all sat around eating Chinese food and a pleasant time was had by all - I managed to catch up with a couple of folk who I'd not spoken to all week.

The trip to pastoral prayer was the highlight of my day. A couple of things had really stood out from the morning talk and I went down to pray about them. I came away smiling.

A birthday tea followed, which our children had been invited to - the second birthday of the week. Our youngest was particularly delighted with the pink biscuits.

The evening talk was by Bishop Zac from Uganda - it was really good and have blogged about it elsewhere. On returning, it was our own tea, a chat with friends and I finish with wondering whether I've still got time for a shower before bed.

To an unknown God

2011-08-04T14:58:00.001-07:00

The episode of Paul's life when he visits Athens is often used to explore ideal ways of evangelising hostile peoples. Paul sees how the Athenians have an idol for every conceivable deity in the known world, and even one altar for gods they might not know about. It is this insecurity in the Athenians that Paul uses as an opening for his evangelism.

However, I've not heard the passage applied so relevantly to my own life as Bishop Zac did this evening in Venue 1.

He talked about idolatry in categories that I've not heard before. Where before I've thought of television, money and other concrete things, today Biahop Zac made me think about religion, safety, security and even myself.

The point is that an idol is something I create and then worship. It could be anything - my family, my lifestyle, this blog even. When I say I've Jesus in me just as I am in Him, I may be speaking the truth, but not in equal measure. It's far more I'm in Jesus than the other way around - believing that Jesus can bed boxed up is one of those idols that individuals and even churches create for themselves.

Interesting, powerful stuff. And it musts shows how little of God I really know.

And then it started to rain...

2011-08-04T11:07:00.001-07:00

There's nothing quite like rain at New Wine. After four days of heat and sunshine, the rain has been falling heavily since the early hours of the morning.

Nice!

New Wine evening session getting going at #nwcsw11

2011-08-04T11:03:00.003-07:00

A view from the side of the main stage at Venue 1

Community lunch

2011-08-04T11:03:00.001-07:00

God is good! The rain stopped just in time for the St. John's community lunch.

Ace!

It doesn't always rain at #nwcsw11

2011-08-04T08:19:00.001-07:00

Just in counterpoint to my earlier rain pictures...

Kenny Borthwick: spot on again at #nwcsw11

2011-08-04T08:17:00.001-07:00

Morning session in Venue 1 was amazing again.

Kenny Borthwick, speaking on John 17 has been spot on every day - somehow speaking into my life and I know the lives of many others.

He spoke about what John meant by 'the world' - sometimes referring to the lost men and women who live in it; at other times, the organised system of rebellion against God.

He spoke about avoiding the hyper-spiritualisation of God's love - that it is practical. Even the Cross was a practical solution to a practical problem.

He challenged us to to think about what acts of love we had actually done during the week.

But what really got me was when he spoke about a picture he'd had before the meeting. It was one of those times when after the first sentence of describing someone, I thought 'Oh, that could be me.' Then as he went further and further into the picture I became more and more sure that he was speaking about me. I didn't have time to respond, as I had to pick up our smallest child, but I've since been to pastoral prayer, which was brilliant (and coincidentally I was prayed for by someone I follow on Twitter...!)

If you're here and have not made it to pastoral prayer when you've felt the urge to go - I really encourage you to do so - it is positive, encouraging and filled with insight. Amazing stuff! Thanks God!

Another rain picture

2011-08-04T08:01:00.001-07:00

View from the swingball

2011-08-04T05:07:00.001-07:00

Playing it safe

2011-08-04T01:57:00.001-07:00

My 8 year old son, listening to Mark Bailey on thought for the day just now, said: "I like the way he put that."

"What do you mean?" I enquired.

"Well, Peter denied Jesus, but what were the others doing? Playing it safe."

I too am pleased at the message that Mark gives: 'it is risky to play it safe.' I like it that New Wine encourages us to take risks. I've been warned before that I shouldn't post what I really think on a public blog - people might be offended, might think less of me. By cross-posting onto Facebook, my non-Christian friends who I love might decide to break the contact...

It might not seem like the most risky thing in the world, keeping a blog - but it's my risk for the
moment.

New Wine day 4

2011-08-03T14:17:00.001-07:00

The day started with a trip to Wells Leisure Centre to swim (and get clean) with the kids. Many other folk from New Wine had had the same idea. I often wonder what the people who run such places in Street, Wells and Shepton Mallet must think when hordes of New Winers converge upon them. The time was made particularly joyful by how our youngest child reacted to the water. Where previously she had been apprehensive, even fearful she was delighted and adventurous, laughing at every splash.

However I couldn't help feeling (for the first time ever) that I was missing out on the communion service being held back at New Wine - the single daytime event that occurs on the day off. I hadn't felt this in previous years, but mainly I'm finally feeling more a part of New Wine - I'll have to reflect on this further.

A trip to Tesco followed, and this wouldn't deserve a mention but for the shenanigans that took place there. Obviously exhausted by the swimming, our youngest had fallen asleep by the time we reached the shop and wasn't going to wake up for anything. I tried putting her in a trolley but the way her head was lolling around really wasn't good, so I picked her up. I soon realised that I wasn't going to be able to carry a sleeping child for very long and push a trolley, so I abandoned the trolley and went to sit down. However my wide didn't realise that and sent back the other two children like outriders to place the required food they had found in the trolley I was supposed to be pushing. I saw them walk past me out of the shop carrying food that was unpaid for. They walked past a security guard also, who didn't even notice. Eventually they did realise that I had given up on the shopping process to sit with the sleeping child and I thought that would be the end of it.

Unfortunately I was wrong. The next thing I knew my son was approaching me, carrying a carton of milk with his trousers completely soaked through. What had escaped me was that he hadn't been able to find his mother to handover the carton of milk, though he had spent considerable time looking. The need to find mum became more desperate when he realised he needed the toilet. The urge became more and more powerful and he had just decided to come and see me about it, when the accident happened. Whoops. Poor parenting there I think...!

The poor boy hadn't had a brilliant night either - he'd fallen out of bed three times and on the third time woken his sister up by trying to get back into the wrong bed. Then, first thing in the morning he had locked himself in the toilet - we had been woken by little cries of "Help! Help!"

Back at camp, we made it down to have a go on the trains - always a highlight of the Day Off if you've got young children.

