It has been a curious week working across the whole educational spectrum from infant schools to university courses. I am an external examiner for art on the BA Hons Primary Education offered by Birmingham University and today I attended a briefing meeting for external examiners across the brand new Faculty of Education, Law and Social Sciences. We were told of the synergy between these recently introduced bedfellows on the Perry Bar campus - so look out for courses in criminology and early years.
It was interesting to hear of recent innovations in the university to improve the learning experience for students by listening to students in seminars and consultations to review the experience from the student's perspective. Curious that the previous evening I had been with a primary school's governing body looking at the process of appointing a new headteacher and we noted how many adverts included quotes from infant children saying what they wanted in their new headteacher. Is ECM genuinely changing from an ernest slogan into an all embracing new mind set in which the children's (student's) voice is actually begining to change practice in all phases of education?
Another intriguing, and new idea for the university, was the notion that if students fail a module, rather than engage in a sequence of resits, they should be invited to agree and sign a 'learning contract'. This would define expectations of what they should do like; attend lectures, write essays, read books and also what the university would do like provide guidance etc. The curious thing for me was that they were going to do it after the student had failed. In schools we are now doing this before students fail in ordwer to prevent them from failing. But there are again very clear parallels with the developing culture in schools. A few days earlier I had been working with a group of secondary schools dicussing how interventions, coaching, mentoring and picking students up from home to get them into the exam on time is making a difference. These schools no longer acknowledged student failure and provided CPD to do better next year but they took personal and responsibility for intervening with every student at risk of failing and took action this week and next week and every other week if necessary. Again every child is really begining to matter.
It was interesting to hear of recent innovations in the university to improve the learning experience for students by listening to students in seminars and consultations to review the experience from the student's perspective. Curious that the previous evening I had been with a primary school's governing body looking at the process of appointing a new headteacher and we noted how many adverts included quotes from infant children saying what they wanted in their new headteacher. Is ECM genuinely changing from an ernest slogan into an all embracing new mind set in which the children's (student's) voice is actually begining to change practice in all phases of education?
Another intriguing, and new idea for the university, was the notion that if students fail a module, rather than engage in a sequence of resits, they should be invited to agree and sign a 'learning contract'. This would define expectations of what they should do like; attend lectures, write essays, read books and also what the university would do like provide guidance etc. The curious thing for me was that they were going to do it after the student had failed. In schools we are now doing this before students fail in ordwer to prevent them from failing. But there are again very clear parallels with the developing culture in schools. A few days earlier I had been working with a group of secondary schools dicussing how interventions, coaching, mentoring and picking students up from home to get them into the exam on time is making a difference. These schools no longer acknowledged student failure and provided CPD to do better next year but they took personal and responsibility for intervening with every student at risk of failing and took action this week and next week and every other week if necessary. Again every child is really begining to matter.
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