Category: primary schools

Bye bye creative curriculum?

Posted on by John McLear

The new Primary Curriculum is axed. Cutting the creative curriculum means 1 of 2 things, either:
a) schools can adopt their own creative curriculum without government guidance
or
b) schools have to stick to the current curriculum

Option a seems to make most sense as Cameron talks about empowering teachers.

So it is very likely schools will have to stick the current curriculum (option a) as sensible decisions isn’t the way Whitehall operates.  Anyone else get the “If it can be cut – cut it” type mentality?  On the same day as Cameron reminded us that our national debt is larger than Ron Jeremy’s libido.

It is no surprise that any “new spending” or “new project” would get cut but it seems like the Conservatives need to be clear and frank about the Primary Curriculum and their reasons for not proceeding with it after teachers have collectively spent tens of thousands of hours working towards delivering it.

Before Becta closes they have rushed through the Self review framework changes.

What do you think?  Do you think it will be option a or b?  Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

UPDATE:  In the meantime, the Department has advised schools that the existing primary curriculum will continue to be in force in 2011/12 and primary schools should plan on that basis.  Source

Ouch…

Explaining the #edchat poll options – Need help!

Posted on by primaryt

I found some of the options for the #edchat poll a little confusing so I figured someone else must too.. Please help me try to clarify the options.

Option: Should teachers digitally open their gradebooks to parents?
Explanation: Teachers and educators assess pupils performance constantly throughout their education, do you think that this information should be constantly available to the parents of the pupil throughout their entire education, some of their education or not at all?

Option: What edtech standards should be included State wide?
Explanation: Some states are starting to incorporate standards for using technology. However, these standards are not uniform and often filled with difficult jargon. What standards would we include if asked by our schools to come up with standards? What should students be able to do with various technologies- problem solve, collaborate, etc.?

Option: How should administrators and school leaders take an active part in edtech Professional Development?
Explanation: How should school administrators and leaders be trying to encourage other teachers and leaders to improve on their technology skills

Option: How do you prevent burnout on Social Media?
Explanation: We become much busier as the school year starts. However, teachers still want to keep up with their Twitter, Ning, LinkedIn, Facebook,and other social media accounts. How do we balance our lesson planning, grading, personal lives, etc. and still keep active with our personal learning network?

Option: What objectives are necessary for effective edtech integration?
Explanation: What goals are necessary for effective technology integration into education? How can we assess these goals and decide what they should be? Can be it “Graded” or is it a mistake to think a grading system will not get dated quicker than a system is implemented?

The poll is available here: http://twtpoll.com/oh1hfj

Please provide comments to help me update this post! Some updates thanks to Shelly

Top 5 ways people in Primary Schools can contribute to open source projects

Posted on by primaryt

People working and learning Primary Schools benefit greatly from open source, with limited budgets available to spend on software since the e-learning credit pool of excessive levels of money were available schools have been shocked to find the reality of the cost of software so have opted for free hosted solutions which build their revenue from ads and other alternatives.


Open source tends to mean not for profit and this tends to mean the school pay nothing for the service, this is only possible if people who use the software contribute back to the community to improve the service.

How can you or someone in your school help the open source community?

1. Tell the community about your experiences using the product/service.

2. Proof read for bad grammar and speeling mistakes and/or write documentation for usage.

3. Create resources for the service (if applicable).

4. Recommend the service/product to a friend.

5. Donate to the organization providing the service/product.

If you do just 1 of 5 of these for each of the open source services you use then you are making your life slightly better each time.

How Bradford Primary Schools use Open source without knowing it

Posted on by primaryt

We find lots of schools opting for services provided by hosting companies that are based on open source. So open source is popular, but why?

If you asked a school if they knew what they were using open source they would glaze over, closed or open source isn’t of concern in a Primary school. The reason for this is that Primary Schools do not have the resources to invest in someone who can manage the code for the open source projects so open source is not a concern of theirs.
Free is good, this is the tipping point. “Owt for Nowt” as its often called in Bradford is supplied in many different ways.
The majority of the schools use an open source fault logging, hardware and software inventory and server monitoring service which is free & open source and available as a hosted service to any UK primary school.
On top of that many Bradford schools wont realize that the management/admin of Primary Email is actually open source and has been since Primary Email was first conceived. This wasn’t working too well in Primary Schools but when Primary Email became School Email and the secondary market showed interest in the source, Primary Email began to nurture a few contributors who now write modules for future releases, improving the service for both Primary and Secondary schools.
Do we expect Primary Schools to begin contributing to open source projects?
Yes, but in a different way. Secondary schools employ people who are technical so we can expect some technical feed back. Primary Schools should try to give as much guidance and leadership feedback to open source projects, leading the project developers so that developers can focus on code with a clear strategy and vision implemented by the school itself.