My evening was dominated by the celebration event at Groundbreakers, 45 minutes of madness which even included a spam eating competition this year. There were some great new songs we heard also.

On the way back I was really struck by the amazing worship I could hear all around from at least three venues. There really are some amazingly powerful songs around at the moment.

Tomorrow brings a return to 'normality' - morning bible study, kids groups and seminars.

New Wine Zoo

2011-08-03T00:26:00.001-07:00

Earlier on the week I mentioned that there were one or two nuances of Mark Bailey's talk that troubled me slightly. Don't get me wrong, I think his call to be passionate is timely, spirit-led and biblically accurate. That's why I called my troubles *nuances* only - feel free to comment below or respond via twitter if you think I've got this one wrong.

"Church does to people what zoos do to animals." I can't help agree with Mark on this one.

We tie ourselves up with structures that limit our creativity and, more importantly, limit the holy spirit.

It seemed to me that Mark was talking about the established church in this, referring to how we've turned Jesus into a synod-loving Jesus and how we're the most over-resourced, over educated, least effective church in Christendom.

Now the Church of England is an easy target in this. It's often caricatured and has been guilty of many wrongs in the past. But it's still the church. And Jesus loves it.

And, as I gaze out upon this tented slope before me, I can't help feeling there's something slightly zoo-ish about New Wine itself.

As a 7 year old attendee of the Dales Bible Week in the 1980s (that dates me), I was impressed at how every church group would have someone strumming a guitar first the morning, as each micro-community would join in their own corporate worship before getting on with the rest of the day. This was an empowering act - each group led by the Spirit - and as Kenny Borthwick reminded us this morning, it was part of the pattern of solitude at night, community in the morning and mission in the afternoon.

Yet I never see or hear those mini-acts of corporate worship at New Wine. Only the big stage stuff. It's almost like the music is of such high quality, that those people who can only bash out a few chords daren't do so. It wouldn't be good enough.

At this point I want to make a joke about jumper-wearing, bearded worship leaders from the past. But Kenny Borthwick today warned us of the trap of coolness - we live in a society where the cool-looking, beautiful people take the stage. Is that also true of New Wine? Is that part of the zoo that Mark Bailey was talking about?

I could go on, but I don't want to spend my time nit-picking over New Wine when I love I here so much. There's a far more constructive approach: individual and corporate repentance - because I think there are two responses to the thought that churches limit the Holy Spirit.

The first is to acknowledge where each of us, as individuals, have imprisoned ourselves. Are there traps of coolness or other things that are barriers to the Holy Spirit? We each need to spend time with God for Him to identify where our own attitudes and behaviours have become blocks to the Wild Goose. The second is to acknowledge that as New Wine churches we are part of the whole church and need to say sorry corporately for the whole church. It's not as though there isn't a biblical precedent for this. When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the very words of God written in stone tablets only to find the Israelites had made a golden cow to worship while he'd been away, he later repented for the whole Israel people - he didn't say "they did it" - he said, "we did it."

So how about it, New Wine? A huge corporate act of repentance to get us all out of our cages?

It might even spark a revival.

What's it got in it's pocketses?

2011-08-03T00:16:00.001-07:00

I thought my shorts had been getting heavy.

I emptied them out this morning and found all this.

New Wine Day 3

2011-08-02T15:37:00.001-07:00

While my friends play a hard-fought game of 'The Great Dalmuti' around the table, I find a few minutes to reflect on the day.

The main one has been the heat: it has been a scorcher today. After the morning talk it was all I could do to sit and perspire slowly for much of the afternoon.

Kenny Borthwick's talk was both challenging and encouraging, and I've already referred to it in other posts I've made today. A brief sojourn in the marketplace before the walk back to the caravan, when the heat was really beginning to tell.

Apart from sweating for most of the afternoon, I also spent sometime looking through my notes on the talks I've heard so far, and meeting up with some old friends who were at or church ten years ago. The highlight of the afternoon though, was a water fight with my son, who had previously been getting slightly bored and miserable, especially because a friend he had hoped would be here had not yet arrived.

There's nothing quite like a water fight on a blisteringly hot day, and not only did it provide cool relief, but it was also a joy to re-engage with my son for a good play.

After tea, more amazing worship at Venue One and then a tear-jerking talk from Caroline Cox. I cried at times as she related the stories of faith, tragedy and triumph from different parts of the world where she has visited.

It's the Day Off tomorrow. Swimming, pub lunch and trains are on the cards, I think.

Kenny Borthwick this, Kenny Borthwick that.

2011-08-02T13:22:00.001-07:00

I write this with some trepidation, because in his first talk on Monday morning, Kenny Borthwick, who is basing his daily Bible study on John 17, declared that when he hears his name being mentioned too much he knows it's time to moving on. He went on to tell the story of a chap called Campbell McAlpine who lived fully in his own glory but was careful not to touch the Glory of God; God shares His Glory with no-one else.

Kenny Borthwick has such a humble air about him that I'm sure he's following the same course as Campbell - so please forgive me for the title above. To God be the Glory.

I don't want you to move on, Kenny, not yet. And I have three reasons for doing so, yet I do want to honour and thank you:

I'm loving the talks you're giving. They are rich food. I've got stuff to chew on and digest that will take me more than this week to do so.
You're about to speak at our Church weekend away in a few weeks and I'm praying that it's going to be a significant point in the life of the church.
One of the most significant moments in my life happened at a talk in a previous New Wine, when during a message ont Isaiah, you talked about American Indian names.

I love you, Dad (an open letter to Brian Philp)

2011-08-02T13:04:00.001-07:00

Dear Dad,

An amazing thing happened this morning at New Wine. Before the main speaker (Kenny Borthwick) came on to deliver his message, Karen Bailey, who was introducing him, asked us to pray for someone we were holding in our prayers. Now, I have to confess that I hadn't been holding particularly anyone in my prayers that morning, but I suddenly had an image of you in my mind.

I spun you round there - kind of like a 3D virtual dad in my minds eye.

Then Kenny Borthwick started speaking and I thought nothing more of it.

Until... he started speaking about his own father and how he was really grateful for him. His dad, who is still alive, was and still is a brilliant father. He carried on to say that many so-called 'Father Heart' ministries leave us looking back maybe slightly critically at our own childhoods as if we are deliberately looking for something wrong with them. We can even become petulant about it, saying to ourselves "even only that little thing had been different." It can lead us to be petulant instead of grateful.

