Has teaching become formulaic; primarily designed to pass exams to hit targets  as the single measure of performance? Recent claims say examination bodies are keeping GCSE’s easy to appease middle class parents and schools. Casting our educational objectives aside we have diluted schooling  into a series of cat and mouse games.

Parents want the kudos of their child achieving positive exam results. Teachers laud the performance against targets as a measure of success.  And government ministers boast of a positive educational policy. The problem is the educational journey of children has become a veneer of what is possible. Performing well in school exams and tests masks the lack of educational depth children need to meet the demands of our rapidly evolving world.

Children have immense creativity.  Instilled in their very being from its early manifestation in play it serves to develop an enquiring mind to explore the unknown, ask questions, test the given and push the boundaries in learning. But we are critically now letting them down.

It is of little benefit if we only appear to tick all the right boxes. If the educational programme is to work we need children to challenge the “right” answers and explore the “what if” outcome as the true test of their knowledge.  James Dyson’s vacuum cleaner products are a true example of questioning the given. Backed by sheer determination he proved after hundreds of prototypes that the idea worked and went on to become the market leader.  At the heart of his products lie existing industrial technologies, which through lateral thinking were re- applied into a domestic application with greatly enhanced performance.

Schoolchildren need the grounding and confidence to develop ideas and push boundaries. There is a possibility we’re moving from an industrial manufacturing economy to an age where entrepreneurial spirit will prevail.  A greater proportion of children could become self employed in the future.  Irrespective of the form this will take care they need a positive foundation in maths and literacy to turn the idea into a business plan, loan application and commercial success.

Napoleon once accused the British of being a nation of shopkeepers.  We should take this as a measure of our real strength and opportunity for the future.  The shops that survive and thrive are those that provide a unique service that capture a niche market.  Not everything has to be a brand new idea. Old ones can be reworked and excel. The branded coffee shops now a common sight on the High Street stem from a concept established hundreds of years ago. The trick is to question how the concept can be updated and introduced into a new market. Simon Woodroffe  a serial entrepreneur  anglicised the mechanised Japanese sushi bar and turned it into Yo! Sushi.

Our commercial base is changing.  We could sit back and bemoan our lot, drawing on state support, or we can grasp the chance to reinvent ourselves.  New ideas, reformatting existing ones and  testing the given as a review process is emerging. But to capitalise on this, more than ever, we need the next generation to use their skills and depth of education to apply the relevant science, engineering and entrepreneurial spirit.  And this is where we are letting both sides down.  Fudging exam results has absolutely no benefit apart from puffing the ego of parents and school targets.  The easy GCSE is worthless in the world of tomorrow.  We will compete with children from overseas with higher educational substance. Foreshortening the education of children will deplete the creativity that is their birthright.  Giving them half an education is comparable to training an airline pilot to take off only, hoping they will learn that other important skill en route.  If not we are all heading for disaster.

Schools are saying their request  for an information  pack has been counted as an application. Keen2learn believed  schools should be allowed to take the summer break as the ideal opportunity to review options. This allows considered thought rather than rash reaction. But the Departmental of Education seemed to have jumped the gun. Once again we see Michele Gove on the back foot scrambling around personally phoning some Head Teachers to urge them to apply. Maybe they’re  a bit concerned about  the rebuilding programme cancellation that left some schools truly beached could emerge half way through the academy programme.

Maths games give wrong answer for schools rebuilding programme

Academy Success Could Overload Universities

The international use of English makes it the world’s most widely spoken language geographically, even if the combination of the many Chinese dialects, and Chinese whispers are used by more people! The growth in international trade and the use of the internet, films and DVD’s has increased the application of English.  A measure is the adoption by international marine and aviation bodies to use English as the defacto spoken word for aircraft communication between pilots and air traffic control.  But can English literacy survive the onslaught of global usage without more formal control?

The Queen’s English Society is forming an “Academy of English” to lay down the ground rules.  Introducing similar functions to those of existing language societies, L’Academie Francaise in France and Real Academia Espanola in Spain, the English academy will uphold the rules of conflict. One of the biggest challenges will be to influence the youthful use of English in school classrooms, educational video games, e-mail and text messaging. These have introduced abbreviations that could disrupt the language entirely. A recent survey by London’s Mayor Boris Johnson completed by Miriam Gross revealed the staggering estimate that one million people living in London cannot read. Although a proportion used English as a second language a growing factor is the use of “street” English slang especially by children who live in poorer areas.

