Maureen McTaggart visits Scargill Junior where innovation with ICT is changing learning
Transfixed by the maths problem on her PC, Millie willingly demonstrated a point for me when asked by her teacher. But the 8-year-old's body language said: "Let's be quick. I’ve got the rest of the world to play with."
She was desperate for an early finish to the tasks set by teacher, Karen Webley so she could claim her reward – the chance to compete in maths games with learners across the world using the Mathletics online service. Scargill Junior School, in Havering, London, is taking play to a new level.
Pupil engagement here is dramatic, and technology – particularly handhelds – reigns: there are pupils at PCs; a small group solves problems together, sitting on the floor, with Nintendo DS and Sony PSP (PlayStation Portable) games consoles or smartphones; the murmur of a quiet conversation drifts from one corner.
Teachers and classroom assistants simultaneously work one-to-one with pupils, while monitoring whiteboards on which work from other students, using PCs or visualisers, is projected by digital projectors. The intense atmosphere of pupil engagement in classroom after classroom at Scargill is every educator’s dream.
School ICT leader Karen Webley, with her headteacher, has spent the best part of four years changing classroom practice. “The journey, which started off with my class and three Nintendo DS consoles, has not been plain sailing," she explains. "Lessons are now noticeably 'buzzy', but it's not just one thing: it's lots of different things to switch on all the children and it does take time to embed it all in the school.”
Headteacher Amanda Ireland (right) understands the importance of leadership in the transformation of learning, and what it takes to enthuse and get learners turned on to their learning. For Scargill this has meant embracing all kinds of technology. And Amanda recalls that it all started when they were trying to decide how to spend their Tesco 'Computers for Schools' promotion vouchers.
Even at that early stage they were keeping a weather eye out for the possibilities for engagement and a kind of 'ICT sustainability'. Their successes didn't 'just happen'.
'The most effective innovation doesn’t happen overnight, it can take years'
“We had already spent some on a PC," says Amanda Ireland. "But wondered what was the point of spending them on something that would benefit just one class. As the majority of our children already had mobile phones and Nintendos we thought it was a good idea to utilise that technology and what the children already have access to.
“The most effective innovation doesn’t happen overnight. It can take years and there has to be absolute buy-in from every member of staff – it won’t work if you just tell them to get on with it. You have to put the processes in place to grow their confidence and it certainly has to come right down from the top.”
At Scargill that meant giving staff, including teaching assistants, access to training at a local teacher centre. Now the ICT is a whole-school issue – central to everything.
Amanda Ireland was careful not to repeat the mistakes of other schools: “We know from the ICT subject leaders we’ve worked with from other schools of the frustration they feel because they’ve not been able to put this kind of thing in place at their school, either because of money constraints or the head doesn’t see how it can benefit the learning – and that’s hard, that’s really hard.”
It was decided from the outset that learners would be allowed to use their personal consoles – not just games – at school. It was a wise move in terms of sustainability, especially as there may be hard times ahead with anticipated budget cuts. Every lesson has its ICT planned and learning is personalised and, by using the technology children already have, continuing their learning at home is easy and, of course, encouraged. So too is recognition and competition. Every time a milestone in learning is achieved, certificates are handed out and proudly displayed on the corridor walls.
'Because of the technology in use, learning is not confined to the classroom'
Because of the technology in use, learning is not confined to the classroom. A wireless connection means it can also happen outside, on the school grounds, and even further afield thanks to the GPS 3G technology in pupils' smartphones, which are used with online Wildknowledge software for many school trips. Using Wildform, teaching staff create questionnaires for the students to answer on the smartphones during field trips and visits. So minibeasts and their habitats are scrutinised (below), photographed and the information gathered is downloaded back at school for more in-depth studying.
As there is such an ethos of ICT at the school, including an annual ICT week for parents and pupils, smartphones and Flip digital video cameras are used at parent evenings to record and share feedback on school activities – whether that might be school wall displays or whether children are being challenged enough. It has sparked strong support from parents.
