While there are many different virtual learning environments available on the market, some with high running costs, Microsoft Teams is a practical solution for teachers who want to incorporate educational technology into the classroom.
The global shortage of learning is truly shocking. Today, most children in the world are not reaching even basic levels of literacy and maths as they are either not in school or they’re in a school but not really learning. It’s an uncomfortable fact reinforced by the World Bank’s inaugural report on education. The crisis is worst in sub-Saharan Africa. It is home to more than half the world’s out-of-school children, but it receives only a quarter of global education aid. The latest insight from the most authoritative research points to low quality and quantity of teaching in low and middle income countries, indicative of ineffective systems, as a major root cause.
The current education system in England has found itself under increasing scrutiny for the one-size-fits-all nature it has adopted, with many believing the focus on rigid testing is having a detrimental effect on students’ wellbeing and progress in schools. This has culminated in Ofsted shifting its focus on assessment in the new inspection framework to introduce a more personalised, balanced and inclusive approach that prioritises ‘intent, implementation and impact’.
Years of collaboration with schools combined with the experience of our team means we understand the challenges that school leaders face. With the current shortfall of teachers and teacher workload at an all-time high, supply teachers are in increasingly high demand.
Schools UK wide are struggling with the same issues -children entering school with low levels of language and lacking social and emotional skills. Why is this? It’s all about the quality of the interactions happening for children in their early years. This is currently a hot topic and a focus area for the DfE.
When I ask my Sixth Form students what they want to study at university or what they want to be later in life, I am often in for a surprise. Their answers often include degrees or professions that I had not heard of and could not have imagined even ten years ago. At this point I would like to make it clear that I am not old (obviously!), but that the world has been and is changing at a breakneck pace and it is hard to keep up with it.
The DfE listed ten challenge areas in its EdTech Strategy, one of which was formative assessment. It’s so important, in fact, that they’re offering funding to EdTech companies who can offer innovative ideas to transform formative assessment - we’re fortunate enough to already work alongside several companies who are making a real impact in the world of assessment, and this week we’re celebrating their amazing work.
Designed by teachers for teachers, Mappix makes assessment simple. Teachers can access Mappix from anywhere on multiple devices, and see real time data on pupils’ performance in digestible, user friendly formats. This teacher team have thought of everything, from automatic reporting to gap detection - and if you think of something else Mappix could do, simply tell them!
Read more: Mappix full profile on Edtech Impact
Customer rating: 5/5 (2 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
SATs Companion’s unique bank of over 28,000 questions and 40 different question styles will save you time with instant marking and feedback - and 88% of teachers we surveyed agree. From Geometry to Fractions and Determiners to Reading Comprehension, questions are styled just like the real tests, and pupils’ progress is tracked in real time.
Read more: SATs Companion full profile on Edtech Impact
Customer rating: 4.5/5 (25 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
The award winning Pobble allows you to deliver lessons and share with other teachers. Track results and plan assessments based on the evidence at your fingertips, and improve teaching efficiency.
Read more: Pobble full profile on Edtech Impact
Turnitin’s integrated Feedback Studio saves you time by allowing you to easily check for plagiarism, give feedback, and see students’ progress at scale - all in one platform. Their predefined or custom marking rubrics ensure you give consistent grades and connect criteria to feedback.
Prepare pupils for exams with realistic exam questions, which can be self-assessed and marked against detailed marking schemes. All of their work is stored and easily accessible on the Get My Grades platform, which will give both you and the pupils an idea of expected final grades.
Read more: Get My Grades full profile on Edtech Impact
Customer rating: 4.5/5 (11 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
Learning Ladders have made spreadsheets and data drops a thing of the past! Giving you an assessment framework that aligns with your curriculum and a series of “I can” statements, assessing progress is made simple. What’s more, 100% of teachers we surveyed agree that Learning Ladders improves attainment.
Read more: Learning Ladders full profile on Edtech Impact
Customer rating: 4.5/5 (4 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
Transform the way your school collects, interprets and acts on assessment data with askEddi. askEddi’s assessment system reduces admin by pinpointing gaps, providing instant results, and letting you see the whole school’s assessment performance.
Read more: askEddi full profile on Edtech Impact
As a teacher, and later Deputy Head, my classes invariably contained reluctant writers - usually boys! I was always on the lookout for new ways to support my teaching of writing, with a focus on strategies that would ensure that every one of my children achieved their full potential.