The survey found that slang, not allowed in the classroom in other European states, was accepted in many of the primary UK schools reviewed. Teachers didn’t feel it is their role to interfere with self expression. This creates a miss match with the learning process and the focus of literacy in the national curriculum. It also comes as a shock to these children when entering secondary schools that slang is not acceptable. Whether the English Society can help to defeat “street” is questionable but they could certainly lay the ground rules and increase the awareness of the ideal to affected teachers.

It is not just school children that impact on English. Radio, telegrams and telex (remember them? )  carved a niche in English as we know it.  As technology and communications move on abbreviations and colloquialisms, now out of context, disappeared, the wound to the English language healed. The greater danger to English lies in the failure to understand the fundamentals of its structure.  If children at school are not taught the basics of literacy viz. grammar, vocabulary and spelling, the resultant abuse of the language lies in their lack of comprehension.  This vicious circle of poor sentence structure hampers the recovery from tech speak or txt spk – “you know what I mean.”  The use of mobile phones and their expanding range of applications, apologies, “apps” could excite the situation as children now dictate to their mobile phone and watch it automatically convert to text. Spell-check and grammar suggestions on-line defer some of the basic need to understand the nuances of the language. The English Society has their work cut out, but frankly the role they have to play is increasing and we can hope they will be successful in restoring the Queens English in the face of a global onslaught.

The political and economic map of the world is changing.  The UK’s status has moved from a world leader in the industrial revolution to become a potential follower.  But this may not be the disaster it sounds.  It makes greater sense to take the lower risk option and develop a structure based on a rear guard movement.  Learning from infrastructure faults will allow us to introduce a more refined mark II version.

We inherited many weaknesses from the industrial revolution.  Not least being the first to introduce a new infrastructure.  Our railway network is logistical fraught. A combination of Engineering brilliance and innovation mixed with old thinking and compromise.  Whilst the rest of the world delights in modern railways able to travel at twice the average UK speed, updating the original and ageing London underground and national rail network is now a gargantuan task and economically unviable. Concorde was technically brilliant but commercially a disaster. Supersonic passenger flight followed travel by hovercraft have come and gone.  Yet innovation is the very soul of the UK.

William Hague has flagged up potential realignment with developing countries.  China, India and Brazil are showing distinct signs of emerging economies. Some pundits consider the UK, Europe and North America as aging economies. History reveals huge swings in the economic fortunes of leading countries.  Portugal, Spain, Greece, Italy, the Roman Empire, even Venice once made fortunes as international trading nations.  Ironically the current economic situation now reveals massive debt and ailing economies in this same group of “ex” world leaders.

To secure a future economic position for the UK the foreign policy, determined by the Foreign Secretary, has to be integrated in the educational curriculum by the educational secretary Michael Gove. This requires considerable long term strategic planning. Modern foreign languages in schools currently focusing on French, German and Spanish would need to switch to Mandarin, Hindi and Portuguese.  Cultural awareness, customs and religion become essential if we are to capture any meaningful role in the new world market. No more can we assume empire status as we will be on the back foot.

We are not alone in this situation.  Recent forecasts indicate the progressive assimilation of the Hispanic  worker as essential in the economy of the U.S.A.  Years of political stability in South America where national leaders have outlived their western counterpart is leading to a growing presence and a critical mass in world economies. If we fail to open this economic door we could slip up badly. We and more importantly our children need an educational curriculum that is matched to this objective, and the process needs to start right now.

Pagbo online revision games from keen2learn

Pagabo the home educational revision system  is seen as a real alternative to traditional print based revision guides. Stuffed full of educational games this on-line system learning platform provides children with a stimulating and challenging way to learn and revise. The single subscription fee of £29.99 allows access by the whole family for a year. Already used by over 700 schools to support children the comprehensive programme includes access to over 30,000 curricular questions and a multitude of games.

Pagabo operates on  a reward interface  whereby  answering the questions correctly unlocks new games with results being displayed at the end of the session. It entices children to learn by having fun. Purchased by parents for the whole family, Pagabo will help families learn together and inspire learners’ performance.

