Sep

28

The Art of Teaching

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After a splendid summer holiday touring a number of north European cities, with visits to galleries, concert halls and churches, and the opening of our new performing and creative arts building, the arts have been much on my mind. They are set to form something of a focus to our work as a staff over the year ahead. I’m keen though to go beyond merely building on the work done in our music, art, drama and dance lessons; the opportunities afforded by making closer links between the arts and the rest of the curriculum are certainly to be seized, and I’m very excited about some of the ideas we’ve had: symmetry and pattern in maths, role play and other drama in the humanities, use of paintings as source material for history and geography lessons, cool digital arts stuff, etc. It promises to be an exciting year.

More exciting still though is the the notion of looking at our teaching as an art in itself; approaching our work in the classroom in a not dissimilar way to the way in which musicians, artists, actors and dancers approach their work. Three aspects of such an approach immediately come to mind.

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Sep

27

Curric. 08

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My speech to parents at this year’s curriculum evening, with a focus on personalised learning…

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Sep

12

Are we ready for parents to watch our lessons by webcam?

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I was interviewed for a story in today’s TES about the future of parental access to children’s school work:

Virtual lesson observations

The technology is already available for parents to watch their children’s lessons through a webcam.

“This is technologically possible,” said schools IT expert Miles Berry, “but there would be some real issues for child protection and privacy, and the unions might have something to say on behalf of teachers. Pupils might also be reluctant to participate in the class if their parents are watching.”

Digital spies in children’s exercise books:

Laptops and handheld units that act like “virtual exercise books” could be monitored by an intelligent system which tells parents and teachers what activity is taking place in them. If children have not written anything for a while, for example, an alert would be sent out to their parents.

“The system would analyse the work done and send a report back, says Miles Berry. “It sounds a bit big brother, but it is possible.”

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6002315