Articles
Assessing Pupil Progress and Workload
With the demise of KS3 SATs and the imminent ending of KS2 SATs it seems natural that those who need the crutch of a government-controlled set of criteria and/or tick sheets to support their teaching would look for an alternative.
There seems to be some confusion in Norfolk, particularly amongst the worthies of the various advisory teams as to the status of APP. Fortunately, the NUT has no doubt as to how APP should be treated.
To clarify:
· There is no requirement to use APP
· They are voluntary and should be teacher-led i.e. you decide if and when you use them
· They are not a replacement for SATs
· If your professional judgement is that they are valuable then you are at liberty to use them
· If you feel they are an unnecessary burden then the maximum you should consider doing is once a year for 3 to 6 pupils in each subject area. Better still, do none and rely on your own professional judgement to assess your pupils.
At a meeting of the JCC on Wednesday, 29th April Fred Corbett, the Deputy Director of Children’s Services, agreed that we should only consider 3 to 6 pieces of work and not whole groups.
If undue pressure is brought to bear in your school over the use of APP please contact Kendra or me immediately. Mike Smith
Quantitative Easing
In our spring edition, I highlighted the current attack taking place on public service final salary pension schemes. So what could be the effects of an enforced transfer to a ‘defined contributions’ or ‘money purchase’ scheme?
Quantitative easing is a banking term for the Government’s experiment in printing money. Whether it will help the national economy is open to question. What is certain is that it is not good news for those with pension funds which are used to purchase annuities guaranteeing them a set annual income throughout retirement.
Sadly hundreds of thousands of people approaching retirement will now be offered far lower pensions for the rest of their lives as a direct result of the Government’s intention to ‘print money’. The larger insurance companies are reported to have led the way in cutting annuity incomes, yet a further upset following rapidly on from last autumn’s collapse in the value of pension funds as a direct result of the massive fall in stock market values.
These are the effects of the types of pension schemes certain leading opposition party politicians, together with influential private sector bosses, right wing newspapers and financial organisations, would seek to impose on future retired public sector workers.
Since I wrote in the spring issue, local association and division secretaries have been circularised from NUT headquarters on this subject, advising them how to download information relating to the adverse statements stemming from the political factions to whom I have referred.
The Union’s position is to oppose any proposed changes to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme re-negotiated at the end of 2006 in the light of changing circumstances.
Ray Russell
Who Cares?
Problems have arisen nationwide in arranging the necessary element of support to enable vulnerable elderly people, including some retired teachers, to remain living in their own homes. Numbers of older people requiring help in the community are steadily rising, leading to increasing demands for home social care, the provision of which has developed into a postcode lottery.
There are four separate criteria for help – critical, substantial, moderate and low. Many local authorities are now claiming they haven’t sufficient resources. Some 75% of them make no provision at all for ‘moderate’ and ‘low’ cases. A number are reported to be abandoning the ‘substantial’ category. Today 160,000 households need help which is not forthcoming. An extra problem arises if a person requiring a ‘low’ level of care is denied help – it simply hastens the time when a higher category of care is needed.
The Government has now come up with a ‘do-it-yourself’ idea of providing people with personal budgets based on level of need and leaving them to make their own home support arrangements. Whilst a consultative green paper is awaited, in some places pilot schemes are said to have been set up and referred to as ‘conditional resource enhancement’. There is a pretence that this is all about choice and improvement in services but it will not end the present postcode lottery or dispense with means testing.
This drive to introduce personal budgets is fraught with difficulty and can only put a strain on thousands of individuals unable to care for themselves adequately, never mind acting as employers. Consider difficulties involved in advertising for help, preparing a job description and work agreement, paying wages, deducting national insurance contributions, dealing with income tax and so on. Cover will be needed for holidays and there could be health and safety requirements. In one recent trial case under a pilot scheme, the elderly man was left having to find maternity pay for his helper who had become pregnant. Inevitably the introduction of such a scheme can only attract new employment agency sharks offering to do the paper work and provide an element of care at inflated rates, leading to the type of situation which shocked and shamed the nation in the recent BBC Panorama programme. Ray Russell
Virtual Learning Environment - VLE
The implications for a classroom teacher
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers. ~ Sydney J. Harris
But they are useless. They can only give you answers.