“We do a survey of parents every year and one of the question is ‘How do you rate ICT in school?’" says Amanda. "The answer is usually ‘Really good’, which is partly because they understand what’s going on, by what the children say and the fact that they’ve given permission for their children to bring the Nintendos in. They must trust that what we are doing with them is right, and the ICT Mark [Becta self-review evaluation] has certainly helped with that because it helps us to really focus.”
About 95 per cent of families with children at the school have access to the internet at home as well as some kind of games console. But for those that don’t, Amanda and her staff are working on how they can access the school’s ICT facilities and facilitate some kind of equipment borrowing or sharing scheme: “Things have changed so much when you look at what children are exposed to these days in terms of the media at home, the media systems they’ve got, the 3D films that are now coming out. You’ve got to be able to keep up with that with the learning in school, otherwise how are you even going to be able to motivate those children?
"There is nothing wrong with textbooks – I am a big book lover – but the fact is they are not as interactive or as exciting or as buzzy as the stuff they’ve got at home. It’s not even about the ICT; it’s about the learning and trying to marry all that together so that they still have that breadth of experience.”
Amanda says that when Scargill started they were somewhat naïve in thinking that other schools were doing the same things, and that sharing good practice was a foregone conclusion. In reality, they have been trailblazers and decisions on how to develop their refreshing approaches to new technologies have come from their own community – teachers, learners and parents.
“It was very much a case of us knocking on doors: 'Can you come and do this? How can we do this? How does this work? How can we get it into our school?' Actually trying to find colleagues, networks or other schools we could share practice with was difficult so we had to call in the HIAS [Havering Inspection and Advisory Service] team to say, 'This is where we’re at, this is what we want to do, what do you suggest?' And for the past two and half years they have been incredibly supportive – happy to let us take the lead but helping us by opening up opportunities.” Now Scargill is involved in helping lead the development of handheld projects in other schools in the borough.
'We look at ways of modelling curriculum innovation that can be taken on by all schools'
Because Havering local authority had, before the election, been working on its own Building Schools for the Future journey, and beginning to develop the Primary Capital Programme (PCP), modelling curriculum innovation and supporting strategic community changes was a very high priority for Penny Patterson (right), inspector with HIAS,and her team.
"With changes to capital funding being inevitable, it is really important that we look at ways of piloting and modelling curriculum innovation that can be taken on by all schools, transforming learning in the buildings and spaces that are already there," she says. "We’ve found that growing experts in schools is a way of allowing individual schools to develop areas of expertise, transferring curriculum practice from teacher to teacher; the case studies are real, active and linked firmly to impact."
The comprehensive and tailored ICT work HIAS carries out with its schools was recognised by Becta in its ICT Excellence Awards where the team were the 2009 joint winners of the Support for Schools award (see video below) – and consultant Dave Smith has been a regular visitor to the school. He says: “Scargill Junior School has a really innovative approach to ICT and took the brave decision to engage with not just one, but three types of handheld learning.
"This decision has certainly paid off, as reflected in the comments from the school’s recent Ofsted report where inspectors commented that, '...opportunities for pupils to use ICT make a significant contribution to their excellent skills and progress in this area...' and '...Good use is made of ICT to engage pupils and provide effective visual stimulus to motivate them in their learning.'
"Added to this, the school has received plaudits for its hard work, achieving ICT Mark accreditation in 2009 and two awards at the 2008 and 2009 Handheld Learning Awards. We are very proud of the school’s achievements and have enjoyed working with them to support them in converting an innovative vision into the reality of transformational teaching and learning.”
The results of teachers capitalising on the technology students use all the time speaks for itself. "Learning at Scargill is fun," says Millie. "My mental maths and times tables have really improved since I have been using Nintendos and Brain Training. And I can’t wait for our Mathletics day so I can challenge someone from another country. It's wicked.”
More information
Scargill Junior School
Havering Inspection and Advisory Service
Download Becta's Havering award video on e-safety