I just wanted to say that I'm really grateful about my childhood. I'm really glad that you're my Dad. If I can be half the father to my own children that you've been to me, then I know my children will do brilliantly.

Thanks, Dad.

I love you.

Steve

Be Passionate (says @MarkBailey_ at #nwcsw11)

2011-08-02T04:28:00.001-07:00

Jesus was so passionate that the last 24 hours of his life were called the passion.

In Ephesians it says 'In your anger, do not sin' indicating that it is OK to be angry.

In Romans it says 'hate what is evil' indicating it is OK to hate.

Mark Bailey said all of the above on the opening night at New Wine CSW as he urged us to be more passionate in our faith. Are we indifferent or are we intense? When we see rubbish stuff going on do we ignore it or do we condense the nonsene?

The Holy Spirit was called 'Wild Goose' by Celtic Christians. My experiences of Candaina Geese is that they are cantankerous things that throw their waight about but also have the stamina to fly to Canada and back every year. That's a far cry from the white middle-class Christianity that inhabits our society. Mark talked about how the road to spiritual maturity may not mean stability or security. But as we follow our God-given passions on the 'wild-goose chase' we would be energised, avoiding the de-energising distractions of sin. After all, nothing is more energising than doing the will of God.

In John 4, Jesus says that he has food that the disciples knew nothing about when they were concerned at how hungry he might be. Maybe that food is doing the will of the Father. Maybe we can be more by being passionate.

A view from the hill

2011-08-02T04:10:00.001-07:00

Whatever you say about our site, the view is quite splendid.

New Wine Day 2

2011-08-02T04:08:00.001-07:00

A fantastic talk by Kenny Borthwick started the day. He talked about the twins of nurture and mission and how, as churches, we are often better at developing nurture. He also talked about being properly tone deaf and how the disciples didn't really 'get it' about being servant-hearted - even after 3 years day-by-day with Jesus. That must be encouraging for us...

I spent some time exploring the marketplace (including a chance to use the Lee Abbey Internet Cafe to adjust my blog theme slightly). The long slog back up the hill with the pushchair was, too put it mildly, exhausting.

Afternoon was dominated by a birthday party and games for a child on the campsite. It was a Toy story themed event. I had a Buzz Light Year mask and was team leader for a group of 2-8 year olds. To infinity and beyond!

I didn't make it to Rob Parson's evening talk, mainly because I spent the time trying to find a hot shower to wash our two-year old in. Due to various sugar-coated foods and playing outdoors, she had become rather sticky over the last twenty four hours. Good news - she's clean now! After I had got her to sleep I hear some people trying to affirm each other in the next door awning - seems like that had been a theme of Rob Parson's talk.

I finished the day with a glass of day and semi-raucous laughter with friends.

For those avid readers of my blog (that'll be the Reeds then!) you'll see I didn't actually post this last night. That was because my phone had run out of juice. However the photo included in this post demonstrates that I did actually write this by hand first.

Looking forward to Tear-y Tuesday

2011-08-01T12:37:00.001-07:00

For myself and a good friend every Tuesday in the year has the potential to become tear-y: a day of tears and sadness. I don't know if it's because it falls before the halfway point of the week; whether it's because it's named after the Anglo-Saxon god of the underworld; or just because. Whatever the cause, Tuesday is often tear-y.

At New Wine, Tear-y Tuesday takes on a whole different meaning. It's the day when the *scary* speaker takes the stage in Venue One.

Jackie Pullinger, Heidi Baker, and this year Caroline Cox. They are all 'doers - people who condense the nonsense' according to Mark Bailey. They offer challenge because they are really out there - far from 'normal jobs' and 'normal church.'

And then there was that one year, 2009 I think, when a pastor from New Zealand preached (apologies - I can't remember his name). He only talked about cost - no successes. He basically told his life story of following Jesus, with all of the good bits cut out. It was powerful, challenging stuff and I remember it caused much debate on our campsite with opinions spread across a wide spectrum from those who had really loved it as a refreshing change, to those who thought it shouldn't have been allowed.

Each year, everyone has a day off on Wednesdays to go and do their own thing. Maybe it's this feature of the week which makes the Tuesday speaker the most challenging - it gives something to think about for the next day. Something to calm down about even.

Or maybe it's just coincidence.

Either way, I've never heard Caroline Cox talk before, and I don't know anything about her. But I'm looking forward to the challenge she will bring.

A small thing can make a big difference

2011-08-01T06:38:00.001-07:00

I know the small matter of some matting in the awning of our caravan shouldn't be something to write home about.

But the fact that the inordinately long grass (over a foot high in places) has been covered up by the generous delivery of some scrim by our caravan provider has given us intense satisfaction.

Suddenly we're organised and even more comfortable than before.

Small things, heh?

Flip the worship ((tag; worship))

2011-08-01T03:34:00.001-07:00

Flip the worship

One of the perennial problems at New Wine is that many people don't know the songs that are new at the start of the conference. By the time we've learnt them it's time to leave.

That's great for taking fab new songs back into our churches, but can make some of the worship times feel a bit flat.

In education circles new technologies and pedagogies have led to a technique called 'Flipping the classroom." This is where children are introduced to a new concept before they enter the classroom through a YouTube video or online collaboration on Google Docs. The role of the teacher is then to guide the children to applying the concept, learning the skill mote deeply and intervening with this students who haven't grasped the concept so well.

Wouldn't it be great to do that with New Wine worship?

Studio recording sessions could be filmed and placed on YouTube. Chord sheets of new songs shared via Google Docs to worship leaders from participating churches a month or so before.

Then we could be singing the songs on the way down to New Wine and be able to join in much more quickly and deeply with song worship at the start of the week.

Sent from my thingamajig

Good morning Day 2

2011-08-01T00:33:00.001-07:00

It rained in the night.

The long grass on our campsite is sodden with the kind of wetness that requires a stout pair of wellies.

The freshness of the field is mirrored by the lightness in my soul that has been accentuated by my First Visit to the New Wine Toilets.

More firsts beckon today: My First Shower; My First Trip to the Tap and (joy of joys) My First Visit to the Elsan Point.

