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Assessing Without Levels – Milestones

Assessing without levels – Milestones At our school we took the decision last Summer to embrace the opportunities available to move away from National Curriculum levels. Our approach isn’t revolutionary, but I think it’s worth sharing. Background I personally felt that there were numerous issues with the old NC levels. They were not as well…

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Mobile, Personalised Learning – The Essa Academy

These are my notes from a fascinating day at the Essa Academy, courtesy of Apple. We were treated to a tour and talks by a number of staff including the Principal – Showk Badat, Abdul Chohan & Jeff Ellis. I was fascinated by not just the integration of mobile technologies (they are famous for giving every…

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IT Provision in Secondary Schools in 2011

Another what’s the best way forward? blog post where I try and dissect my own thinking on what IT provision should look like in a Secondary School in 2011.  Continue the current mix of laptop trolleys and IT suites or move towards a 1 to 1 environment of tablets or laptops? Financial Planning This year so far…

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An ICT Curriculum Fit For 2011 #ictcurric

The silence that has descended on this blog has partly been down to another little change in direction for me as I have taken over leadership of our ICT & Business Studies department.  As a Mathematician by nature this has been an interesting few weeks! Out top priority is to try and deliver an ICT curriculum that…

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#LWF11 – Lord David Puttnam of Queensgate

Lord David Puttnam, man of many hats, but perhaps pertinently Chairman of Futurelab: Joked that Stephen Heppel and he had have achieved so little in the last 20 years!  Not yet a state where what’s best for the child is also what’s best for the child. Left film industry as it had ceased to be inspirational…

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#LWF11 – Stephen Heppell – What’s on the horizon?

Stephen started with a nice anecdote about starting his career asked a tough group of students to help him out by getting teaching tips from other teachers in return from him teaching them the content. Be Very Afraid programme.  Students taught themselves to play an instrument in a month. Evolution of tech in our lifetimes:…

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SSAT #NC10 – Dr David Hemery

Bio David Hemery, Olympic Gold 400m hurdles winner, now working on the 21st Century Legacy as part of the London 2012 Legacy programme. My Notes Dr David Hemery vice chairman British Olympic association. 21st century legacy. www.21stcenturylegacy.com Incredible amount of untapped potential in everyone. Hi achievers have self awareness and self responsibility. Study in sport and business….

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SSAT #NC10 – Dylan Wiliam – Formative Assessment

The first of a series of notes / reflections on sessions at the 2010 SSAT National Conference. Bio Dylan Wiliam has the grand title of ‘Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment‘ at the Institute of Education in London.  He is a former Maths teacher and co-author of the book “Inside the Black Box“.  He is a world renowned expert…

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SSAT National Conference 2010 #NC10 – Initial Thoughts

The SSAT National Conference took place last week at the ICC in Birmingham (a venue rightly compared to Escher’s Relativity!).  I was fortunate to be able to attend as a punter on the Wednesday and as a presenter on the Thursday as we launched the SSAT National Digital Leaders programme! The theme of the conference was ‘Excellence for All’,…

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Two Thought Provoking Discussion Starting Videos

The two following videos have been doing the rounds over the last week in the ‘blogosphere’ (I do hate that word!).  But just because you’ve seen them a couple of times doesn’t mean everyone in your school has – share them with you network now.  We used them both as discussion starters in Leadership Meetings…