Future Knowledge

This morning I attended a fascinating breakfast conference called 'Future Knowledge'. Richard Millwood from Core Education talked about a project that he has been working on with UNESCO to find out what the world's children think about education, learning and their experiences of learning. The youtube playlist below shows some of the interviews that have already been recorded.
Richard talked about how the education world needs to adjust to meet the new expectations of the world in the 21st century.

Children having a voice is such an important part of education and one which we must not lose sight of.

This morning served to further my own determination to ensure that Fendalton children have a say in their school and their learning so that they remain central to everything that we do. One only has to watch the videos of our year 6 from 2007 reflecting on their time at Fendalton to see how sophisticated and knowledgeable children can be about their own learning, we just have to remember to listen.

Why we should teach philosophy to kids

Via the BPS Research Digest: A recent study on the long-term benefits of the Socratic method. In a study of 105 children, all around 10 years old, teachers spent an hour a week for 16 months teaching lessons based on philosophical inquiry.

The philosophy-based lessons encouraged a community approach to "inquiry" in the classroom, with children sharing their views on Socratic questions posed by the teacher.

The result? At the end of 16 months,

Compared with 72 control children, the philosophy children showed significant improvements on tests of their verbal, numerical and spatial abilities

And two years later, when the philosophy children were tested again, their higher scores persisted -- while the lower-scoring control group were, in some cases, declining further. Researchers Keith Topping and Steve Trickey point out that these gains persisted even though the kids had switched schools as well, from primary to secondary, showing that the influence of philosophical inquiry works across contexts and over time.

Or in the words of Socrates, "If this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, my influence is ruinous indeed."

Socrates image from Wikimedia

Library upgrade

The Board have been looking at the library blog and discussing the findings. They have agreed that we need to look into building a new library more closely. A sub-committee has been formed for this. The Library sub-committee met for the first time on Monday 29th September to look at ways to take the concept forward. They looked at funding options and possible locations for a new library.

The impact of the new government 1/18 ratio change for New Entrants and Year 1 children means that we will need more teaching spaces during 2008. It is our hope that we can free up the existing library for teaching spaces by building the new library and ESOL space together. However the reality is that this will take longer than a year, so we need to look at how we can find spaces for the new children at the end of 2008, when we will need to open more classes than we have in the past.

The current Library can house much of the computer and shelving needs of the completed library, and it seems sensible to buy those things now and then move them into the library when it is completed in a year or so. Therefore I would like to request that some of the money raised by the Spring Ball be spent on this. There are two main reasons for this:

1. The money raised by the Ball should be spent on today’s children.
2. The library needs to be improved for 2008 not just 2009 and beyond.

21st Century Fendalton

This video forms part of my presentation to parents and the community on Tuesday 16th, Wednesday 17th and Tuesday 23rd October. Please watch it and join the conversation by adding a comment below.