Gerald Haigh's popular TES column finds a new home with Future. In the first of this fortnightly series, Gerald touches on student voice, ECM, permanent exclusions - and more...

Student voice speaks volumes on ICT


Are you, like many others, in the middle of choosing a learning platform? Schools are expected to have them in place, but they are still relatively unknown. Where they’re well established, though, they’re found to be powerful tools for curriculum transformation and essential for managing the 14-19 agenda.

Herschel Grammar, in Slough, is one school where they were glad they’d had students on the panel when companies did their presentations. “It certainly wasn’t tokenism; they were really helpful,” says e-learning manager Laura Regazzacci. “They asked questions that hadn’t been obvious to us.”

The panel chose the Studywiz learning platform, and the school continues to use students to monitor its development, passing on their comments to the company.
www.herschel.slough.sch.uk/
www.studywiz.com



Meeting Ofsted on ‘five things for ECM’


When Ofsted comes, they’ll want know you’re addressing the five outcomes of the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda (Be Healthy. Stay Safe. Enjoy and Achieve. Make a Positive Contribution. Achieve Economic Well-Being)

It’s not good enough to be personally convinced you’re doing the right thing. Evidence is what counts, and there’s real help available from the School Improvement Planning Framework produced jointly by TDA and NCSL.

For 2009, it has been revised and simplified with a greater emphasis on leadership, and there’s a DVD with illustrations of the process, all particularly useful as schools look again at teaching and learning and the curriculum.
www.tda.gov.uk/schoolimprovement

(There’s also a good blog, by a Senco, on Ofsted, ECM and vulnerable groups, at the Teaching Expertise site)



Looking for learning as it moves to centre stage


When I was an external examiner to a teaching degree course, I was taken to see a student in danger of failing.  “He's a super guy,” said the head. “The kids love him, but there’s no evidence that they’re learning anything.”

Maybe as a profession we’re hung up on the idea of teaching as a performance skill rather than as a means of promoting learning. If that’s something that worries you, or you are developing your ‘vision for learning’, Fieldwork Education’s “Looking for Learning” toolkit may well help. It provides a step-by-step guide to moving the school culture from teaching to learning, and has already worked wonders in some schools.  Robin Bosher, head of Fairlawn Primary in Lewisham describes it as a “Wake up call” and says, “You can’t underestimate the change that it made to us.”   
www.lookingforlearning.co.uk


When a new culture encounters the ultimate sanction


Sooner or later, most new heads are going to come up against the issue of whether or not to permanently exclude a pupil. Leaders try hard to avoid it, but as Richard Bird, ASCL’s legal expert, a former principal, points out, it’s when permanent exclusions are very rare that procedural mistakes are most likely to be made.

“Exclusions may seem simple but they’re a legal minefield,” he says. As it does so often, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL)has come up with a well-aimed course run by the right people. “Managing Exclusions Successfully”, running in March in London and June in Coventry, will tackle all the legal, practical and ethical issues. It’s led by Richard Bird, and Sue Kirkham, ASCL policy specialist.
www.ascl.org.uk


‘Policy is made by people who want to be informed’


New schools, new curricula, new kinds of learning.  Are you on the front foot, working to influence policy? Or are you, as head teacher Jeremy Taylor puts it, “A passive recipient of change”?

Having worked for a term seconded to PricewaterhouseCoopers, taking part in research to inform government policy, Jeremy has concluded that policy is made by people who want to be informed. So he makes sure that key policy makers know about his school and, if possible, have visited it and heard his views.

“Instead of wondering what the future will bring, we’ll play our part in shaping it. We’ve applied for funding to set up an advisory service to mainstream schools, for example. You don’t sit and wait for things to happen, you play your part in it.”

Jeremy’s secondment was managed in Northern Ireland by HTI National Leadership.
www.hti.org.uk

Gerald Haigh’s new ‘Five Things To Think About’ column for the National College for School Leadership builds on his highly popular work with The Times Educational Supplement and highlights important issues for school leaders engaged in Building Schools for the Future and the Primary Capital Programme

Gerald Haigh welcomes feedback and suggestions - gerald.haigh@btinternet.com