New Wine Day 1

2011-07-31T16:01:00.001-07:00

New Wine Day 1

We arrived safely, nourished by Burger King at MichaelWood Services. The site was a bit scary when we got here: the village hosts had had quite a stressful time organising everyone and I think that was replicated across the site according to the compliments Mark Bailey paid them at the evening talk.

Sign-ups for the children's groups was no problem and it looks like all thee will have an exciting week ahead. The adults' program looks equally as entertaining, although I've not yet had the time to look at it properly.

Unpacking went smoothly apart from one slight problem with a flat battery in our caravan that was swiftly fixed by our caravan provider.

After dropping the car, I walked past a small child in floods of tears who had lost her campsite. Ten minutes of trawling around the various Purple zones later, we eventually found her tent. The showground is so packed this year, it's quite easy to lose your way.

The evening talk by Mark Bailey was really good, urging us to regain our passion and excitement. He called for those who wanted to respond to that to come to the front and nearly everyone did (I was among them - how could you not respond to that?) There were one or two nuances in the talk that I found slightly worrying, but I'm going to come back to them later in the week.

Right now my family is all asleep, and I'm going to join them.

Zzzzz.

Studio worship or live worship?

2011-07-31T14:33:00.001-07:00

I love the music at New Wine. It's inspirational, timely and helps me worship. But I love it live.

A few years ago, New Wine would produce a live album from live recordings from different sessions. The sound quality wasn't as good as that heard on the studio albums but they were more real.

I've got both. The live ones I still listen to; the studio ones not so much.

I can appreciate the ease for the musicians and sound engineers of producing a studio album. However while they may be a better finished quality - Hands Up! I prefer the live ones.

If you thought the English were good at queuing

2011-07-31T11:16:00.001-07:00

...then you haven't met English Christians.

The queue for Rock Solid was amazing tonight. As parents new to bringing their children to the event struggled to understand what was going on, a really quite stunning thing happened. A queue formed that snaked back and forth, past itself.

The area could, at first glance, have been taken as just a crowd of people. But no, it was a queue.

It must have been 500 yards long.

What was perhaps slightly sad was that the queue was only for families who hadn't registered yet - most people whose children had already registered and had they info slips with them could have walked straight in...

A pleasant view

2011-07-31T10:03:00.001-07:00

We've arrived!

There are always advantages to every site at New Wine. This year, on Silver 4, it's The View.

Looking down on the Somerset countryside past a vast sea of tents and caravans is strangely pleasant.

As to the walk down to the venues - that could be another story...

Reflections on what the Archbishop said last year at New Wine CSW #nwcsw11

2011-07-29T03:30:00.001-07:00

In preparation for this year's New Wine Conference, I've been looking at my notes from last year's main speaker: the Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Orombi.

I find it a helpful process to reflect on the new that may be coming by looking at the old that has been.

The Archbishop spoke very powerfully from the first few chapters of Joshua. It's that time in Israel's history when they're finally claiming the land that God promised them. Some of God's first words to Joshua are "Be courageous and be strong; don't be terrified." Wise words indeed, especially considering the Israelites were entering a land of 'giants' who forged stronger weapons and built bigger walls than anything they had previously experienced.

Henry Orombi spoke as the Archbishop of 10 million Ugandan Christians in a country of 33 million - that's nearly a third of his country who belong to the church. Itt's been a long time since the UK could claim that 1 in 3 people belonged to the Church of England. Joshua's story has many parallels with those of us in the UK church. In many ways we are a weak minority who has lost any claim on the land. Much of the success and shame of the Church of England (which sometimes feel like they occur in equal measure) has all happened in the past. Many must view us as lingering lifelessly in hollow halls - lesser sons of greater sires.

But that's not what the Archbishop said. The story of Joshua is the story of triumph against overwhelming odds - success by trusting in God. The walls of Jericho did not fall through strength of arms, but by silent walking obedience and a blast of trumpets on the thirteenth journey. We must do the same - not to give up when our congregations are dwindling or be terrified by injustice. We must find the space and time to listen to God and discern the journey he is taking us on, no matter how unlikely it may seem. And on the journey, just as He urged Joshua, we must be courageous and strong.

On his final day, something the Archbishop said really hit home to me. He urged those of us in the Anglican church to stay within the Anglican church. You could argue cynically that as Archbishop he would say that. The Church of England often seems riven by debate over difficult issues - women bishops, homosexuality to name two. It must be tempting just to leave and say to ourselves "No - I believe this way about this issue - I will debate it no longer and form my own church." But the thing is, church is family - families fall out with each other, they argue, they disagree, but they are still family. It would be a shame if we ran away from the church because we were afraid of the debate.

Maybe that's one of the ways we are called to be courageous and be strong: to approach debate about difficult issues bravely and not to be terrified about the consequences of losing (or indeed winning) an argument.

A blog for New Wine (or more specifically #nwcsw11) #newwine

2011-07-28T07:23:00.001-07:00

New Wine (Central and South West) - hence #nwcsw11 - is upon us.

A week at Bath and West Showground with thousands of other Christians. This is the space where I will be posting my reflections of the week.

My first reflection is: I hope packing isn't too stressful.

My second: I hope it doesn't rain.

The unconsciously incompetent

2011-07-09T09:43:00.001-07:00

What happens when you build something on shaky foundations? It falls down.

Knowledge is a bit like that. Concept is built on prior concept giving rise to skills that can be practised and applied.

I was reminded about this in a maths lecture today at Edge Hill University on the subject of 'errors and misconceptions'. We were challenged to draw a picture or diagram of errors and misconceptions and how they relate to each other. I tried to draw a picture of a house standing on shaky foundations with each stone representing a concept - some of which were solid, some broken and some completely absent. Whatever your picture might be, the fact is that as maths teachers we can easily see the errors, but it's a bit more difficult to identiy the misconceptions.

An error could be a simple calculation mistake arising from being hasty or not checking the answer. Or it could point to an underlying misconception - a broken foundation - which could lead to many repeated errors.

I remember speaking with a friend when, both in our twenties, I realised he could not subtract even small numbers accurately. He would always be one out. For example 24-9 would be 16. This was because when counting back, he would always start by counting the initial number as 1, rather than 0 - if only he'd been shown number lines at primary school! I'm not quite sure how he got through 'A' levels and a degree - but he did. Anyway, after that conversation his misconception was fixed - the foundation was more sturdy than before.

