So many of us, when we hear the word exams (in addition to sharing that all too familiar feeling of anxiety), picture blank sheets of paper waiting on rows of single desks lining an echoey hall, the sound of a clock ticking loudly at the front. Whilst this has been the established format for as long as there have been exams, all may be set to change…
Covid and the global pandemic have changed many things but, when it comes to education, it has completely revolutionised the systems used by schools, colleges and universities for communicating with students, delivering learning and assessing achievement. And, whilst students may have returned to classrooms up and down the country, many of the changes implemented look set to stick around and change the way that learning looks for good. So, when it comes to exams, the traditional exam halls and paper tests may become a thing of the past.
There are a number of examination boards – including two of the biggies, AQA and OCR – running trials of digital assessments in a range of subjects, with candidates taking assessments solely online. The aim is that online assessment will be a way to ensure improved fairness in the awarding of grades and, possibly, offer faster and more accurate marking. Whilst some assessments have been available online since 2017, the suggestion is that online assessments will be standard from as early as 2025. In addition, boards are considering the use of ‘smart assessments’ that will adapt, question by question, to the student’s ability as demonstrated in their responses, thus eliminating the need for any tiered papers and allowing students to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding in their own way in the allocated time.
Furthermore, many university students are calling for digital assessments to remain in place without the return to traditional in-person exams. The advantages of digital learning have included mental health benefits for many students who have reported less anxiety around assessments and discussions surrounding different approaches to learning recognise the many strengths of an approach that incorporates the technologies currently available. Hybrid or blended learning looks set to become the norm.
However, whilst the benefits of learning and being assessed in this way have been acknowledged, those involved in the decision making appreciate that there are many factors at play and issues relating to equality and the systems used must be considered carefully. Whilst it is clear that assessment boards will continue to investigate and invest in the technologies required for online assessment, the need for the roll-out to be done properly and regulated appropriately is at the forefront of any changes that are likely to happen.
Almost 4 in 5 teachers (79%) are now using technology in almost every lesson, according UK RS survey findings. This has more than tripled compared to 10 years ago, when only 1 in 5 teachers were regularly using tech to teach. We’ve entered the era of Ed-Tech.
Ed-Tech or Edu-Tech is the use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning. Ed-Tech is growing at pace in the UK and globally; the sector is on track to reach a worth of £3.4bn by 2021, according to The Telegraph. Here are the three most prominent trends to watch…
Over 65 per cent of people are visual learners, according to the Social Science Research Network, This is where mobile offers huge advantages, in that it allows you to engage with video, audio and other forms of multimedia.
Mobile provides instant gratification and also allows for personalisation. With mobile apps such as Memrise, you, the student, are in control and can learn at a pace you comfortable with and when you feel inclined. It also focuses on areas you know you need to improve or have a harder time with. Learning is at your pace.
Gamification can be used in many different ways and puts the fun into learning. Whether you need a better set of flashcards (try StudyBlue), hands-on experience, or a more memorable experience, gamification engages you on a personal level and keeps you coming back.
Achievement badges, personalised animations and unlockable content boost and reward progress. They are just a few of the gamification features that can encourage you to engage and make learning more enjoyable.
Innovations in Virtual Reality (AR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are keeping students engaged and interested too, as well as providing new types of lesson content. Virtual trips can be made with Google Expeditions, and science comes to life in a virtual reality classroom where with a tour of the solar system, through Titans of Space.
Augmented Reality helps you achieve better results through visualisation and by providing a fully immersive experience of the subject matter. This means instead of reading theory about something, you can experience it first-hand with your own eyes, in action. For example, with holographic surgical headsets, Touch Surgery is augmenting training in surgery.
The future of Ed-Tech is certainly exciting. If you’re interested in finding out more, here’s a list of European Ed-Tech start-ups to watch .
Increasingly we are experiencing the world in bitesize chunks. Social media allows us access to many things but often in very small doses. We might be able to find the answer to anything and everything but we are less and less likely to place those answers within any meaningful context. We ‘live in fragments’. Our horizons are not being broadened but narrowed because we often ‘only connect’ with like minded people. Within our safe echo chambers we debate, question and challenge less. And we blame more.
