‘Designing our Tomorrow’ a Journey with Year 7

Marcia Phillip, Head of Design and Technology, discusses some of the projects relating to changes to the D&T curriculum.

“We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. We do not yet know just how it will unfold, but one thing is clear: the response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of the global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society.”

14 Jan 2016 Klaus Schwab Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum Geneva

A new approach in delivering a 21st Century D&T Curriculum

The aim at WHS is to equip students with the new skill set that they will require for the predicted ‘Fourth Industrial revolution 2020’ and to meet the shortage in UK Engineers, especially with women. We needed to change the approach to how Design and Technology is taught in response to a changing world.

As part of my research I came across a project called ‘Designing Our Tomorrow’ (DOT) which was being developed by the University of Cambridge and linked perfectly to where I wanted to take D&T. I made contact and the initial results have already had a significant impact on the students’ learning and experience in Year 7 with WHS now playing a major part of the University’s research. We introduced these projects to our sister schools on 26th June at the annual GDST D&T Conference held at WHS, in the hope that GDST will take the lead in changing how D&T is delivered in schools.

The ‘DOT’ Box ‘Unpacking Asthma’ is the first project trialled at WHS. The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining ran the competition on behalf of the University of Cambridge via their Schools StarPack Awards, where our Year 7 students walked away with the top prizes, despite the project being aimed at Year 9 and Year 10 students. We had a range of textiles and card outcomes which were innovation and responded well to the brief.

About DOT

Designing Our Tomorrow is an initiative from the University of Cambridge that brings together expertise from the Faculty of Education and the Department of Engineering in order to research and develop resources for teaching STEM and secondary level D&T as part of the mainstream curriculum. It puts authentic challenges and engineering practice at the heart of the learning experience.

Unpacking Asthma Project

Sponsored by Peter Brett Associates LLP, and developed by The University of Cambridge in conjunction with the NHS and Asthma UK. Peter Brett Associates LLP (PBA) are an award winning development and infrastructure consultancy consisting of 700 engineers, planners, scientists, and economists delivering major development and infrastructure projects.

www.peterbrett.com

The Brief

The DOT Challenge is a new award that focuses on solving a real world problem. This year’s challenge focuses on the problems with treating asthma with children who are under 6 years old. Solutions that best address this problem received the StarPack Award and their ideas were taken forward for implementation within the NHS, giving students the experience of seeing how ideas are developed and realised in Industry.

Working with Designers

On Thursday 8th June 2017, five of the WHS Award winners had an initial interview by Bill Nicholl, a Cambridge University researcher and Lecturer in Design and Technology Education who has been working on the research and public engagement so that the whole process could be tracked and accurately portrayed in their research paper. The girls were then giving an opportunity to work with international packaging design company D S Smith at their Derby branch on Tuesday 13th June 2017.

The students had an amazing day. There were 10 trainee teachers also present who were looking at how they could implement this in their teaching as well as a parent who has a child who suffers from asthma and wanted to share his traumatic experience and how a child friendly solutions could make a difference to many parents and young child.

The day started with introductions and our girls presenting their concepts to all who were present. They then worked 1 on 1 with a designer, discussing their ideas and further developing them based on the new constraints given by NHS. They all made several iterations before it was time to leave. The day ended with the girls presenting the improved concepts with their designer. However, this was not the end of the story only the beginning, all 12 girls who were entered were shortlisted and achieved an award which they received on 28th June at a special celebration ceremony held in London at the IOM3 offices. The five selected students had another day out on 30th June to present the ideas at the British Paediatric Respiratory Conference.

Presenting at the NHS British Paediatric Respiratory Conference

This was another valuable opportunity where the girls stood and presented their concepts. They responded extremely well to the questions from various delegates who were very impressed with their ideas. After their presentation a number of delegates had further conversations about how the ideas developed and took closer looks at the latest iterations developed in conjunction with DS Smith. A number of delegates were keen to see it progress and one in particular, Sara Nelson RGN from Healthy London Partnership based at the Evelina Hospital at St Thomas, was very interested in running a pilot at her clinic with the textiles monkey bag design created by Sascha. A great day was had by all.

