VIEWS & OPINION Are we forgetting that learning is a pupil


teacher collaboration? Comment by FELICIA JACKSON, Chair of the Learn2Think Foundation


This year the Department for Education committed nearly £8m to the Curriculum Fund, to help teachers deliver the more challenging National Curriculum introduced in 2014, while reducing the unnecessary workload burden associated with curriculum planning and resourcing. A laudable ambition. The pilot programme is focused on three


elements: a knowledge-rich curriculum, whole- class teaching and teacher-led instruction. What’s important in the Government’s approach, however, is ensuring that ‘teacher-led’ doesn’t minimise the importance of the need for children to take ownership of their own education. The Montessori approach for example, perhaps the antithesis of ‘teacher-led’ has produced exceptional outliers such as Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It’s important to recognize that there is no ‘one-size fits all’ methodology, so why not make sure we take the very best bits from all approaches? So how do we take useful child-led elements


from the likes of Montessori, apply them to existing classroom methods, and not overburden teachers with more work? Best-selling non-fiction author Christopher


Lloyd has launched a new initiative to raise awareness of the importance of an interconnected, cross-curricular approach to


knowledge and education. He says, “Only by connecting knowledge back together again can children learn to think out of the box, develop critical thinking skills and become their own self- learning systems.” As the Institute of Education’s Ruth Dann says,


“Recognition of the importance of curiosity is evident in policy directives and regulatory frameworks governing both the teaching profession and the curriculum”. And now a pilot based on Lloyds latest book Absolutely Everything, the ‘Curiosity Curriculum’, gives pupils the opportunity to develop their own learning journey along a world history timeline that spans 3000 years. Taking another approach, at Learn2Think we


are developing a way for pupils to cultivate their critical thinking through questioning skills, whilst working within existing lesson formats. Questioning can be seen as a measure of engagement and of depth of thinking. By pupils asking the questions they get to own their own ‘knowledge goals’. A. Ram, whose background is in computer science, states: “The ability to ask questions is central to the process of learning, reasoning and understanding,” supporting Choinard’s claim that, “The content of children’s questions parallel their conceptual advances.” It is telling that levels of questioning fall off


from the age of 5, and continue to diminish as children move through the school system. Is this because they’ve just stopped asking questions or because their motivations and engagement have plummeted? Is it because we assume that asking questions


is something children are born with, so we don’t need to teach it? Is it just a thing we do naturally? Does asking questions imply a degree of ‘not knowing’, which pupils are reluctant to admit to? Do teacher’s find the asking of questions disruptive? Learn2Think believe that if teachers are given a


framework for question generation at certain points of the lesson, and pupils learn to use questions to further their own learning, questioning can be a powerful tool for teachers to increase levels of engagement whilst still leading the process. And don’t forget, if you want to encourage


your children to engage in some questioning, enter your pupils in the Learn2Think Young Journalism Competition, part of Tolerance Day 2018. For more information http://www.toleranceday.org/young-journalist- prize-2018.html


uFurther detail of the Curiosity programme can be found at www.gocuriosity.com


Leveraging technology for hard-to-reach schools Comment by JAMES GRANT, Co-founder of MyTutor


Personalised support has been proven to have a marked impact on raising pupil attainment. The Sutton Trust reported one-to-one tuition to be one of the highest


impact forms of intervention and MyTutor research shows that (two thirds) 66% of teachers believe that it improves grades and boosts students’ confidence. However, teachers in the UK also say a lack of one-to-one tutors is a


primary barrier to offering additional tuition. The other two primary barriers mentioned are lack of budget and time. These facts are compounded for rural schools, for whom a lack of local tutor supply can render one-to-one support impossible. The good news is that schools are beginning to leverage technology to


overcome these barriers. MyTutor’s platform, which comprises a marketplace of rigorously


selected tutors (7,000+ handpicked tutors from the UK’s top universities) and an interactive Online Lesson Space, allows schools to match their pupils with inspirational tutors for one-to-one online lessons at affordable rates. Online tuition opens the door to a broader pool of expertise, so schools


can get a better match for each pupil than if they went looking for tutors in their local neighbourhood. 52% of teachers believe the fit of the tutor to the student’s individual needs is the most important factor when considering one-to-one tuition; the MyTutor model facilitates this precisely. In-person tutoring expertise is concentrated in cities and the South East,


24 www.education-today.co.uk


with 27% of tuition in the UK taking place in London according to the Sutton Trust. This uneven distribution leaves rural schools to source tutors from further afield, spending more budget for less impact. Furness Academy in Barrow in Furness, Cumbria is an example of such a


school that was struggling to access affordable programmes due to its remote location. By switching to one-to-one support online, schools like Furness


Academy cut out tutors’ travel time and save an average of £12 per hour. The lessons are recorded too, meaning that pupils can revisit content in their own time and derive additional value from the platform. We’re working with Furness Academy, and over 260 schools and


universities across the UK, to help their pupils grow in confidence and exceed expectations. Impact data for last year shows that students who had tuition with MyTutor over a term made more than 2 times as much progress as pupils who weren’t on the programmes. Ultimately, the role of in-person tuition will diminish as not only the


existing benefits around choice, recordings and price win schools over, but also online platforms will continue to innovate and improve faster than the offline world to become more engaging and deliver better results. What online tuition can’t and shouldn’t do, is replace classrooms. The


structured work teachers curate, and peer-to-peer interactions at school still makes up the core of a child’s education. Tuition is a supplementary resource that helps target individuals’ learning gaps, raise attainment, and boost confidence.


October 2018


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