Skip to main content

21st Century Learning Alliance Fellowship

I was very pleased to receive an email on Thursday informing of our successful bid for a 21st Century Learning Alliance Fellowship. The 500 word bid submitted was:

Aims:

  1. To engage learners in exploring and interpreting space, especially around school buildings.
  2. To develop a core of learners that can actively, confidently and skilfully use their knowledge of the built environment to engage architects and planners during the BSF process.
  3. To investigate how space around schools can be developed to maximise cross-curricular learning opportunities.
  4. To provide a record of the transformation of Priory School

This project will allow learners and teachers understanding of how 21st Century Schools can use space to transform learning. Priory learners will be empowered as they will be able to make a positive contribution to the school's BSF journey.

As Space is one of the most important concepts of the Key Stage 3 Geography Curriculum, the department is ideally positioned to lead this project. Through his involvement in innovative projects such as Urban Earth and Mission Explore, David has a wide range of experience of successfully developing the conceptual understanding of learners while exploring spaces in new an innovative ways. Joanna is currently developing a group of young people who will engage with the BSF project in collaboration with the Solent Architecture Project.

The project will develop the understanding of learners and teachers:

Learners will begin by exploring the current school. They will record their feelings, thoughts, ideas and perceptions. What would they like to change? Why? Pupils will be encouraged to present their ideas in a range of formats. They will also use the language of the built environment. A small pilot group has already been engaged with the BSF design professionals. This project will develop their confidence through a range of workshops provided by community partners such as the Solent Architecture Project.

Visits to exemplar buildings that are innovative and aspirational will be organised. Pupils will explore these spaces and use their ideas and findings in order to inform their Priory vision.

Teachers will engage in action research. The purpose of which will be to recommend how the built environment can be used to maximise cross-curricular learning opportunities. This will inform the BSF process not only at Priory but in other schools in the future.

Outcomes
  • Pupils will collaborate to produce a weblog of the project. This will be published via the school's VLE
  • The ability of young people to successfully engage in discussions with professionals and their knowledge and understanding of the built environment will improve. This will be measured through online questionnaires at the beginning and end of the project.
  • The understanding of how spaces can be designed in order to maximise learning will be shared through David's blog. It is hoped that educational professionals in other institutions will benefit from this
  • The team will use Geographical Association (GA) contacts to report in GA publications.
  • A record of the schools transformation will be produced. It is envisaged that this will utilises a wide range of media. This will form a 'digital time capsule of the journey' that can be shared.
This is where I could do with your help! Do you work in a modern school building? Do you use or have you adapted your school's grounds in order to support learning outside of the classroom?

If so it would be great to hear from you.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What makes a learning experience profound? Personal reflections and possible implications for classroom practice.

I have recently begun a Leadership Pathways journey.  As part of the first core day, we were asked to reflect on a profound learning experience. This got me thinking about how many profound learning experiences I have both been involved in, and how many I have been able to give to others.  Our group came up with a huge long list, but these are my five. Emotional Connected Demanding Reflective Collaborative As always, these are personal thoughts and quite mixed up.  I put them here so that I can look back on them (plus they’d get lost inside my world-cup-free brain) 1. Emotional I can’t think of a time where deep learning hasn’t engaged my emotions.  From being awe inspired to that tingle feeling when a student gets a light bulb moment.  From this-is-the-happiest-day-ever, to I-think-I’m-about-to die.  How often do we engage the emotions of those we teach?  Here, I would argue that having a safe learning environment is not always conducive to profound

The danger of Teaching and Twitter conversations: poorly formed bipolar arguments.

Sometimes in life, there really are only two options.  Get the wrong one and you can look like a muppet.  Take this useful sign for the toilets in Morocco.  I successfully navigated it, choosing the right option.  The result? No egg on my face.  As a mountain leader, there are many right or wrong decisions that I’ve faced, as there are all over life.  It’s not a good idea to let inexperienced young people walk themselves down Snowdon.  They may die or be seriously injured.  If someone is showing the signs and symptoms of hyperthermia, you need to treat it fast in a specified way.  There is no real arguing with this sign: Other options are less obvious.  Take this sign recently spotted near to where I live: Now, I wouldn’t consider sleeping in a bin.  However, faced with a sub-zero night, I could see the appeal.  The danger? Being tipped into one of those huge lorries with a compactor. (by the way, I only really considered all of this thanks to questions from my four year old boy).

Banned Word Board

Today I want to share some simple ideas that I have found to be very effective in the classroom. I can't say that they are my own original ideas, although I have played around with them. The first is the Banned word Board. This is a simple display in the classroom that lists a number of words that are not allowed to be used by pupils in their written or oral answers. The effect has been an increase in the quality of written work, and I have almost made comments such as 'Sir it's simple, the stuff just affects the thing and causes people problems'. Pupils are now more able to use specific language, something that is vital especially at GCSE. I have had to make a few modifications, such as the introduction of 'Heavenly Words' This is an additional display placed on the ceiling. I found this necessary as pupils needed some stimulus in finding replacement words. After advice received after posting the idea on the SLN forum , I have also introduced semi-banned words