Collaboration

Sascha was asked by Cambridge University to develop her design further over the summer holidays ready for 15th September HLP Asthma Campaign launch. She had adapting her design to made in card to make it more cost effective as the NHS as we know has a tight budget. Her ideas were then forwarded to DS Smith who work on the next iteration.

On the 15th September, our 5 students were asked to work once again with designers from DS Smith in a collaboration with some students from Grieg City academy, who had also entered the competition. This was a partnership of our 5 girls who, were now in Y8, and seven Y10 students from Greig City. The new challenge was to work alongside designers and educational experts to improve the winning monkey card mask design, generate concepts for the supplementary information to go with the mask, to launch the prototype idea and integrate with the Healthy London Partnership Asthma campaign. Students also had to consider making aspects such as the inhalers more inclusive by consider the issues associated with ageing, as one of the stakeholders in this brief was Grandma.

This was an amazing experiencing seeing our students taking leading roles, in the teams they were allocated to, and engaging with a real world context applying their problem solving skills which will make a real difference to young people’s lives. Working alongside industry and educational professionals allowed the girls to experience all aspects of a design process and broaden their horizons through the effects of their efforts in genuine practice.

Evelina Children’s Hospital visit

Sascha, with her winning design, was invited to present her concept to the NHS Lead for Paediatric Respiratory conditions, Richard Iles, and Sara Nelson, ‘Ask About Asthma’ Programme Lead at Evelina Children’s hospital, St Thomas, London on Wednesday 20th September. It was a very exciting opportunity where Sascha was able to discuss her idea with clinicians, had a photo shoot and presented it to a young patient to trial. We were able to see developments of the spacer by industrial companies which were more efficient and could work extremely well with Sascha’s design.

We await the results of the trial period and the next steps. The journey does not stop here for Sascha…

The future

The Asthma competition will run again this year, as Cambridge University and the NHS would like a number of possible solutions that would appeal to different children’s requirements who have asthma. We will be running it with our Year 9 students so watch this space…

The DOT team are in the process of developing other DOT boxes. I have hosted another training session with a project that focuses on Inclusive Design and our ageing population, in the hope that our ‘Designers of Tomorrow’ can empathise and develop commonly used products which cater for the majority of our population without special adaptions.

 

Follow the WHS DT department on Twitter.

Taking the register

James Courtenay Clack considers the way we use language in the classroom.

It started with a pupil in my Year 9 class dismissing Romeo and Juliet’s first meeting as ‘flanter’. Whilst inwardly I shared her sniffiness about their saccharine shared sonnet, there seemed to be a clear challenge coming from this pupil. Would I, as a teacher, and an English teacher no less, allow her to use slang to talk about one of the most famous scenes in all of literature? This got me thinking about the way we use language in the classroom.

With morning and afternoon registration and seven lessons, most pupils can expect to answer the register nine times a day. As important as this rite is in keeping track of pupils, far more interesting is the other type of register pupils flit between. If anyone with a half-keen ear were to follow a pupil around the school for a day, they would notice that the way pupils speak and write changes as they move from home to school, from WhatsApp groups to essays. Rare is the pupil, for example, who answers the question of what they want for breakfast in the same formal and detailed manner in which they would a question about the bleak landscapes of TS Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’.

Register, as coined by Thomas Bertram Reid and developed by Martin Joos, is the sociolinguistic term for the use of language as defined by social situation. Broadly speaking, register is about the level of formality of language and it incorporates elements as disparate as:

  • Vocabulary
  • Tone
  • Dialect
  • Slang
  • Abbreviation
  • Use of full sentences

It is worth thinking about why we use language differently in different contexts. In certain social situations, the answer is obvious. We adopt a more formal register with managers/bosses at work, for example, both as a sign of respect and out of a desire to impress. Similarly, our use of a more informal register with friends belies a level of comfort and intimacy that we do not share with our employers.