The same might be said of education – in both the teaching and the learning. The curriculum has been segmented into distinct subjects and each subject into distinct chunks of content or distinct skills. Mark schemes are in grid form, suggesting that each element of assessment is separate to the next. You can be awarded marks for x even if you can’t do y. Inevitably, and perfectly understandably given the cultural value placed on examination results, teachers teach to the examinations and to the mark schemes and this only serves to compound the fragmentation of learning. If students are taught disconnected content then their domain of knowledge will be disconnected; the learning will be superficial. The students might be able to pass an exam but they will not retain the knowledge in the longer term. In one ear for a bit but out the other for much longer.
Given this situation and in order to make knowledge stick, it is essential that students (and their teachers) work to make connections. It’s up to you to find the relationships between seemingly disconnected bits of information. This is often about finding links: links between a current topic or text and one you have studied previously; links within a topic or text; making predictions based on prior knowledge, linking the work within the learning place to the real world. If you keep your focus on similarity and difference you’ll find that you are making connections all the time and retrieving and revisiting prior learning and the whole teaching and learning process will begin to feel more coherent and cohesive.
The highly prized skills of analysis and evaluation are really just about making meaningful connections but to make those connections does take time and effort. So, find the time to think about links and ‘live in fragments no longer’.
So, in Part 1 I discussed my experience of working in an academy with disadvantaged and SEND children in the UK. The main problem I identified was a toxic culture, which means no amount of investment alone will fix the issue. Here are my proposed methods of improving the culture and laying the foundations for success.
As I said, these are the primary building blocks of success. Building without sorting these out is not going to make a stable structure. Unfortunately, my number one building block isn’t cheap and I don’t think there’s a way around it. Many of these children do not get the constructive adult attention they need at home. A class with up to 30 children means they have to work independently a lot of the time. This is not something they are always capable of. The foundation of productive learning for these students is very small groups. Not only this, but in those groups (or 1-1 if possible), they need to work through the deeper issues.
Many of these children, as I said, don’t have a nice environment at home. That is not a factor that the school has much control over (short of reporting it in extreme cases). What they can control, however, is how they deal with the fallout that this deprivation causes. If a child is angry because their parents are not supporting them emotionally, they often can’t just slip into the back of a 30-strong Maths lesson and get on with work. This particularly applies
when students haven’t yet seen any use for a given skill in their lives. The anger they feel is far stronger than any interest they may have in a school subject. The best way to vent that anger is to disrupt the class and create confrontation.
Obviously, students can’t all have 1-1 psychologists to get them started in the morning. But we can make some inroads into these issues. The inflexibility of the curriculum blocks a lot of this, however.
If students are allowed to focus on what they enjoy at school, it can help them to gain confidence and emotional stability. Maths is a particular problem, as it is difficult and abstract. It caused a number of my students to lose their temper and be thrown out every lesson. These students would then sit around for an hour, before getting a detention. That means they lose around 2-3 hours of their time. Was the Maths lesson that important?
In my experience, when students find their passions, the rest can be filled in later. I’m not advocating dropping Maths or anything so extreme. I would just say that giving educators flexibility to think outside the box could make some difference.
That could mean taking a term off a subject to experiment with alternative activities at which they excel, mixing age groups when necessary, letting students teach the lesson, getting them to build something genuinely useful. Anything can work, it all depends on the context. No one dislikes everything, after all.
This must be connected to close, personal attention – at least some of the time. As students grow in confidence, I have found that high expectations – when related to the student’s abilities and interests- lead to high achievers. Ever-so gradually, this can change a culture.
What is a multi-hyphen life?
It is a book written by Emma Gannon about the future of careers in the coming age. A key idea in the book is that we are moving into a multi-disciplinary age. This means that in their lifetimes, young people will constantly have to learn new skills and adapt at an increasingly rapid pace. This may sound like hell to some and paradise to others, depending on your attitude to discovery and learning.
In the UK, we have one of the most expensive higher education systems in the world and that doesn’t seem set to change in the near future. Worse still, with an increasing world population, a shift to automation, as well as the outsourcing of skills, the market is tough to say the least. Students can put themselves into considerable debt, and in many subjects receive an outdated education as universities struggle to keep pace with the growth of information.
In response to this, many private institutions such as Google, as well as top-tier universities, have created Massive Open Online Courses. These are sometimes free and normally cheap. They cover the most industry-relevant and up-to-date materials. The problem is that someone who studied a MOOC by Google will normally be second choice when compared to someone who studied at Oxford or Harvard.