So as teachers how can we correct misconceptions?

Firstly we need to avoid causing misconceptions ourselves. Have you ever heard a teacher say: "Five take away seven: you can't do that!" or ""Fives into three can't go!"? Have you ever said that yourself? O have you ever drawn triangles, squares or rectangles with all their bases horizontal and parallel with the bottom of the page? The lecturer today called this being 'unconciously incompetent' - a condition we should try to avoid. We need to be deliberate and precise in our language, using words that will enable future concepts to be easily built on what we have taught. In his report of 2008, Williams wrote: "It is often suggested that 'mathematics itself is a language' but it must not be overlooked that only by constructive dialogue in the medium of the English language in the classroom can logic and reasoning be fully developed". So Mathematics teachers need also to be masters of english so that they don't unintentionally teach misconceptions.

Secondly spot the misconception. If an the same error is repeatedly occuring in a student's work, that's a glaring clue. However some misconceptions are harder to find and one-to-one conversations with children - that 'holy grail' of 'Quality First Teaching' which all teachers aspire to where they can spend some time in purposeful dialogue with each child in their care at least once a week.

Thirdly use concrete examples, or models and images. Misconceptions are often because students don't get the abstract form of maths. They need to have to take it back to concrete examples - counters, teddy bears, things, whatever, or at at least use powerful models and images such as the number line. It's amazing how many uses teachers can find for chocolate when illustrating some mathematically...

I'd love to have examples of others experiences of errors and misconceptions - please comment below.

Photo: Broken Brick by Ternus on Flickr

The Question Assembly: using Google Forms to listen to pupil voice for school assemblies

2011-07-03T13:19:00.001-07:00

question assemblyv2.mp4 Watch on Posterous

Opening Minds at the RSA Academy

2011-06-29T06:39:00.001-07:00

I didn't spend long at the RSA Academy yesterday. Only an hour or so to meet fellow teachmeet organiser @umerz1. But it was long enough.

It truly is an inspiring place.

On entry, a curving path leads to 3-fingered building, the central one holding a huge video screen showing students at their learning. Outside, allotments, nature area, pond and even a farm are all underway - impressive for a site that was only inhabited by its students this academic year.

But what's even more impressive are the students themselves. As a primary school teacher, secondary schools often feel 'out of my comfort zone'. The students are much bigger than I'm used to is, I suppose, the simple truth. But not so, the RSA Academy. Students move around the site in a purposeful way. A quiet assuredness fills the air - I hear no loud voices or hasty steps. They are happy too, talking with each other and their teachers in confident, positive tones. The opening minds rooms are purposeful too (they're not called classrooms at the RSA). One room seems dark and silent as I enter, but that's only because the darkened windows hide the dim light from the laptop screens and dulls the learning buzz that is only too evident once through the door.

The school has no staffroom. No food or drink (aside from water) is allowed anywhere other than the canteen (pictured) which is a friendly open-space for both staff and students alike. The whole site is also a chewing-gum free zone - a minor consideration perhaps.

Technology is everywhere. News 24 plays from large TVs on walls in Reception and in the canteen, most students in classrooms have access to a laptop or a tablet. There are rooms with Macs in, laptops, standalone PCs, PCs with midi-keyboards attached - it's mind-boggling really. Envy-making for some, perhaps. Me, I see the RSA as leading the way - at my primary school we're not ready yet to manage all that technology, let alone use it effectively - I'm happy that early adopters such as the RSA can find out how to do it best and pass down the good stuff to us at primary schools. Indeed, they have a whole room for testing, where they've discovered the best machine for student use - machines that haver reliable wifi, long-lasting batteries and are robust enough for classroom use. I'd have valued hearing some of that stuff three years ago when I began purchasing mobile technology for my school. While some of what I've purchased lasts still, some products have already become museum pieces through poor batteries or build-quality.

There's more for me to learn about the RSA I'm sure. I'd love to find out more about the Opening Minds approach. But at the moment, inspired, I can take some of that motivation into my own teaching for the last few weeks of term. And it means I'm really look forward to Teachmeet Tipton that we will be holding there on the 19th July. Not only inspiring presentations from innovative practitioners, but also to be held in an inspiring place...

Another innovative use of The Lady

2011-06-28T04:38:00.001-07:00

VID00025.AVI Watch on Posterous

Having used the voice of the Lady who reads the KS2 mental maths SAT to inspire music creation a few weeks ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find a new and (I think) surprising use for her verbose talents.

I entered the Hall to find Year 3 practising for an assembly they will be doing on Friday. In a move of inspired genius, the teacher of the class was helping the children learn how to speak over the top of distractions by playing the mental maths lady CD while the children were reading their lines. Assemblies can sometimes be full of extraneous noise, especially if there are the inevitable pre-schoolers in the room, and it's great to see children being given the opportunity to present what they have to say over those distractions...

Experimenting with Prezi

2011-06-19T11:24:00.001-07:00

My son was making presentations with Powerpoint at his school this week. He was trying to make a presentation of maths challenge for younger pupils. We talked about doing the same thing in Prezi and this is what we came up with:

http://prezi.com/hxcsomrfv2t8/maths-problems/

Creating an online booking system for Parents evenings using Google Apps

2011-06-15T11:03:00.001-07:00

appointments_v2.mp4 Watch on Posterous

Here's my first attempt to create an online booking system for my school using the new Appointments feature in Google Calendars. I filmed the video while I was creating the system for the first time, so please excuse the quality of the instructions...

Google Apps Appointments for Parents Evenings: Step 1

2011-06-15T06:36:00.001-07:00

appointments_teacher_instructions.mp4 Watch on Posterous

Here's my attempt at sharing with my staff how to create an appointments system on Google Apps

#ipv6 Day has unleashed the inner geek

2011-06-08T05:15:00.001-07:00

I don't know why I should find ipv6 day so exciting. It's just bigger numbers for goodness' sake. But something changed in me when I found out about it. The inner geek was revealed: unleashed even. So much so, I web bought the T-shirt.

Two Space Hoppers and View to the Sea

2011-05-31T10:22:00.001-07:00

There should be something philosphical to say about this. But I can't think of anything. I just like it.

Teachmeet Wiki damage. Does this happen often?