For the most part the ability to move between these registers – or at least the knowledge that you speak differently with Mrs Lunnon than you do with your BFFL – is picked up when young. As our social skills develop, our ability to move between registers becomes almost unthinking. When I applied for a job at WHS, for example, I did not have to remind myself not to greet Mrs Lunnon with an ‘alreet pal’ at the start of my interview.

That we use language differently in different social contexts is hardly a ground-breaking observation, but it does have several implications for teachers. Once pupils enter the classroom they are introduced to a new range of registers and in English, there are two main areas of interest, or areas of clash: the way we talk in class discussions and the way we write essays.

Although essays are the main form of assessment, the primary skill being assessed – interpretation of a literary text – is developed in class discussion and debate.

The question of how we speak in class is deeply political. The fact that the ability to use language in certain ways is a form of social currency in this country has moved schools such as Michaela Community School and Harris Academy Upper Norwood to ban the use of certain registers in the classroom.

The desire to equip pupils with the verbal skills required for social mobility is undoubtedly a noble one, but I would argue that such a hard-line approach to register is dangerous. Firstly, the fact that WHS’ A-Level curriculum includes writers as diverse as Chaucer and Tennessee Williams is proof enough that there isn’t one ‘correct’ form of English. Secondly and more importantly, however, is the entire point of class discussions. The reason we discuss and weigh up ideas and not just dictate, Mr Gradgrind style, from the front is that we want to encourage pupils to develop their own voices and their own thoughts.

If pupils are going to develop ideas and formulate opinions through discussion, as they will have to do at university, they will need to feel a sense of ownership over the curriculum. It is for this reason that I encourage my class to voice opinions about texts in their own way and it was for this reason that I whole-heartedly agreed with my Year 9 pupil about Romeo and his ‘holy shrine’. Similarly, if my Year 12 class want to refer to the author of Mrs Dalloway as Ginny Bae, or if my Year 8s want to describe Shylock’s insistence on his pound of flesh as ‘a bit extra’, then why should they not?

It is possible to create an enjoyable learning environment in which pupils feel confident voicing ideas and opinions in their own language whilst at the same time modelling the more rigorous language of academia. So I agreed that yes, Shylock ‘was a bit extra’, but then questioned them as to whether his desire for revenge along with Antonio’s overt anti-Semitism made Shylock a tragic hero in the eyes of a modern audience or whether he was a mere comic foil about whose suffering a contemporary audience would not have cared a jot. That he is both, and more, is testament to the genius of Shakespeare, a man who knew more than most about the power of mixing the language of the court with that of the street YEAH.

Twitter: @English_WHS

Strong Silences

wimbledon logo

Suzanne East, mindfulness lead at Wimbledon High considers the benefits and the challenges of delivering strong silences to students.

At the start of the Autumn term this year we introduced Strong Silences across the school as a positive and calming way to start the school day.  There was, and continues to be, a mixed reaction from both staff and students as to the benefits of this exercise. I suspect that at the start of a busy day it is one activity that often gets forgotten or postponed.  However, I would like to take this opportunity to speak out in favour of trying a little harder, both for ourselves and for our students and give strong silences another go.

Lack of time is the most frequent reason I hear given as to why people get out the habit of practising any mindful meditations. In such busy times we have to prioritise our to-do lists and time spent seemingly doing nothing can be hard to justify.  So what exactly is the intention of a strong silence and what benefits can it offer?

