Acropolis Parthenon.

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Links for the presentation I am doing at Telford:

The day the German Embassy popped in.
Year 4 link with a school in Australia

Project Blogs:
Well Done Blog A WONDERFUL place!!
PassTheBlog – 52 classes, one blog: How far can one blog go?
Pandora Writing Blog – Inspired by Avatar
Kensuke’s Kingdom Writing Blog
The Island: 1 to 1 Tuition Writing Blog
Fern’s Blog: Fern decides to ‘use’ her audience
Abigail’s Blog: Recovering from a two brain tumours is a little easier says Abigail with a platform for her voice!
The ALL NEW Pandora Project Blog – Not finished as we are currently working on this!
Xander’s Blog – Using ONLY audio to inspire Alexander to write

Using Coveritlive in the classoom
Using Coveritlive outside the classroom!
Ask your audience who and where they are?
Voicethread to perform
Voicethread to peer assess
Voicethread to teacher asses – Teachers from all over the globe!
Using Audioboo to capture magic
Using Photopeach in Reception to engage parents
Binyameen’s writing being used by other teachers
Raja gets help from Guatamala with his Howler Monkey Project
Thomas puts his Art Portfolio online

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My Year 6 pupils explain in their own words:

BBC Breakfast filmed live from Heathfield in 2011:

BBC Radio 5Live interviewed Thome, Miss Wiggans and Mr. Mitchell in 2011:

BBC NW filmed live from Heathfield in 2011 too:

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As one of the BIGGEST Coveritlive fans out there, I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. I’ve used Coveritlive to hold snow lessons, host visits from experts, interview characters from books and even watch important sporting moments together. However, I have always see much more potential with Coveritlive. The one way I have really wanted to use Coveritlive was during a sporting competition at school. Most parents never get to come along to a sporting event as work commitments get in the way. Using Coveritlive to report live from an event is powerful stuff. Imagine a parent who sends their child to school knowing their child will be taking part in the biggest sporting event of their child’s life so far. If, as a parent, you can’t be there this is possibly the next best thing:

This took about 1 minute to set up on Coveritlive, 1 minute to embed on Class 2′s blog and was all done on an iPhone with 1 bar of a non-3G signal. It wasn’t just parents that were able to watch the updates, listen to interviews and enjoy some pictures form the event live as they took place but he other children in the class who had not been selected to play were following back from the classroom.

Simple, effective, cheap and powerful!

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Adding a combination of audio and visual on a blog can really add a different dimension to the experience visitors have whilst visiting. Below is a Voicethread purely used to give the opportunity to showcase the performance of some descriptive writing. All you need to do is click the play button. make sure you listen to Mohammed’s which is the first description on the second slide!

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I was presenting with Kate Wilson a couple of weeks ago at a National Literacy Trust Boys’ Writing conference. She planted this idea in my head that day and it’s started to grow!

Key Stage 2 pupils at CatonCPS (where I am currently standing in as Headteacher until September) have started to record themselves reading books. These recordings are uploaded and a QR code printed linking to the mp3 file. These QR Codes are then stuck into the inside covers of the books. As a result, KS1 pupils armed with a handheld device can scan the QR Code and have the book read to them by an older pupil in their school whilst following the words.

Here’s a picture of one of the books:

If you can’t scan that code, here’s the audio through audioboo.

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I have had the pleasure of working with Worsbrough Common Primary School in Barnsley over the last few weeks with two NQT teachers in Year 3 and Year 4. It has been a refreshing learning experience for myself working with two open minded, enthusiastic and dedicated NQTs. Worsbrough Common is Headed up by Kate Davies who, from the moment I first met her, it was clear that she had a clear vision on what she wanted the school to provide for the pupils it serves.

I applaud her for investing in two of her NQTs. Kate is passionate about learning and passionate about having the right tools to back up great teaching.

During the previous 3 weeks, we have developed how blogging is used with the learners in school time. The two blogs can be found here:

Year 4
Year 3

You will notice that from the beginning of February, the blogs have developed and the pupils are much more engaged. Pupils are now posting their own blog posts and not only that, they are leaving quality comments. I am really proud of Miss Woodward and Mr Morrison for continuing and developing the way they are using blogs in their class.

Here’s a short visual story of the things we got up to:

I look forward to returning for one final day shortly to physically conclude the support I have been giving to Worsbrough Common Primary School.

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I left Heathfield Primary School in December to follow a dream and a mission to get more children and teachers blogging whilst using new Web2.0 tools. I knew I was starting a temporary Headship at the beginning of February so took the plunge and resigned from Heathfield on December 31st.

