VIEWS & OPINION
Mind the Skills Gap: How collaboration with industry is bringing technology and equality to UK schools
Comment by ASH MERCHANT,
Director of Education, Fujitsu
How technology can help year 7 pupils reach expected literacy and numeracy standards
Comment by GARETH DAVIES, Managing Director, Frog Education
Technology is forcing our industries to evolve at a rapid pace; from retail to finance and manufacturing, 44% of UK business leaders to admit their businesses will not exist in their current form in five years. While 40% of companies have stated that skills shortages are a real threat to their business, the skills gap in the UK also begs concern for the next generation of schools leavers who are at risk of being ill equipped for the industries they’ll find themselves competing to enter.
We view collaboration with industry as a key tenet to ensuring our students do not fail to fulfil the digital future we’ve created for them, and what’s more, it’s also helping bridge the technology gap between public and private school leavers.
Working with industry
Our education establishments must change because the needs of the young people they teach have changed. Students of this generation are digital natives, and with technology that 10 years ago was reserved for elite businessmen now in the palms of teenagers, it’s important they’re provided with a strong foundation of learning that has technology at its core. Last month we saw Theresa May put the expansion of vocational education at the heart of her new proactive industrial strategy. As well as announcing £170m of funding to boost technical education, she also signalled her willingness to work in partnership with the private sector. Indeed schools are increasingly collaborating with industry partners to bring technology into the learning experience.
Take our work with the London Design and Engineering UTC for example; students at this new school were able to take part in a project where they designed from scratch a virtual reality environment that takes viewers on a journey around an Ethiopian village as part of a project to highlight the work of the charity Water Aid. Educators have a mandate to ensure learning is challenging and practical and using technology to create immersive learning experiences can help deliver on that promise.
Tech for all in UK schools
One of the biggest challenges with addressing the skills gap is overcoming inequality in access to technology in schools. Independent schools have typically led the way in terms of introducing new technologies into the learning experience. Their autonomous nature and ability to operate in an agile fashion, free from government reforms, has set them up as the driving force of innovation in the sector, but this is no longer the case. What we’re seeing now is a bridging of the gap between students at public and private schools, particularly in their access to learning through technology and this is being driven by collaboration with industry. Last year we announced the expansion of our Education Ambassador Programme to 20 new institutions which, alongside our industry partners - Intel, Brocade and Kyocera - allows us to create Innovation Hubs that support project based learning and encourage the development of STEM skills for students and teachers.
Technology can have a real levelling effect on the skills school leavers from both public and private institutions will have to contribute to the UK economy, and openness to collaboration with industry will prove essential to bridging the digital skills gap in the UK.
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www.education-today.co.uk
In England all state-funded secondary schools receive a literacy and numeracy catch-up premium to support year 7 pupils who did not achieve the expected standard in reading and maths at the end of key stage 2.
Last year 93,180 pupils were eligible for catch-up funding, comprising of 17% of the cohort. In 2016-17 this will rise to at least 34% of the cohort and over 191,000 pupils. Schools will receive this funding on 1 March but despite the significant changes that have been made to the key stage 2 assessments and a greater number of students not reaching the expected standards, the funding remains the same as the previous year.
So how can schools utilise this funding to close the gap and what role can technology play?
Deciding what to do with this funding is a difficult choice. Senior leaders need to decide what is best for their pupils and burying your head in the sand, convincing yourself that SATs have simply got harder is not the answer.
It’s been well documented that technology aids teaching and can help children reach their potential, so investing in catch-up technology is a choice worth considering for schools that have the forward-thinking ethos that the future of education needs. Technology can do many wonderful things in schools, it can help teachers quickly identify what a child does and does not know, empowering teachers to act on gaps in knowledge before they become poor SATs or GCSE scores, or far worse a child not reaching their potential.
Many teachers say that identifying the problem is only part of the solution, teachers simply don’t have the time to go through topics again with individuals. But this simply highlights the needs for intuitive technology that can do the bulk of this for you. Personalised intervention technology can go through these topics in an engaging way with quizzes, videos, and games, making learning fun and helping children catch up with their classmates from the comfort of their own home. By doing this work at home they are ensuring teachers are using valuable classroom time to those who desperately need it (highlighted in detailed reports), all while promoting a positive attitude to independent study, and the gamification in this tech incentivises them to become active learners. Dixons Allerton Academy in Bradford are a good example of leveraging technology to support their children’s individual needs. The school created an online transition project for a group of year 6 students who were leaving their feeder primary schools and were joining the school in September. Students who had not made the expected progress in key stage 2 were provided with a Chromebook and access to the Transition Centre which had been developed in Frog’s Learning Management System. Through the Transition Centre students had access to a range of resources during the summer break to practise and develop their numeracy and literacy skills. This project was a huge success, the vast majority of students were engaged and the school was able to track students’ progress over the summer and identify where they needed support when they arrived at the school in September.
March 2017
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