VIEWS & OPINION A question of balance Comment by LUKE BEDDOWS, producer, BBC Education
I joined the BBC Education team after seven years of teaching English at inner-city secondary schools in Manchester and London. I saw first-hand how quickly fake news (or gossip!) could spread amongst my students. Inevitably, as it spiralled out of control, students’ views would become polarised. In English, when we talked about society and cultural touchpoints in literature, such as women’s rights or class, students’ attitudes could be very frustrating. But I’m never shocked by these revelations; what I am shocked by
is what they are consuming online and often taking at face value. I am part of the Other Side of the Story team. Our aim is to empower young people to make positive changes to the way they consume news. The BBC prides itself on its impartiality and takes its responsibility to fully explain all sides of a story to our audience seriously. As young people are exposed to increasingly polarised views across their social media feeds, the Other Side of the Story is helping them to query the news and views they’re seeing, and the motivations behind them. We give them practical insights into how news stories are constructed, while also highlighting how they can be manipulated and the impact this can have. We want to
give them the tools to think critically about the information they consume and how to identify trusted outlets. So, we have just created a plethora of completely free resources dedicated to media literacy. School pressures mean that sometimes, life skills can get pushed aside in favour of core subjects and revising for exams. However, children and young people’s lives are full of news, information, and other content – it is everywhere! We need to provide them with the skills and expertise to cope with this deluge. They will become better, more rounded people if they have the capacity to navigate and critically assess the content they receive. BBC Teach has downloadable, fully planned lessons ready to go at the click of a mouse. There are a
couple of more practical workshops for
those students who want to challenge themselves and dig deeper. And for those with less time in the week, it has quick stimulus activities which are ideal for starter tasks or form times. Having taught them in schools all around the UK (with my former teacher hat firmly on), I can assure you that students come away with a more critical understanding of how to assess the content, news, and information they consume. They also have a better understanding of often complex concepts such as bias, misinformation and disinformation.
Furthermore, over on our Other Side of the Story student-facing site, there are lots more resources for young people to do independently. They can take interactive ‘AI Or Real’ quizzes and watch videos fronted by some famous faces. Students can also read myth-busting articles about topical news they might see and hear every day but maybe don’t quite understand.
For more information about the BBC Teach suite of news and media resources, please visit
https://tinyurl.com/mryhsv7p
Digital exams are coming shortly – now is the time to embrace the technology
This term schools will be finalising the arrangements for candidates who need Reasonable Adjustments or Special Consideration for the 2024 summer series of A Levels and GCSEs. Examples of adjustments include, among others: • Modified papers - large print or Braille • Access to assistive software - voice recognition systems or computer readers
Comment by DAVE STEVENS, Co-Founder of Sensory App House & Claro Software Planning for the future
Digital exams will be an improvement for the candidates who struggle with accents, can’t tune in quickly to a reader’s voice or need them to speak more slowly. While a student can ask the adult to reread sections, evidence show that they rarely do this. They might ask for one repetition but are too embarrassed or over-awed to ask for extra repeat performances, so they miss out on many of the benefits.
• A human reader or scribe to read questions to the student or write their dictated answers
• Extra time to complete assessments
These adjustments are not new but the number of students requesting them grows year on year. Last year there were 115,000 requests for human readers and computer readers and this year the numbers will rise. A student taking eight GCSEs will have about 30 hours of written papers, depending on their subject choice. In the past, if a student needed a reader, a teacher or learning support assistant would step in and that student would go off into a separate room with an invigilator as well. Now schools struggle to find the rooms and the staff and often advertise for additional support. A recruitment company recently advertised for readers and scribes at £10.98ph so 30 hours of support for that one candidate would cost £329.40 and double the amount if they needed an extra invigilator.
Money is not the only consideration. Schools are expected to prepare students for their future life, and while we cannot predict the job market in five or ten years’ time, we do know that few jobs will provide a reader or scribe. We need to turn young people into independent learners.
January 2024
AQA has announced that the reading and listening components of its GCSE Italian and Polish will be assessed digitally in 2026. That is when your current year 9s will sit their GCSEs. They believe digital exams: • Allow young people to use their digital skills • Are better for the environment • Are truer to the digital world people are growing up and working in • Can help students with special educational needs • Stops students worrying about their handwriting
A small number of computer readers meet the JCQ Guidelines, and Sensory Readable PDF Reader is the most recent. Computer readers are easy to use and have proven benefits for learners so now is the time to make them part of the normal way of working for learners with SEND. Deploying computer readers in school will make learners more independent and will free up your staff to teach and support more students.
Sensory Readable:
https://www.sensoryapphouse.com/sensory-readable/
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/regulating-gcses-as-and-a-levels-guide-for- schools-and-colleges-2022/reasonable-adjustments
https://www.aqa.org.uk/news/click-to-the-future-exams-to-go-digital-to-better- prepare-the-workforce-of-tomorrow
www.education-today.co.uk 31
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