BESA CORNER
This month, in our ongoing feature highlighting the work of members of the UK education suppliers’ trade body BESA, we hear from TALES TOOLKIT on making sure children are confident language users, and we find out about KALIGO’s digital handwriting exercise book.
Making sure our children are ready for school
Schools UK wide are struggling with the same issues - children entering school with low levels of language and lacking social and emotional skills. Why is this? It’s all about the quality of the interactions happening for children in their early years. This is currently a hot topic and a focus area for the DfE. The power of story has been long recognised and researched – and
Goldsmiths University of London have found one particular storytelling resource to be making a big difference to schools. Tales Toolkit puts quality interactions at the heart of everything they
do. Created by an ex deputy head teacher while working in some of the most deprived areas of London, Tales Toolkit uses story, a powerful learning gizmo, to engage children. All resources are labelled with easily recognised symbols for Character, setting, problem and solution giving the children skills to independently weave magical tales. Stories are created using anything to hand from a picture of Mum or favourite toy to a conker. Once children are confident storytellers there are lots of resources to get them writing their tales. Being symbol based all children can easily understand and
remember the story structure, even those not yet reading or speaking English. And – you’re going to like this bit – because Tales Toolkit is led by the children there’s very little or no planning involved. Schools that sign up are provided with a package of physical
resources along with a year’s subscription to online training for all staff. With the budget crisis, schools are commenting that training provided in this way, where all staff are trained with no need for supply costs, helps them provide the CPD that’s much needed. One headteacher commented ‘All staff, new and experienced, have
embraced Tales Toolkit with real enthusiasm and we are reaping the benefits from our equally enthusiastic children. Our children are talking more, confidently telling creative stories as well as engaging in mark making earlier than we usually see it. A real strength is the quality of the training materials which bring together a wealth of sound practice in an accessible and supportive format which you can watch again and again, and we have!’ Stockport, Rochdale and Oxfordshire boroughs have invested local
authority money to provide Tales Toolkit for schools in their area. Some of their schools were involved in the research from Goldsmiths which found Tales Toolkit made a significant impact made to children’s language and communication, social skills, literacy and creativity. Schools using Tales Toolkit closed the gender gap in literacy by 62% while control schools saw the gap widen by 22%. Tales Toolkit while mainly UK based, is now being used in over 200
schools in 12 countries. Winning a number of awards from Teach First, UnLtd, Teach Early Years and Nursery World.
Until recently, teachers have been dictating the learning pathway for students to follow with traditional teaching methods rather than facilitating their learning with modernised classroom practice. With a growth in technology adoption in schools in the UK, we are finally starting to see exciting and promising changes in how classroom teaching is carried out. The technology barriers appear to be down, and teachers are adopting digital tools more than ever to support the facilitation of a child's learning. So what have we found? What we have seen with the use of Kaligo
in the Middle East and Western European schools is that students are now enabled to work at their own pace and have the choice of what to work on and when. The children being able to work without teacher intervention demonstrates the real shift from dictating to facilitating with the teacher’s role now being supported by facilitating options such as teacher portals and in depth monitoring via in school technology. According to Claire Jones, Deputy Head at Layton School, “Kaligo
enables our pupils to progress at their own pace using our chosen school font. The real time feedback allows them to self-correct and as a result we are seeing our pupils apply these skills in written work in their books” The modernised way of working and the use of digital tools has
enabled teachers to see impact on paper. Children who are using Kaligo to support their learning and practising of handwriting have seen amazing results on paper as a result of introducing a modern twist to a traditional method of learning. With the application boosting students’ engagement considerably in the classroom, better results are just round the corner! Catherine Mangan, Primary Teacher/Digital Lead at Thomas’
Fulham, puts it this way: “I love how Kaligo keeps even the most reluctant writers engaged and motivated. It is the best handwriting app on the market currently! Try it out now!”
uTo find out more, read case studies from schools and join their free to attend webinars with top education experts visit their website
www.talestoolkit.com or drop an email to
info@talestoolkit.com
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www.education-today.co.uk Get in touch at:
ucontact@kaligo-apps.com uTwitter: @KaligoApps_EN
September 2019
Dictating to facilitating: How are digital tools showing real change in the classroom?
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