This situation needs to change, however. If young professionals are to be expected to requalify on a regular basis in order to keep pace with the economy, learning must be democratised. As with every revolution, the status quo does not cede power easily, and universities are working hard to justify their high fees with blended learning and adaptable courses. The disruptive effects of tech are everywhere, however, from AirBnB, to Zoom conferences. The general rule of thumb is: if there is a quicker, cheaper and easier way to structure an old practise, it’s just a matter of time.
So it is very likely that if you are nearer to the beginning than the end of your career, you will be required to massively upskill or even learn a new discipline.
In order to keep up, people are going to have to become increasingly gritty. To learn more about grit, check out this article on Angela Duckworth’s groundbreaking research.
My recommendation would be to continuously play with ideas and keep up the side-hustles! These small things are like seeds and can grow over time, presenting you with new options and ideas.
One of the most commonly-asked questions about home schooling children with additional needs is whether or not parents need to follow the provisions laid out in their child’s EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan). The short answer is no, you do not need to follow the EHCP. However, the EHCP is a useful document for home schooling parents and can help you to make the best possible provision at home.
First of all, before you start on your home schooling journey, you need to make sure that you have followed national policy on removing your child from school. Children with and without additional needs are legally entitled to be home schooled, either on a full or part-time basis. If your child was previously educated in a mainstream school, but has an EHCP, write to the headteacher to explain why you feel that home schooling is a better option. The school will then deregister the child and notify the LA on your behalf.
The rules for children who attend special schools are somewhat different: you will need to get the LA’s approval if you want to deregister your child and begin home schooling. The best way to do this is in writing, making sure that you provide all of the reasons why you think home schooling is a better option.
When home schooling a child with an EHCP, you don’t need to follow the National Curriculum, so there’s a lot more flexibility around subjects and topics. However, you do need to make sure that your lessons are “suitable to age, ability and aptitude.” It can be difficult for a parent to work out exactly what this means, but the EHCP can come in handy when planning your curriculum. Use it as a guide to help you plan specific activities that can be adapted to whatever topics you choose to teach. The EHCP can offer some ideas around how to set up the right learning environment, too.
Ultimately, although the EHCP is not a legally-enforceable document, think of it as a starting point in your home schooling journey. By using the strategies and ideas set out in the EHCP, it will make a much easier job of providing engaging and accessible learning experiences for your child.
In 2015, a survey of 63 university admission officers showed that extra-curricular achievements (as reflected in the applicant’s personal statement), had become increasingly important to an admission officer’s decisions. Today, that importance is even more significant. Admissions officers have started to rely more on the information given in your UCAS application form’s personal statement, because A-Level predicted grades can’t always be relied upon, and these statements help them choose between students with identical grades.
So, what kind of extra-curricular achievements will add value to your UCAS application? Here’s what the survey found.
Working in a part-time job while studying at A-Level has more than just financial benefits, then. It can show that you are dependable and committed. These are qualities key to success at university.
Any part-time job will add value. However, jobs that are relevant to your course will be the most attractive to university admissions officers. Planning to do a degree in English? You could look especially attractive to an admissions officer if you’ve managed to secure work experience in a book shop or library. If you’re looking to do a degree in politics or area of social policy, something at your local council would be beneficial.
Getting a paid job relevant to your future degree is not easy, so failing that, do the next best thing. That is to volunteer, and it’s most advisable to do it regularly. If you want to find a volunteering opportunity that is relevant to your prospective degree, use Do-it.org ,which is a database of UK volunteering opportunities. It contains over a million opportunities in the UK. You can search by interest, activity or location, and apply online.
By boosting your extra-curricular activity CV, and including this in your UCAS application form’s personal statement, you’ll increase the chance of acceptance onto your dream degree course.
New research by Bristol University shows that pupils’ social contexts should be considered when compiling school league tables.
Long considered the ‘bottom line’ in comparing schools’ achievements, league tables represent grades in a social vacuum, not reflecting the disparate reality of student backgrounds. A school in an affluent catchment area with predominantly native English-speaking pupils will experience several advantages over a school with pupils from deprived backgrounds, or who don’t have English as a first language. The schools’ effectiveness can’t truly be inferred, then, by noting higher attainment in the first school and lower attainment in the second. Rather, the progress each child makes is relative, and pupils in the second school may be making excellent progress in spite of what the league table suggests.
