Privatisation of Education

I read with some interest recently Pete Yeomans @ethinking blog post (original here) on the privatisation of education, as someone who is currently in the process of setting up a private venture within the education sector I was immediately  drawn to it and as one might expect initially inclined to agree with it.  However I feel that it is necessary to give any ideas such as this a chance for proper consideration, so here is my resultant musings.

I largely agree with what Pete has stated, particularly the concept that "over regulation leads to limits on creativity".  I believe that this can be seen quite clearly within some of the current trends in education, drawing on only my own experience here, I have seen a shift away from creative teaching with a focus on following the children's interest towards a 'safer' teach to the test mentality.  The result being de-motivated and sometimes quite stressed children (and teachers) with a focus on ticking the appropriate boxes rather than actually providing a deep and meaningful education.

I agree with the assumptions that Pete has made and believe the whole model would actually have a good chance of success, the main point I find myself disagreeing with is the concept of the wisdom of the crowd.  While I can see merit to the Invisible Hand Theory ideologically I am concerned about how this would be applied in the real world.  I believe that given the chance parents would make a decision on what provision they choose based on what they believe to be best for their children.  However my concern arises on what information they will draw their conclusions from.  I don't believe that as educators it is our responsibility to take parents by the hand and explain to them what is best for their children.  But how would parents make an informed decision about what is the best establishment for their children?

In have found it to be a long held truth that a bad product or service can thrive in a market, often displacing higher quality products or services, based solely on the strength of the marketing.  My concern therefore is parents would find themselves in a situation where they would be unable to decipher the sale literature and get at the core of what a school could offer their child.  Unfortunately I cannot see a clear solution to this, one the one hand if schools are regulated by a body such as Ofsted then creativity would be hampered however if no regulation exists how do we ensure the quality and honesty of service providers?

Perhaps the solution is rather than Ofsted a body similar to Which? to provide honest market reviews of the provision available for children?  Would this however just lead us full cycle to a similar system of league tables and thus bring in voluntary legislation which in turn would hinder creativity?

Peter

@peterofwinkley

Exciting new project.

Head over to

Beach Schools South West

To check it out.

Supply Teaching

So the half term break is upon us, seems like the perfect opportunity to reflect on the past term.  Firstly congratulations to all NQT's who have successfully seccured employment and survived the first half term.  I however have not been so fortunate and as aresult have spent the last term working as a supply teacher.

It has been an interesting experience and a very steep learning curve, but one that I have largely enjoyed.  I have met several people recently who have asked me about methods to be a more succesful supply teacher and how to go about getting into school and then getting asked back.  Although I am far from the oracle on these things I will put together a post with my thought on the matter when I have more time (and more enthusiasm).

But in short for any of my many colleagues who, having completed their trainning have been unable to seccure a full time job fear not, there is hope.  At least that is what I keep telling myself!

Spaghetti and Marshmallows.

Now technology is a wonderful learning tool, but sometimes you can't beat a pack of pasta and sweet to really engage you learners.

Taking a break from optional SAT's today and I was given the job of planning something 'vaguely sciency' with a small year 5 class.  So leant back on an old favourite and gave them a handful of spaghetti and marshmallows each and 30mins to build a tower.  The only design brief was that it had to be able to free stand for 1 minute and there would be an award for the tallest and the most stable.  Although the towers they made where quite amazing it was the was the way the teams worked together and approached the task that was the most interesting.  Each team had the option of using a laptop to research some towers but they all elected for a more 'learn by doing' method. Ploughing straight into the build and then modifying it to overcome issues.

Great opportunity to observe the children working together as a team, speaking and listening skill and their resilience and problem solving skills.
@peterofwinkley

#onandup

After much thought I still have failed to come up with a meaningful reflection that suitably summarises the conference.  There was just to so many amazing ideas that I really couldn't do it justice to the topics in this short space.  So I would like to highlight just one idea that I came away with and that is the use of free tools available on the internet or making better use of software that we already have.  I would encourage any teacher to investigate the possibilities that can be unlocked from products we use everyday, such as Windows and Office, and those available freely on the internet.  I will try and highlight some on them here and update with more post at a later date.

Firstly Twitter
I am a recent convert to twitter, having seen it heavily evangelised at the on and up conference.  I had always been put off Twitter, seeing it as a cross between a constant stream of inane Facebook status updates and the virtual equivalent of speakers corner.  However I can see that it also has some very useful and powerful applications.  It was an excellent vehicle for the back channel chatter at the conference and despite having only used it for a few days I have already begun to develop some useful contacts for networking and professional development purposes.

Microsoft Partners in Learning Network
This I was introduced to at the conference and have to say there is a wealth of useful information and resources on this site.  I have far from exhausted all the possibilities and have already discovered some new features of Microsoft Products as well as some pretty cool ones that I can get for free through the network.

New Tools
This is an interesting site which has some nice tools and intimation.  Something demonstrated at the conference was the random activity generator.  Could see some interesting applications for that in the classroom.

Just a couple of tools and hopefully some ideas.  More to come shortly.
@peterofwinkley

Primary Reading List

Following my last post I have created a wiki to show what I mean about creating an open source book list.  Follow this link to see what I mean and please feel free to edit, update and add to the wiki.  I have only added one book so far but will add more as and when I get time, alas I am busily applying for jobs at the moment so it shall have to wait.

@peterofwinkley

Primary Reading List

I have been sitting here for sometime trying to consolidate the amazing experience from the on and up (check out twitter #onandup for a taste) conference at the University of Plymouth in my own mind and write a meaningful reflection of some of the amazing ideas that I came away with. Unfortunately I my mind keeps wandering back to an article I read on the BBC's news website, about the government considering creating a reading list for Primary Schools. Having spent a day listening to some people do amazing things to drive teaching forward it was a bit of a kick in the teeth to be brought back to reality with this article. Firstly my response was anger. Why do the government feel the need to try and control the books that primary school children are reading? I was even more shocked to find that I agreed, be it only in part, with Gove when "He has raised concerns that many GCSE students are only reading one or two novels a year,"


In my opinion a large part of the problem with children not reading for pleasure is that they are forced to read books, which are on the reading list for secondary schools, that are not enjoyable. I was certainly an avid reader before I started my GCSE's and lost all interest in it after having to wade through books that I didn't enjoy, and could feel no connection to either the characters or the plot. Surely a reading list for primary schools is only going to compound this problem and limit the scope for teachers to create personalised and creative learning opportunities?

I was mulling this over whilst watching Fast and Furious (plenty of head space left :) ) when it struck me, what would a reading list for primary schools look like if it was designed by some of the people at the conference?

So Mr Gove this is my pitch for your reading list.

By all means create a reading list, recommend texts that you think would be beneficial to primary school children, then host it on a website and utilise web 2.0 technology.  With each book allow a comments section so that teachers who have used it can tell others about their experiences of teaching with it.  Also allow other teachers to share their own books, reviews and ideas.  So rather than just saying Goodnight Mr Tom is a recommended text for year 6 and links to World War 2 and evacuation, I can write a short review telling people that I think it is an excellent book and that I used it as a core text so that instead of writing evacuee diaries we created a on-line RPG were children collaboratively wrote stories about leaving their city and living in a small village in Devon.  Or how about using the Mousehole Cat as a basis for an investigation into the properties of materials with year 2's.

I know that a large number of Teachers wouldn't bother to contribute but I am sure that their would be enough who would to make a scheme like this a huge success and best of all it would require minimal input from the government, possibly saving money, which we all know is a a major concern of this government.

Check out #govemustgo on twitter for more opinions.