RichardRadio

We had training (non contact time) today to brainstorm what to do with the new changes in the National Curriculum. I enjoyed it.

Over the summer of 2006 having finished my training, I had time to explore lots of educational podcasts and blogs. Amongst the obviously techie edu bloggers, it was felt that one of the best ways to get entrenched education departments to think about how new technologies should be changing education was to use China and India or the competitive threat that they pose to Western countries in the 21st Century as the wake up call.

I followed Karl Fisch at the Fischbowl as he went to NECC in San Diego and we traded blog comments. Close to that time, Karl produced a Powerpoint called entitled “Did you know?” containing, amongst other things, facts relating to China & India’s educational growth and he used it to start the school year in 2006 by showing it to the whole school and then doing Q&A sessions both physically and electronically. As I listened to these enthusiastic people half way around the world, and the silence from the UK, it felt that in my small corner of the world so few people in education were aware of the changes taking place in the world, they were stuck in the 20th Century. it was a lonely feeling. But I got on with learning to be a teacher.

Today, 18 months later all our staff watched the Shift Happens video as an intro to the new curriculum and then we did some of brainstorming activities to see what this meant for our school. It seems that the original Powerpoint was so well received that someone else polished it up and turned it into a snazzy video renamed after the slogan on the final slide – a great example of the collaboration of the web.

I am not about to moan about how long it has taken for our school to get to this point. On the contrary, I am impressed that this is a govt. initiative and only, only 18 months after Karl, every teacher in England & Wales (I presume) will be going through this kind of process. For a big clumsy apparatus like a govt/education department, I actually think that this is an impressive performance which displays a certain single mindedness. I’m used to people being more than 18 months behind.

With apologies to those who actually know about UK education politics – I’m new to education and I listen more to the technological evangelists on podcasts and edu blogs more than I read the Guardian, I think that the Government has got the strategy right.

Of course implementation might be a completely different story.

I presume that departments and teaching have got better (read tighter) over the past 20 years of the NC as they have been exposed to external scrutiny. To pursue the more inter-departmental project based learning that the New NC advocates, without dropping the external scrutiny, more planning time will be needed as will smaller classes. This means more money. And, until the money is on the table, nothing will happen.