~ Pablo Picasso, about computers
As an ICT Subject Manager at a large primary school, I am a passionate advocate of the benefits, use and development of ICT across learning and teaching. The huge increases in ICT funding in schools has brought many advantages. These include Interactive whiteboards, where multimedia lessons can be delivered, work amended collaboratively and saved for later use. In addition, classroom laptops can be used for research, multimedia presentations and used creatively with video cameras and pod casts. Visualisers allow teachers to celebrate and improve pupils’ work in real-time, enabling instant positive feedback from the class.
The latest leap forward in the classroom involves going beyond it. A ‘Personal Learning Space’ is a government expectation for all children by 2008, allowing them access to learning anytime, anywhere (Harnessing Technology: Transforming Learning and Children’s Services, 2005). Learning can be extended from the classroom to outside it, via The Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Secondary schools have financial autonomy and are using such VLE providers as Moodle and Frontera. Primary schools are all ‘bundled in together’ with Netmedia. Wonderful advantages are a-plenty. Teachers can submit lessons and activities on the VLE in order that pupils can extend their learning from the day. They can download and upload work electronically, without the need for paper exchange. Assessment from staff and pupils can be instant and the possibility of an ‘eBay’ style feedback system seems attractive to many. Finally, the VLE provides the essential link between home and school. Parents, pupils and teachers can communicate with each another in a safe and collaborative way.
However, as the introductory quotes suggest and Johnny Nash mentioned, ‘There are more questions than answers’. Many questions are raised by the rapid ‘pushing through’ of VLE to match government edicts. One concern is usefulness - just because it is ICT it should not replace other methods that are more useful or appropriate. Examples of this are bulletins being put on the VLE instead of the much more accessible staff-room notice board. What about non-teaching staff? Do they have time to access the ‘online Staff Notice Board’ in the morning? Do they sacrifice essential time looking at plans and talking to the class teacher to find out someone in the other Key Stage is on a course? Another concern is whether email should replace the face to face interaction needed in schools between teachers and parents. What will happen to the indispensable chat to a parent after school? The kind phone call telling a parent their child is OK after a worrying start to the day? There are many things email is not capable of providing.
A significant concern for the classroom teacher is workload. There are hardware concerns over the ‘clunkiness’ of the primary Netmedia and the reliability of some secondary VLE platforms. In practice this may mean teachers are spending a disproportionate amount of time learning to use and develop the VLE. I admit myself that I found it difficult to see an effort and cost reward to begin with. Further considerations and concerns regard the assessment of work and use of pupil discussion on the VLE. One secondary English teacher told me she was getting emails from her pupils sent on a Sunday morning. A Year 5 teacher told me he had seen a child’s forum post at 8:45pm. Are we supposed to respond? Are parents thinking we are there to reply and moderate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Our 1,265 hours won’t cover it! I also have concerns about the “Parent on Shoulder” issues - who is overseeing the child? Mum’s new boyfriend or a teenage sibling? If it is their parent, can we be sure it is a quiet voice of encouraging sensitivity? Or could it be one of jealous criticism, or, worse still, a potential risk in the virtual world which could materialise in the real one? Let us not forget at its core the VLE password offers instant access to a child’s world.
Finally, a big concern is home access. The Government says “Every Child Matters”, but the VLE dictates only those with the provisions are able to matter. In terms of home access, there were indications that a ‘digital divide’ may still exist: 30% of pupils across all sectors were estimated not to have home access to a computer (Smith, P., Rudd, P. and Coghlan, M. (2008). Harnessing Technology: Schools Survey 2008).
From informal questioning of the pupils at my school on ICT related questions, it was revealed that many of the pupils were perhaps third or fourth down the line in using the home computer. Parents needing the computer for work and older brothers and sisters doing course work were seen to have a greater need to use the Internet. What about the teacher’s access to the Internet? Will it be expected that teachers have home Internet access with high speed broadband? Will the Government pay for this expectation? Which teachers cannot get the Internet? Who is first in their home computer queue? Knowing teachers, probably not them!
In conclusion, the VLE is necessary for learning and teaching in the 21st century. Learners are accessing the electronic world in a frighteningly easier, faster and more mobile way. Classroom teachers must keep up just to keep the pace or they will fall too far behind their electronically astute pupils. However, we must take everyone along, make sure it is safe and encourage appropriate usefulness. This includes all pupils, teachers and families - regardless of their competence, confidence and capability. I believe the Union will be asking the right questions to ensure VLE is an asset rather than a problem for teachers. Scott Lyons