The range of subjects is growing and is fully accessible to all using the system. The range of revision games cover key stage 1, Key stage 2, key stage 3, key stage 4 and Diploma

Those wet days or the long journeys we all love as parents can have their moments. You have run out enthusiasm for yet another round of I spy; the clues have become just too ridiculous! Ideally you want  games that are fun easy to play and have  educational content.

“No one really wants to think about school during the holidays so the best the travel games have a hidden content; learning in disguise as we call it” says Alistair Owens MD at keen2learn. The latest range just added to keen2learn are decks of cards called Fun Decks. Packed in flip top tin they can be played for minutes or hours; the rules are simple, based  on the curriculum  and  they are used in schools to great effect. Now parents and grandparents can play these games knowing  they are encouraging learning with the children. A wide range of literacy games are available covering everything from irregular verbs, understanding inferences to  synonyms all as a decks of 56 cards.

For the kids who believe it’s impossible to have fun without ear phones the educational game Bunja is ideal. It uses MP3 technology to incorporate a range of maths games. Bunja has some very clever aspects; it learns how the child is performing and adjust the level of questions  up or down in difficulty. It also lets parents and teachers check on a child’s performance with a summation feature.  The game rewards the child with a chapter of an interactive story set in the jungle. Each time a set of questions is answered  they can  interact with the next chapter of the story.

Children understandably don’t like homework thrown in their face especially during holidays. But the benefits of practising what they are learning through educational games has a huge impact on their ongoing capacity to learn . Making it fun where all the family can join in helps loose the schoolwork stigma. Nothing new,  teachers do this in the class and all the games on the keen2learn site are used extensively by teachers.

As its name implies Microscience is science practical work carried out on a small scale. The scientific principles of the conventional scale still apply but there are many differences that make Microscience very educationally rewarding.:

• Students can work individually gaining greater ownership of their learning and allow teacher assessment
• Lower cost using much smaller amounts of chemicals in the experiments
• Environmentally friendly with lower consumption of energy, water and  less waste
• Lower health and safety risks means those impossible experiments becomes possible!
• Experiments are quicker with less clearing up, washing and storage of equipment
• More time is available for lesson introductions and plenary sessions.

The workstation is easy-to-use, adaptable and has well-established laboratory procedures  and supplied with a large number of materials and worksheets. The hand-sized Comboplate allows microscale experiments  at primary, secondary and tertiary levels and  a link between practical work at all three.  Other innovations such as the Combostill (used for organic preparations) and the microburette provides an almost complete coverage of chemical techniques.  The science experiments avoidable on a micro scale include:

• Gas preparation and testing
• Electrolysis
• Distillation and refluxing (including steam distillation)
• Heating of chemicals and testing the gases evolved
• Rates of reaction including reactions catalysed by enzymes
• Quantitative chemistry including titrations; molar volumes and gravimetric analysis
• Preparation of salts
• ‘Test-tube’ experiments
• Separating the components of mixtures
• Electrical circuits
• Food testing
• Simulation of osmosis and other phenomena

Micoscience  overcomes many  anxieties of practical work  for teachers. Working on a micro scale encourages  innovative and an heuristic approach.  The apparatus can also be taken home. The amounts of chemicals used are so small the kitchen worktop is ideal as a place of work and the waste can disappear safely down the kitchen sink.  The adaptable and easy-to-use apparatus has spearheaded a completely new approach to science in the classroom. Teachers are given confidence by the ease of use and the range of worksheets and support available.

Our budding composers and musicians of tomorrow are in school at the moment. The idea way to nurture and stimulate an interest in music is to introduce  the delights of sound from carefully selected musical instruments.  The new selection is from various parts of the world to bring geography into the learning programme.

It would have been easy to bring musical instruments earlier into the range but we found most were just toys, said Alistair Owens MD at keen2learn. “The new instruments we have selected are robust, designed for school use and made from materials matched to give the ideal sound.” For example just take a look at the Glokenspiel and Mini Steel drum

The

y have been develop

ed for the early learner but have application over a wide  age range.

