In case you missed it… recent highlights from NCSL in Dialogue, talk2learn’s online community for national education debate:
Download a pdf version of talk2learn highlights: issue 17a (156kb, 1 page)
Download a pdf version of talk2learn highlights: issue 17b (224kb, 1 page)
Download an audio version of issue 17a (1.5Mb, 3:48 mins) and issue 17b (1.5Mb, 3:51 mins)
Subscribe to the podcast to receive future updates automatically
If you are not yet a member of talk2learn, find out more about how to join
Is your school really up to date with new technology or do your pupils simply use computers in exciting and innovative ways while at home?
Could school leaders strike a better work-life balance if they treated the job as an integrated part of their everyday lives rather than as a completely separate entity?
Is your school really up to date with new technology or do your pupils simply use computers in exciting and innovative ways while at home? Harnessing children’s motivation and enthusiasm for technology in the classroom was the subject of a talk2learn discussion hosted by Stephen Crowne, Chief Executive of Becta.
Ensuring that staff were up to speed with the latest developments should be a priority, according to many contributors. "I believe the greatest challenge is to raise the confidence and competence of the educational workforce and to develop systems and processes which are agile enough to cope with learners’ own devices. This is a major challenge for the Building Schools for the Future programme," said Bob Harrison, an education adviser and school governor.
Jo Williams, a primary headteacher in Lancashire, said every staff meeting at her school included a 15-minute ICT session. "It gives us the opportunity to look at new software or websites and also share good practice, such as the use of interactive whiteboards and digiblue cameras and so on, in the classroom."
. ..we need to be at the cutting edge of technology, not receiving hand me downs from everyone else after they have tried it out .
Even though he considered himself fairly computer literate, one school leader said he felt left behind by technological change. "If we are to train tomorrow’s generation in the use of technologies that haven’t yet been invented, we need to be at the cutting edge of technology, not receiving hand me downs from everyone else after they have tried it out."
Sharing ICT expertise between schools is a good way of training staff, according to another school leader. "We did this with one of our staff and it was very successful. We also met the costs of an expert between six schools who did training with our ICT people who then themselves cascaded that knowledge to the other staff."
Elsewhere, many contributors felt the problem lay with old school buildings that weren’t up to the job – "What use is state of the art technology if your fuses blow because the electricity supply is not modern enough?" asked Kathy Forsdyke, a school admin manager in a Northampton primary.
Amanda Taylor, an office manager in a small rural primary in Bedfordshire, felt schools such as hers faced particular problems as there were no ICT experts among the small, dedicated staff. "While we buy into the local authorities IT support service, this is not an instant turnaround. I’ve suggested that we discuss the issue of a dedicated full-time technician shared among local schools, each contributing towards the salary costs."
But others argued that ICT development posed significant challenges for primaries across the board. "The size of some primary budgets makes it difficult to plan and implement effective approaches," Stephen Crowne acknowledged. "My own view is that we need to go further down the road of local collaboration. And we need to work very closely with parents to ensure we have a balanced approach to using the technology – building skills and experience that will enable young children to use it effectively."
Could school leaders strike a better work-life balance if they treated the job as an integrated part of their everyday lives rather than as a completely separate entity?
A talk2learn discussion debated the pros and cons of coping with the pressures of leadership by thinking of work and life as ‘a coherent whole’, an idea first raised by headteacher Susan Tranter in an article for the College’s Ldr magazine.
Unless experienced leaders continue to show the way with work-life balance, we will have an unprecedented recruitment crisis.
A few contributors agreed with Tranter. One described a strategy of doing 11 hours’ work over a weekend which paved the way for a ‘low key’ week of leaving school at a reasonable hour with no work to take home. "Being a teacher is all about being organised and if that means having to work some weekends then for me and my family that’s OK."
But most felt that the division between work and home needed to be reinforced rather than dismantled. Antony Corbett, a deputy headteacher of a junior school in Leicester, said that the view of teaching as a vocation encouraged people to feel it had to take precedence in their lives."I have a profession and an important part of that profession is time off. I am not married to the job. I am married to my wife and we have kids; this is the most important thing in my life."
Angela Barry, a headteacher for 10 years, now in a federation in south-east London, was worried about the example current heads are setting for their successors. "I absolutely love my job but it doesn’t take over my life. My biggest worry is that so many of my young staff do not follow my lead and spend so much time on their preparation and assessment. Unless experienced leaders continue to show the way with work-life balance then, in coming years, we will have an unprecedented recruitment crisis."
Many school leaders simply had to do their best to manage, said Tony Jones, a junior school headteacher in Brighton – "and for many of those colleagues, ‘managing’ really does mean walking away from undone work at the end of the day. Doing that, in itself, conveys a strong message about balance."
In some cases, the work-life balance challenge is producing solutions which have an impact beyond easing the pressure on an individual. One school leader said the pressures of balancing a career with caring for her disabled son at home had forced her to re-think her approach to her work. "Having finite amounts of time to mark and prepare led to me being quite creative. Lots of marking by necessity became peer and selfassessed and the students quickly came to realise that this was a better way to work."
Finally, Alan Hall, a former secondary headteacher, recalled a wry anecdote from an international leaders’ seminar. "One of the Scandinavian headteachers said, ‘Back home, we leave school about 4.30 and if it’s summer we go sailing and if it’s winter we go skiing. Does this mean that our pupils are somehow less educated because we don’t work the hundreds of hours that you appear to do?’ The English headteachers didn’t really have an answer to that."