I came. I saw. I assessed. Then I collected the evidence, transposed each score into an outcome, annotated my class list with levels and photocopied everything four times…
Well, here we are again! The summer holidays are over, batteries have been recharged and, in my case, a new hip is in place. I love September, embarking on another exciting and, inevitably, action packed school year, and I’m looking forward to so many things.
It really goes without saying that the best part about returning to school is seeing the children again: their smiles and excitement, and that zest for learning. Then there’s the cohorts of 2, 3 and 4 year-olds brand new to our schools. These children are often nervous about coming to school for the first time but, with such skilled and caring staff, it doesn’t take long for them to shrug off their shyness, and, instead of hiding behind their parents, begin running across the playground to get into school. Already, after 1 week, our new children are settled and happy. In fact, at this time of year it is usually the parents of the children starting school for the first time who find it the most difficult. There are certain tools we use at both Copthorne and Holybrook that help make the transition easier for parents. Online assessment and reporting tools are so valuable in keeping parents involved in their child’s learning and celebrating the experiences they are having each day – as well as reassuring them that all is well. We use cloud based systems such as Early Essence and Tapestry, which allow us to share those ‘magic moments’ with parents by sending them regular photographs and updates about their child’s developmental steps.
As a school leader, parental engagement continues to be a real priority this year as - if we can secure this – we know that our teaching and children’s learning will be further enhanced whilst our children will feel supported, and what is happening at school will become part and parcel of daily conversations at home. At the end of last year at both schools, we launched the use of an APP-based parental engagement package: Marvellous Me, which I am so looking forward to seeing being fully implemented and embedded in our practice. To date, this is proving invaluable in providing a means of touching base with parents in an instant, sharing pupils’ learning, and, most importantly, sending positive messages and praise to parents about their children. This means that parents are collecting their children from school with smiles on their faces after having being sent a variety of ‘praise’ badges for their child and, often, a ‘super-parent’ badge for themselves. Children’s after-school experience now starts positively and the links between school and home are being effectively strengthened, with children seeing teachers and parents as partners in their education. Use of such systems has already reduced workload: sending praise is instant and no time is spent rooting in drawers, looking for stickers or praise postcards; newsletters can be very easily uploaded via the APP for parents – this is helping the environment and our budget, too – we are going to be using much less paper and our busy admin team are delighted about the reduction in photocopying.
It’s also always wonderful to see our staff team returning to school refreshed and so enthused about the year ahead.
Like most school leaders though, I continue to be most concerned about 3 areas: teacher workload; financial constraints; and ensuring that our curriculum is effectively planned and delivered whilst being meaningful and enjoyable for every learner.
I am, therefore, constantly seeking out new ways of addressing these two important areas. We have already embraced cloud based planning tools to reduce the amount of planning and enable teachers to share their planning across the school. This year we will be continuing to seek out cost effective and innovative solutions to support teachers with their workload whilst ensuring that the curriculum is inspiring, learning is effectively sequenced and the highest quality education is secured for our pupils. We’re particularly interested in new technologies which provide easy and quick access to high quality and inspiring resources such as video clips, sound bites and photographs, linked to specific subject areas and specific Key Stages in order to drastically cut down on the internet trawling which so many teachers seem to spend much of their lives doing in their quest for engaging resources.
The new Ed tech we have already purchased ready for this year is giving us a lot to feel positive about as teachers: our new class sets of Chrome Books and mini IPads are available for staff to use to enhance teaching and to support the children with the new ‘knowledge harvests’ which will take place at the end of each curriculum theme. Children will retrieve, organise and present their learning in innovative ways such as through the use of digital technology e.g. Using the IPads to create digital books; creating short films or vlogs using our green screen. This allows learning to be shared with a range of audiences whilst encouraging children to use and apply their computing and digital technology skills.
However, we know we need to continue our journey of improvement by seeking out innovative Ed Tech solutions to inspire and engage our pupils in relation to the STEAM subjects. This is an area upon which we really need to focus in preparing our children for the future and showing them what’s possible in the world of careers.
So, as usual, a busy year ahead but with wonderful learning opportunities to look forward to for our children and staff.
Chris Shepherd
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