2011-05-30T22:58:00.001-07:00

This morning I logged onto the Teachmeet wiki to look at a couple of things. There are a couple of teachmeets coming up that I've got a hand in organising: Teachmeet Brum and Teachmeet Blackcountry. (Do sign up if you're interested!)

I noticed a rather strange link at the top of the wiki, that led, of all places, to a Mercedes Benz website in Indonesia. Not very teachmeet I thought. I suppose there could be a reason for that being on there, but not one that was obvious, so I deleted it (if it is a bona fide link, then whoever put it on can reinstate it easily).

It made me wonder how often that sort of thing happens.

The teachmeet wiki is a shared resource, it's reasonably easy to work out how to log on - you could write whatever you wanted on there. I know that on Wikipedia there are people who deliberately put false stuff on there, just for a laugh, but I think whoever did this is trying to increase their website's ranking in the Google system, which has something to do with how many links you have from other websites. I may be wrong.

I remember Tom Barrett a little while ago talk about how he 'tends his garden' of Interesting Ways: his crowd-sourced resources for different ways to use technology in the classroom. That phrase means a little more to me this morning having done a little weeding myself. When damage occurs to a shared resource, who fixes it? If it's crowd-sourced, can anyone do so? I didn't set up the Teachmeet wiki, so should I be allowed to take stuff off there if I don't think it's been put there in the 'spirit of Teachmeet'?

It's great to be able to share stuff freely, to collaborate on tech that improves teaching. It speeds things up, gives us a wider range of resources to use, and richer ways of using them. I wonder if this kind of 'damage' happens often... and if it will increase in the future. When more and more teachers use tech, will others use it as an opportunity for cheap publicity, or better Google rankings? What experience do toher have of this?

The book all primary / elementary teachers should read. #mathchat

2011-05-30T13:29:00.001-07:00

I was just engaged in a conversation on #mathchat about skill levels in primary teachers, when I realised that the book all teachers of young children should read was sitting right next to me: 'Mathematics Explained for Primary Teachers' by Derek Haylock.

What do you do when the wifi breaks?

2011-05-26T00:57:00.001-07:00

The wifi broke in the reception classroom this morning. 10 minutes before a parent workshop. This was my solution - not pretty, but it worked!

The bees are enjoying my aliums

2011-05-15T12:04:00.001-07:00

Just by way of contrast with the Daily Mail article that showed that bees were all dying from us using mobile phones, I observed the bees all enjoying my aliums this evening.

There is a strong 3G signal in the area, most of my neighbours have wireless and we pick up a good connection to the local BT Opensone service. Oh, and I took the picture using my mobile phone.

That might not be very good evidence, but it's about the same quality that the Daily Mail presented.

Do's and Don'ts of Primary (Elementary) level Algebra

2011-05-05T04:07:00.001-07:00

In my last post I argued that we should be teaching the thinking that becomes algebra from as early an age as possible. But what are those skills? What are the Dos and Don'ts? Many of the don'ts stem from the place of arithmetic thinking in our curriculum. Thinking arithmetically is all about getting a right answer, it's not always about being able to use that right answer to get more right answers in the future, and I think this is at the heart of what follows:

To develop algebraic thinking:

Don't:

Don't use the equals sign as an operator. Many children see the equals sign and think Do something; Work that out; Add those. The equals sign represents balance, equivalence. Children need to learn that in arithmetic to support their algebraic thinking.
Don't represent things with the same initial letter as the problem, like 'a' for apples and 'b' for bananas. All it does is reinforce the misconception that the letter stands for an object or a specific number, rather than a variable.
Don't get tied up in knots about BODMAS (the order that operations are carried out). The context of the given problem will sort that out. It needs to be made explicit when algebraic notation is introduced - you can explain how different calculators work those our sequentially or using an algebraic precedence of operators.
Don't limit thinking about sequence to the next number. See if the children can see the rule or the pattern.

Do:

Teach patterns from an early an age as possible. Here's Marylin Burns fantastic lesson.
Do give children plain paper for them to represent their maths graphically.
Tabulate patterns and sequence so children can move from seeing the 'up-and-down rule' (the sequential generalisation) to the left-to-right rule (the global generalisation).
Follow the previous step by asking 'what's my rule?'
Use empty box problems (e.g. 4+□=11)
Do encourage children to represent the problem, not just solve them. Then the numbers can be changed and children can use the same representation to solve harder problems (perhaps by using a calculator and a spreadsheet).
Do use a trial and improvement approach. This is especially powerful when it can be done using a spreadsheet.
Do use the fantastic free materials that exist free all over the internet. Here's some that help children to find rules and describe patterns that the UK government produced a few years back, stored on the website of Dudley LA.

If there are anymore do's and don'ts, or any that you disagree with, please leave a comment.

At what age should we start teaching algebra?

2011-05-05T03:26:00.001-07:00

Like many people, algebra is a slightly painful word. Rows and rows, indeed columns of columns of x's and y's attacked me at secondary school. I didn't really get what they meant, even though I was actually quite good at solving equations.

Now as a primary school teacher I still have a blind spot when it comes to algebra, there's something about it that I don't quite get.

But I've had a revelation today. I think I know what I've not been quite getting all this time.

I've just read a chapter in a wonderful book by Derek Haylock: "Mathematics Explained for Primary Teachers" (4th Edition). I've been able to access the book through the MaST programme I'm on at Edge Hill University - but it was so good that I bought the whole book from Amazon. It starts with a question that illustrates why I don't get question. I don't want to steal Haylock's thunder, so here's a different version of the same concept:

On a school visit, 6 students are can go for every 1 teacher. There are t teachers, s students can make the visit. Describe the relationship between s and t.

The temptation is to say 6s=t. That is exactly what I did in the equivalent problem that Haylock set me. But then, say 30 students make the trip, then according to the equation I just wrote, I need 6*30 teachers. 180 teachers for 30 students? Slightly over-powering! The answer is s=6t

Haylock makes the point that I'm getting confused between 'things' or 'objects' and variables.

In arithmetic, which dominates primary teaching, I use letters as abbreviations - hence 't' for teachers. There's also m for metres, kg, mm, l, and many more. In algebra, letters never represent abbreviations for measurements, they represent variables - they stand for whatever the number you've chosen. An amount that can be changed. It is precisely for this reason that it is unhelpful to use 't' for teachers and 's' for students, because it provides the illusion that you are representing the actual teachers as a tangible thing., rather than the number of them.