This is something teachers have always been aware of. People working in schools see children with hungry, rumbling bellies. They see children with profound special educational needs. They see fifteen year-olds from China arrive in school just a few months ahead of GCSE exams with a whole new language and written alphabet to learn. Teachers know that there’s more to it than the league tables show, and yet, every year, newspapers churn out the same columns of numbers for parents’ microanalysis.
The 2019 study carried out by the Centre for Multilevel Modelling in Bristol University suggests that 20% of schools could shift an incredible 500 places in national league tables if the social context of students was factored into their compilation. Additionally, more than half of “underperforming” schools would leave this punitive category with the recognition that their pupils’ backgrounds have an impact on the level and speed of expected progress.
For league tables to improve based on this study’s conclusions, they must acknowledge the influence of factors affecting attainment, including: free school meal eligibility, special educational needs, residential deprivation, EAL (English as an additional language), ethnicity, gender, and age.
Whether or not the government adopts the suggested changes, parents should also remember that there are more things to consider than league tables when choosing a school. Open days, inspection reports, and speaking directly to teachers and pupils can all be really helpful ways to assess a school’s suitability. Because as Disraeli famously put it, “There are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
For more on this subject, you can read a report by the BBC via the link below.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-50211261
Currently, children who attend state schools are only allowed to miss school during set holidays, if they are sick, or if they have received advanced permission from the head teacher. In the past, heads could grant up to ten days of authorised absence at any point of the year, but now they are unable to grant any. Recent years have seen the education system become increasingly strict over the matter. In 2013, fixed penalties were introduced to discourage parents from taking their children on holiday during term time. This included the introduction of fines of £60, rising to £120 if not paid after twenty-one days.
Now, one school has become the first in Britain to break away from the traditional holiday and term time system. The aim is instead to give parents the freedom to take their kids out for six weeks whenever they want. The school in question is Shrewsbury Prepatoria, an independent nursery and pre-school for 4 – 7 year olds.
Rated Outstanding by Ofsted, Shrewsbury Prepatoria has just 11 pupils aged in Reception and Year 1, although it is expanding next year to accommodate Year 2 students as well. Whilst fees do reach £6,540 a year, some parents have spoken out to say around half this money is offset by being able to avoid the astronomical prices of flights and hotels during holiday peak season. And in addition to the financial benefits of abolishing the traditional six week summer holiday, the school has also cited as advantageous a slower pace of learning and a greater focus on play. The design is currently only for early years at a single institution, then, but you can see why there could be scope for it becoming more common, throughout the education system.
Jane Smalley, 59, a former reception teacher who set up the school, told the Daily Mail: “It’s a no-brainer. Why shouldn’t we have schools that meet the needs of families?” She added: “Being open all year long, and seeing the impact on the children, I think — why isn’t this being offered to every family?” She made the decision after the Department for Education informed her that schools don’t need specific term times so long as pupils attend 190 days of classes every year. The average time taken off by children at Shrewsbury Prepatoria is currently four weeks.
Shrewsbury Prepatoria is not a state secondary school. But the idea it has enacted has merit. Could it ever become the norm, though? Time, and, one would hope, parents, will tell.
Perfectionism fuels anxiety. Hewitt and Gordon Flett, well-known thought leaders in the field of psychology, reported that younger people today show a greater tendency toward perfectionism compared to past generations. Andrew Fuller, a leading clinical psychologist, also suggests that teenagers who struggle with perfectionism associate small mistakes with failure. They are often convinced that there is only one right way of doing a task. You might think you are one of them – or maybe not. Either way, it’s useful to know a few other tell-tale signs of being a perfectionist:
Instead of trying to aim for perfection, why not go for good enough. When you no longer strive for 100%, you tend to feel more relaxed. If you are working on a project, you could decide to focus on a handful of key elements, and do them well. This way, you will no longer scatter your attention over trivial aspects. Do a small number of major things well, and stop worrying about the small unimportant things.
I recently came across a poignant quote from the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau: ‘Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let our affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand… Simplify, simplify!’
Letting go of perfectionism starts with awareness. You need to recognise what triggers perfectionist thinking. Once you do, you will be able to change how you approach your work and enjoy better mental health as a result.