Since then, my world has inextricably changed. From having a completely free diary for January, this quickly filled up. In fact, it filled up in a matter of weeks from going public with my news in November 2012. January saw partnerships struck up with:

St. Cleopas Schools in Liverpool
Worsbrough Common Primary School in Barnsley
Heather Garth Primary School in Barnsley
St. Bernard’s School in Ellesmere Port
Wroxham Teaching School in Potters Bar
Francis Baily School in Newbury

I have been working with the above schools for a number of days over a number of weeks developing blogging and the use of Web2.0 tools to engage learners with the ultimate goal of improving standards in writing. I have also been lucky enough to work with a number of people including:

Pie Corbett and the Nelson Thornes team at BETT
John Sutton with a host of blogging roadshow days
Rising Stars
Oxford University Press on their Tablets and Apps project
ECM Consultancy based in the NW of England.
National Literacy Trust with Cliff Manning, Kate Wilson and John Sutton.

All in all, it has been the hardest 7 weeks of work I have ever done. However, it has been the most rewarding 7 weeks in my professional life. Over the next few months I will be working with:

Oxford University Press
Rising Stars
Nelson Thornes
John Sutton with our Embed with Mitchell and Sutton
Pie Corbett on a number of conferences
The SSAT
Bedford Hall Primary School in Wigan
Leigh St. Peter’s Primary School in Wigan
Hull LA
Heather Garth Primary School in Barnsley
St. Mary’s in Shenfield Essex
Worsbrough Common Primary School in Barnsley
Leamore Primary School in Walsall
Optimus Conference
NATE Conference workshop
UKLA Conference in Manchester delivering a Keynote
Education Innovation
First News in London
Italian Ministry of Education
Schools in Moscow.
CatonCPS in Lancaster as their part time Headteacher!

Believe it or not, I still have some dates to work with schools developing writing through blogging and new Web2.0 tools. If you are interested in working with me, please fill in the form below to begin discussions:

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How well do you know your the data of your class?

Over the years, I have worked at, or with roughly 20 schools. In this time I have seen some unbelievably talented teachers. However, many of the teachers I have worked with do not fully understand data, how this works and how it is interpreted by senior leaders in schools, advisors and even Ofsted. I have prepared this blog post to assist teachers that want to know a little more about data and how to interpret it.

Here’s a list of my class (fake) reading data since July 2012:

As you can see, we have a list of names, July 2012 data and Feb 2013 data taken from reading assessments. You may have noticed that some pupils have been awarded a ‘+’. It’s important to note at this point that schools are measured in points not sub levels. The RAISE ONLINE that is produced by Ofsted to assist schools and inspectors takes into account progress and attainment based on points. For every sub level there are 2 points! Here’s a little chart to help explain:

You can see clearly that traditionally, points have used odd numbers, but what you might not know is that when the RAISE ONLINE calculates scores fo your previous Year 6 pupils, it calculates using even numbers too. More and more schools are now calculating progress using both odd and even numbers. This allows schools to show a more accurate picture of current progress. There is a completely different argument centred around how accurately schools can assess but for now… we’ll go with the data above for my class. The above spreadsheet shows the name of the child, the level they got in their reading assessment in July 2012 and the reading assessment they achieved in the most recent February assessment. For each sub level progress this equates to 2 points progress. If the pupil was only a mark off the next sub level, they are awarded an additional point making what looks like a 3b+ or a 4c+.

You may have heard some people talk about Average Points Progress. This is a calculation of all the progress made by the pupils in your class, divided by the number of pupils. Using the data above, here’s the calculation:

Total points progress = 62
Number of pupils in the class = 30

62 divided by 30 = 2.07

The Average Points Progress for the above class of children therefore is 2.07 points. This is for the first half of the year. You could assume that the pupils would make the same progress for the remaining half of the year. If the 2.07 is therefore doubled, you could say that your class are on track to make an average 4.14 points progress. Ofsted require around 3.5 points progress in each Key Stage 2 class to be seen to be making ‘Good’ progress and around 4 points progress in each Key Stage 2 class to be making outstanding progress. Therefore you ‘could’ argue that based on the above data, your class are on track to be making outstanding progress.

This however, is only the top of the iceberg! I would expect teachers coming to a pupil progress meeting to also have a good understanding of who are not making progress and the reasons why this is. If you have managed to read this post to this point without falling asleep, maybe you could continue the discussion about this class in the comments section.

Who is not making the progress they could be? What factors influence pupil progress from year to year. Why might it be important to look at previous progress when looking at individual pupil progress?

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