I think many of us in teaching younger children think of algebra as a nice extension to do when the children have really got their arithmetic sorted. But I'm seeing now that if we only ever train children to think arithmetically, than we are doing them a disservice. Algebra is a branch off the same mathematical tree that Arithmetic grows on, it is not a branch that nicely extends from Arithmetic. Algebra develops from recognising and playing with patterns, investigating sequences and seeing how things can be represented as bigger or smaller. Many of us teachers, especially in schools were standards are low, look at these lessons and wonder 'how will this help the children's maths?' And by maths we are thinking of arithmetic and doing well in tests (which for 11 year olds are about 50% arithmetic). We are not thinking of developing the children's brains so they can generalise patterns and represent problems.

I can hear the question being posed. So what? Why should children have to generalise patterns and represent problems?

Well the answer comes down to being able to solve problems with much bigger numbers and larger degree of complexity. I might be able to solve a problem with my arithmetic skills, but if I can represent it I can use a spreadsheet or a scientific calculator to solve it for any number. Likewise I might be able to work out the 15th term of the triangular number sequence, but working out the 77th is a rather harder challenge - I can save loads of time by generalising the pattern, representing it with algebra and calculating from there.

I wonder how many software developers, games designers, app creators and the like can get away with only thinking arithmetically? I don't know anything about how those kinds of jobs work, but I'm sure that some level of algebraic thinking is required for those jobs.

So. An answer to my question: as young as possible. In my next post I'll start to explain how...

What went wrong with Birmingham after Tim Brighouse left?

2011-05-02T10:25:00.001-07:00

I've been teaching in Birmingham for 12 years. When I started teaching, Birmingham was such a popular authority (and I was such an average NQT) that I couldn't get a job there - I had to move to Hertfordshire for a year instead.

Back in Birmingham a year later, it was a magical place to be working. Tim Brighouse was (and still is) a true visionary leader. He cast a vision where every child could succeed and where teachers knew they could play a meaningful part of that success.

I met him toward the end of their tenure in 2001 - he had this habit of just turning up at your school, saying something perceptive and positive and leave with the whole staff feeling really good about themselves. When I met him he was taking a year to visit every school in the authority - a reasonable task you might think for the leader of all the schools in that authority, but when you consider that there are more than 400 schools in Birmingham, it's a task that would mean visiting at least 2 schools every day.

In addition to Professor Tim, Mick Waters, recently head of the QCDA, was head of the advisory service in Birmingham (BASS). I remember the advisors that he inspired talking so passionately about their subjects that it rubbed off on everyone else. Today those same advisors, many of whom are taking redundancy of 'going independent', still talk about the halcyon days under Mick and Tim.

Now Birmingham Local Authrity is wracked for cash. Mick Waters BASS once had more than 300 people to serve it's 420 schools, soon it will have less than 50. Where in other areas of the country some job cuts can be covered by not renewing secondments, in Birmingham the sheer size of the service meant that secondments were phased out over 10 years ago. In addition, the social services department, now the province of the dirctor of children's services (the equivalent position held by Tim, but an area that he didn't have to deal with) has failed two inspections.

I can hear the words of the Emperor in 'The Gladiator' played by the late Richard Harris, saying "there once was a dream that was Brimingham..." it is this idea that a large city with many different languages spoken and many differet cultures represented can somehow pull together and work towards a better future. That idea existed under Tim and Mick.

So what did go wrong?

I suppose you could blame it on a whole load of external factors: the economy, social media, 9-11; or even internal factors such as appointing too many advisors or admin staff.

However, I think it goes down to succession planning. Tim and Mick are both brilliant leaders, but the people who came after them weren't quite as good somehow. Not quite as good at passing on a vision. I don't know them personally, but I think one perogative of leadership is to be a leader of leaders - to be raising up the kind if people who can not only do what you can do, but can do better than you can do. Many leaders need a good manager or two to follow them round and make sure their vision is carried out - if those managers are never given the opportunity to develop their own vision then they won't be able even to follow in their leader's footsteps, let alone surpass them.

That's all a load of pub-theory of course. I have no real knowledge of the internal workings of Birmingham LA over the past ten years. The real impact for me is to make sure that I can lead people well, whilst giving some the opportunities and skills to go beyond what I can ever do. That goes for my own children, students and staff alike.

My school leadership experiment

2011-05-02T08:35:00.001-07:00

I'm not the kind of teacher who always wanted to run a school. I've met them though. I met a PGCE student a few years ago on the 'fast track' program who told me that she wanted to be a deputy head within 2 years. Fair play to her I thought. And if the addage is true that good teachers make poor school leaders then she should be a really excellent headteacher by now

Mind you, I was a pretty shocking student teacher myself (so I'm hoping that'll make me a good school leader ;-)). My tutor commented on the positive relationship I developed with my students, but aside from that my lessons were poorly planned and taught; differentiation was minimal. In fact I failed my first teaching practice. A year earlier I had had no idea of becoming a teacher, but my inability to sell anything as a salesman and the fact that no record contract was forthcoming for my band, conspired with other events (too long and tedious for the purposes of this post) to mean that teaching became not just an option but a preference. A few months later I started teacher training. Unlike the PGCE student I mentioned in the first paragraph I had no notion or ambition of school leadership.

Since then I've worked for a whole range of school leaders in different contexts, all of whom have played a part in making me think I could do the job. It wasn't even a dream to begin with, but it did become a dream at some point. And last Thursday, at interview, the dream beame a reality when I was appointed as deputy head at Paganel Primary School, following two terms of 'acting-up' in that role. Apologies for any pride seeping through in that last sentence - it comes before a fall, I know.

Aside from inspiring me (in their various ways) to take up school leadership myself, the school leaders have a further thing in common. There have been eleven in all, and nine of them have had broken marriages of some kind. The two that remain are the two that I'd least like to emulate.

Now eleven is no number to base any kind of statistical sample on, and I really shouldn't be fretting. But I am slightly. What if it really is impossible to maintain a balanced family life and be a successful school leader? I don't have the personal experience to prove otherwise. Marriage breakdowns and unfortunate events happen in all walks of life, but in 15 years of my teaching I know a far greater proportion of teachers who have maintained marriages and careers than school leaders who have done so.

