EDUCATION SHOW Back from Brum


practice seminars at this year’s Education Show in Birmingham


Sal McKeown rounds up her highlights from the CPD and best


T Explore Bronze


he world’s tallest man Sultan Kosen and England and Premier League football player Joleon Lescott made a visit to the Education Show at the NEC in Birmingham this year. The Education Show used to be quite a staid event, selling


everything from sink plugs to science equipment, but times have changed. This year it even featured Peter Andre who talked to headteachers about literacy and music education after running the gamut of screaming school girls. I sat in on a range of secondary seminars


which looked at social networking and classroom management. Two featured using social media in


the classroom and two dealt with understanding and developing relationships with more troublesome pupils.


Hyperactive children


Hilary Nunns is an expert when it comes to working with hyperactive children which was just as well as she had a difficult teacher to deal with too. “Education standards have fallen in the UK,” declaimed a man in the front row, “and these children should be taught separately.” He seemed to have a down on inclusion, mixed ability groups and interactive teaching methods. Peer group pressure meant that the audience shouted at him until he stalked off. Hilary’s advice was sensible and not especially


controversial. The central message was that the child needs to know that behaviour is his problem to manage and that the teacher is there to help offer solutions not judgements. She advocates a fast start to a lesson. Always greet children and engage them in activities in the first two minutes of a lesson. This might be a spot the difference activity or a Post-it where they jot down one thing they remember from the last lesson. A key component of a successful session is to make learning active using Geoff Petty active learning techniques (see further information). Use technology too. Mobile phones need not be


accessible fl exible


new awards available measurable


develop creativity and reward achievement Discover


Silver


a battleground. Encourage them to use their mobile to photograph PowerPoints, to send text messages to themselves with homework reminders and use voice recordings for oral work and languages. In contrast to the teacher who wanted to teach such pupils separately, Hilary made it quite clear that staff have a duty to provide “reasonable adjustments” under the Equality Act. Find out more about her work online.


Personalities


David Hodgson ran a fun session called Personality in the Classroom. The idea was to look at eight different character types and use them to identify your own personality type and that of your most difficult pupils. This method has been used in management training, for PSHE and careers advice and, bizarrely, for marriage guidance. The idea is to see how you operate and then to see how this might bring you in conflict with others. The first area looked at where we derive our energy.


Gold


Arts Award develops creative, communication and leadership skills. Use the fl exible framework to support curriculum activity or to structure enrichment programmes and targeted intervention.


Arts Award is now even more accessible to a range of abilities and levels. Our Bronze, Silver and Gold qualifi cations at Levels 1–3 have now been joined by Explore (Entry Level 3) and Discover, an introductory level.


‘Arts Award clearly enhances students’ self-confi dence, communication, teamwork and responsibility.’ Olivia Douse, Vice Principal, St Mark’s Church of England Academy


Find out more atwww.artsaward.org.uk/7plus or book training to get started atwww.artsaward.org.uk/training


020 7820 6178 enquiries@artsaward.org.uk


St Mark’s Church of England Academy photo Paul Maven


If you are a reflective teacher you will be irritated by Eddy who always talks first and thinks later, but other teachers would look at Ian, who blends in and is a listener, and would say that he should contribute more. The second area was our approach to problem-


solving. Some pupils are very pragmatic and apply existing knowledge to new situations but then there are imaginative pupils who go for off the wall solutions. When it comes to decision-making there are the


empathetic pupils who look at how decisions will affect others and the more objective and rational decision-makers who can come across as being insensitive because they focus solely on the facts. The final category covered attitudes to life where we discovered that two out of three females like to get jobs done before they relax while males prefer to blend business with pleasure. The end result was that we found ourselves with one of 16 different personality types named after animals. What was more interesting was the teachers started


to recognise types of children in their class and have more understanding of their foibles. David has developed a package of materials called


The Buzz – it would be worth looking at the website and using it as the basis for some in-house training.


10


Social media Catmose College in Leicestershire has made great strides in using social media, especially Facebook. While a few in the audience were interested in the issue of safeguarding, most wanted to know how to embed social media into the curriculum. First you need an enthusiastic advocate which


Catmose has in the shape of Beth Smith, the college librarian. They use Radiowaves, which provides a safe educational version of YouTube and Facebook rolled into one. Four year 7 pupils showed how they used it to communicate, share and showcase. Naturally they use it to find information, to keep


up-to-date with gossip and listen to music because that is what social media is all about. But they also had used it to link to a school in France and to comment on each other’s work in 140 characters. They had history projects too with recordings about


the feudal system – one pupil’s work on slavery had netted 3,500 views and many comments. On a recent half-term ski trip, parents could access the group blog and see if their children were behaving well or were accident prone. The school also uses it to link to possible post-16 destinations for their pupils so they can have some insight before they apply. Meanwhile, Emma Chandler teaches at Emerson


Park School in Essex and uses Twitter for citizenship. The first thing to note is that you need a professional Twitter account separate from your personal account and you need to lay down stringent rules so that pupils understand that Twitter is like speaking in class but with a megaphone. This is no place for ill-considered comments or swearing. The Twitter group #ukedchat is a good place to start


as every Thursday they have discussions on different topics and this professional network has proved a good source of ideas and expertise. Emma advises teachers to set up a network of followers who will answer tweets and respond to the class. She also provided some suggestions on hashtags such as #parliament or #protest in citizenship lessons – this can make searching easier. One advantage of using Twitter is that it encourages


brevity and writing for a target audience. Her pupils started by using Twitter word strips and writing ideas in 140 characters on paper and putting them up on the wall. It taught them to produce punchy targeted communications instead of the more common wordy compositions. Twitter can be an exciting visual channel. Emma


uses Wordle to make a word picture based on pupils’ responses and then posts this as a stimulus on Twitter. Twitter also brings outside experts into the


classroom such as representatives from charities or campaigners. Recently when considering the work of Parliament, they tweeted and received replies from Conservative MP Louise Mensch and Labour’s Tom Watson. “Campaigning can be tokenistic in citizenship lessons,” said Emma, “Twitter changes that. I notice now that when they write essays there is far less from Wikipedia and far more instances of using Tweets to illustrate the points they are making.”


SecEd


• Sal McKeown is a journalist who specialises in educational technology and SEN, including dyslexia.


Further information


• Geoff Petty active learning techniques: www.geoffpetty.com/activelearning.html


• Hilary Nunns: www.can-do-courses.co.uk • The Buzz: www.thebuzzbook.co.uk • Radiowaves: www.radiowaves.co.uk • Wordle: www.wordle.net/create


SecEd • April 19 2012


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