There’s not a lot left to show of Tony Blair’s grand electoral mantra of education, education, education. Followed by Gordon Brown’s grand plans the 13 year programme now appears in tatters.  The long overdue schools rebuilding programme is now to be curtailed.  With only 200 of the planned 750 schools completed this is a travesty of poor planning and clearly a devastating blow to the remaining schools whose plans are now dashed.

The cancellation, induced by the current economic crisis, can be laid to blame.  But somewhere, somebody, must have been aware the investment needed for the scheme exceeded the bank balance by a huge margin.  Clearly maths was not their strong point.

The commitment of head teachers and teachers takes yet another knock.  Years of running their schools on a shoestring is never easy. Even though teaching staff have a honed resilience who can blame them for feeling utterly frustrated.  Claims that our teaching standards have slipped over the years are met with reduced budgets at a time we need to catch up and excel in the world league tables.  The curtailment of the rebuilding programme broke days after a furore about unqualified teaching assistants being consistently use to cover the absence of teachers. Guaranteed this procedure is used as a means of controlling costs.

A huge number of schools were built with a designed life span of 25 years. Population evolution can make the sitting of schools in urban locations complex. Subsequent social and commercial developments can relocate the educational centre of gravity. It can be pointless building a school that could ultimately be in the wrong place.  There is a downside if the original sitting remains ideal. We ultimately need to rebuild any such schools at the end of its 25 years lifespan. These are the schools that are suffering. Inadequate structures, leaking roofs, outmoded facilities can drain the resolve and reserves. But schools are not alone. Even the Queen has suffered a budget cutback. Repairs of leaks in the roof of Buckingham Palace that are damaging furniture and furnishings are being delayed by up to ten years.

There may be a silver lining to all this. Schools have the opportunity to grasp additional operational freedom linked with an academy. Part of this status is the opportunity to migrate purchasing from the large operations to control a little more of their own destiny. Reduced operating costs and a keen eye for a bargain may change the thought process away from the educational quangos that have dominated school budgets. That essential item may now be on a smaller scale and cost a lot less to help control the budget, but it could appear this year rather than wait for years to be able to afford that all singing and dancing version.

Our Dunkirk spirit will have to emerge for the foreseeable future in our schools. Well versed in the concept, this may be the making of them. Let’s hope the outcome is the recovery in the schooling of our children. The government may have turned the lights out but opened the door to opportunity.

There are around 450,000 FTE (full time equivalent) teachers in our schools.  The law of averages would indicate 10 per cent of the teachers will operate at the top end with an excellent rating, and likewise 10 per cent will struggle at the bottom where they could rate as incompetent.  This means just as 45,000 teachers would be excellent an equivalent number could also be classified as incompetent.  If you sugar the pill and reduce the percentages to a low 5 per cent of the total, means your child could be taught by one of 22,500 duff teachers.  One real shock is that we are shocked by the number.  If so, maybe even we were not taught maths and averages effectively at school.

Perhaps the greatest issue is the sudden onset in concern.  Where have we been?  Head teachers who can be rated excellent, very good, good, average and incompetent have lived alongside the situation for years.  With around 33,000 schools in the UK, we could also have around 1,650 incompetent heads.  In turn school governors and local of educational authorities could be equally shocked that they have failed to deal with the problem.

A number of Head teachers have their hands tied.  In many circumstances removing a poor teacher is fraught with time consuming rules, regulations and red tape. The removal process becomes an assault course attempted only by the fittest and the brave.  Removing the miscreant can be impossible. As a sweetener many head teachers have been enticed to provide over rated references. But this backfires as the poor teachers are subsequently recycled rather than being removed from the system.  Budget constraints also prevent the payroll increase needed to attract the “excellent” replacement.  The continued employment of the incompetent teacher is the line of least resistance, and only a handful have been fired in the last five years.

The teacher transfer season is scheduled for the end of the academic year. This would be a great point to take the bull by the horns and flush out the poor performers. If we do nothing then the 22,500  poor teachers will continue. Taking a nominal six classes a week each with 30 children, nationally this means 4,050,000 children in school will suffer the consequences. If we do nothing more children will struggle to appreciate the law of averages and what a good maths education really means. Doesn’t bear thinking about, and may be a resounding reason why our academic performance is slipping down the international schooling stakes.