So my personal experiment is this: can I blend school leadership with the rest of my life so that I'm still a good dad and a good husband? It seems easy at the moment, sitting in the garden on a bank holiday with the sun shining down on the children playing with water guns and the climbing frame, drinking iced squash. But tomorrow I'm deputy head again and the 'real work' starts...

Apple blossom

2011-04-15T02:54:00.001-07:00

The apple blossom is looking promising too...

Tulips

2011-04-15T02:52:00.001-07:00

They have been particularly pleasant this year.

The almost #purposed #3x5 image

2011-04-14T13:38:00.001-07:00

On the 12th April I posted an image to the #purposed #3x5 campaign using words from Graham Attwell's post back in March. His words 'The internet provides us with rich and free spaces for expansive learning' had rang true to me as he clarified his argument that education is the practice of freedom. I had wanted to capture that with an image of children in a free and open space using technology to collaborate and create together, so I chose the image shown here.

But then I met the ostrich. And it spoke to me of someone whose head is no longer in the sand, but is standing tall, looking for opportunities to be free. For spaces to do expansive learning. So I chose that picture instead.

But I thought it would be shame not to put my original picture somewhere. It illustrates a different line of thinking, but still one with some merit.

Spot the difference?

2011-04-11T02:23:00.001-07:00

I'll buy you a chocolate for the first person who can spot the difference between this image and the image on the previous post... (not counting the title).

Head no longer in the sand

2011-04-11T02:13:00.001-07:00

Stuck in a loop

2011-04-11T01:41:00.001-07:00

So, I'm trying to upload my 3x5 images for the Purpos/ed April campaign and I 've found myself getting a bit stuck in a loop.

Two loops to be precise.

The first loop is a creativity loop. I had chosen a quote that I found particularly entertaining: “The internet provides us with rich and free spaces for expansive learning.” from The Practice of Freedom by Graham Attwell. It instantly made me think of some images that I would like to take myself. That is, with my own camera, instead of searching the Creative Commons like Purpos/ed suggest. Now of course, I'm no photographer, so actually taking the images I could see in my head has proved somewhat tricky - and I don't have quite what I was searching for. This has meant that I've gone back to the images a few times and tried to take more. Then I've returned to the first images I took and tried to edit those. Then I've become dissatisfied with all of them and tried to take even more. I've got stuck. In a loop.

So I'm breaking out of it today and these are my two best images (yes, I know). I'll have to choose one of them for tomorrow, which is the day my image 'goes live'.

The second loop is a technical one to do with Creative Commons. The instructions on Purpos/ed say that I should give the image a CC by license. But they're my own images, and I've never licensed them before. If only I'd just searched the Creative Commons instead of trying to be so damn creative. So I've gone back to my images and looked at them. Then I've gone to the Creative Commons site and tried to work out what's going on. Then I've gone to my Flickr site and had a look at that. But I've done nothing. I've been stuck. In a loop.

So here's me breaking out of the loop. This e-mail will send my images to Posterous. Posterous will send my images to Flickr. Then I should be able to work out how to assign a creative commons thing to them. Shouldn't I?

I hope so.

At least I'm not stuck any more.

See the full gallery on Posterous

How to Embed a Flash file in a Google Site

2011-04-08T00:54:00.001-07:00

flash embed.mp4 Watch on Posterous

March 22: Spring is On Time

2011-03-22T00:56:00.001-07:00

Don't know about you, but have you noticed how Spring has often been early recently. Or sometimes late. But never on-time. Well, I turned a corner on the way to work this morning and saw this:

I hadn't noticed previously, but it's there in pink splendour today. And today is the day after Spring is supposed to start.

So there may be terrible things going on in the world, but at least Spring us punctual this year.

What's ACE about your LA?

2011-03-01T15:07:00.001-08:00

In my recent post, Why I am bothering with Safer Internet Day I mentioned obliquely that I had come to realise how lucky I am to work in Brimingham. I want to say it more directly now.

I've spent a good part of today travelling to two schools, one in Worcestershire, one in Herefordshire. The purpose was so that their students and my students could blog together during a project we're about to start. The project itself has nothing to do with blogging, but we thought it would be a great way for the children who are engaged in the project to keep up with what each other is doing. You can find out more at scalextric.posterous.com

In Worcestershire, the learning platform (Uniservity) has been mastered heroically by the staff and students of this particularly school, but its complexities made today's activities tricky. With the children already having two layers of logins to remember, I didn't want them to have to remember a third login for a separate blog platform, so I chose to use Posterous as the blog platform - that way the children could e-mail directly from their learning platform into the blog. However something funny with how their e-mail works means that they receive e-mail at one address, but send from a completely different address. And the address is really quite complicated, including an alpha-numeric code at the start and a site with 6 parts joined with 2 hyphens and 3 dots. Not only that, but when they send, Worcestershire attaches a 6 line disclaimer, including a phone number and e-mail address - each blog entry ends up with that added on to the content.

In Herefordshire, they have no county-wide learning platform, but instead the particular school uses Windows Live supplied and managed by their local secondary school. For free. What a great arrangement! When I was there the teacher rang up the tech guy at the secondary who fixed a problem within 5 minutes. Brilliant. However Herfordshire County Council so lock everything down, that even thought he children could e-mail to the blog, they couldn't actually see it - it was blocked by the firewall. And not only that, but Youtube and Google Image Search were also blocked. The teacher explained how when he wanted to use video he either had to rely on the BBC or find what he wanted and spend considerable time downloaded it so that he could bring in the specific video he wanted as a learning resource.

But I'm not going to pass judgement on all that, because I'm sure there are some great reasons for all of the above. The support and service for schools is probably fantastic. Or something.

Instead I want to thank the authorities in Birmingham for freeing up Youtube and Google Image Search so that we have great teaching resources at our fingertips. Thanks for allowing us access to all the main blogging platforms so that our children can collaborate and learn together. Thanks for freeing up Twitter so that I can keep in touch with my PLN while at school. Thanks for giving us freedom to choose our own learning platforms and not imposing a single e-mail solution on all schools. And maybe with the new ASA online advertising rules we may even get Facebook in the future... who knows? Anyway, thanks Brum.

Are you pleased with your local setup? Come on there must be something good about it... Let me know what's ACE about your LA.