During a short mindfulness practice, such as a strong silence, we exercise a level of self-discipline in stopping our usual busyness and directing our attention elsewhere.  Rather than emptying the mind the aim is to focus on our actual lived reality, perhaps on the movement of the breath, the noises of our surroundings or the physical sensations of the floor and the chair beneath us.  This is difficult to achieve, but we know that we can train the brain in such behaviours and, like any exercise, focussing the mind becomes easier with practice.  As teachers we know that being able to maintain focus on the task in hand is a vital skill that all children need to learn if they are to work and perform to their maximum.  We are frequently warned that modern technologies provide constant interruptions and the brain is always attracted to novelty.  Any practice that can help our students to maintain focus in this sparkly and noisy world must be a vital life skill.

Being able to step back from difficult and demanding tasks can also improve over-all performance on these tasks.  It is often when we allow our mind to focus on a totally different task that creative solutions seem to appear to us.  What we are actually doing here is allowing our brain to look at the bigger picture and see what may elude us when we are too deeply engrossed in a task.  It is often in the shower, or when we are happily drifting off to sleep that our best ideas arise. There are many studies that suggest successful individuals build in renewal phases to their working strategies and that this can build cognitive abilities1.  Encouraging and reminding our students that they need to stop regularly when revising or writing essays can help them to avoid the frustration and burn out that can occur when they try to force themselves to work too long.

There is also a lot to be said for the simple power of silence itself.  In our lives we are constantly under pressure to perform, our opinions are sought and questions are asked; we feel ourselves as being judged by friends, families and those who have authority over us.  With age, most of us are able to build an inner confidence and ability to trust our own values and instincts, but this is a difficult skill for teenagers whose prefrontally cortex-challenged brains and hyper-sensitive amagdala’s are all too quick to tell them that they are social failures.  A strong silence is a time to sit quietly with yourself, time-in as author Daniel Siegel2 put it in his book Brainstorm, the power and purpose of the teenage brain. To stop telling, showing, explaining, reacting and to just be.

So strong silences have a lot to offer and teach our students about how they can take control of their lives and responses to the challenges that they may encounter.  They do not need to take long, they do not need cushions, blankets and uncomfortable postures and could be slotted into our daily routines as an example of how we balance the activities of our day and cater for all of our needs, physical, spiritual and mental. However, one real concern that I do still have is that strong silences delivered without real engagement from teachers could leave students dwelling on negative thoughts, worrying and feeling isolated.  We cannot teach these techniques without developing our own practice and understanding the different experiences that can result.  Ideally students need to follow a course such as the MiSP’s .b or paws b3 that gives the students the context and framework of mindfulness from which they can then develop their own practice.  A strong silence is a powerful tool to add to a day’s routine, but it needs to be nurtured and cared for if it is to really offer these benefits.

1) Chiesa, A., Calati, R., & Serretti, A. (2011). Does mindfulness training improve cognitive abilities?  A systematic review of neuropsychological findings. Clinical psychology review, 31 (3), 449-464.

2) Siegel , D.J (2011) Mindsight Practice A: Time-In.  In: Brainstorm, the power and purpose of the teenage brain p282-3. Scribe Publications.

3) Mindfulness in Schools Project various articles on the benefits of their mindful curricula https://mindfulnessinschools.org/research/

Twitter: @DH_Pastoral

Computer Science at Wimbledon High

Veerman Sajadah, Head of Computer Science, investigates how a change in governmental policy in 2012 impacted the teaching of ICT and Computer Science to current pupils.

2012 marked a major change in secondary education. The education secretary announced that the Information Communication Technology (ICT) curriculum must be scrapped in favour of computer science. While this change was seen as a step forward by many, the debate is still on as to whether our students are missing out on the previously skill based ICT curriculum. Consequently, GCSEs in ICT have now disappeared to make way for new Computer Science (CS) GCSE courses from all major exam boards and all schools have had to adapt. At WHS, students were introduced to CS in Year 7 in 2013. These students were the first cohort to study CS instead of ICT.

The differences between the two subjects have been more contrasting than I anticipated, given that some of the CS content was already being brought into the ICT curriculum. CS offers more challenging topics and the subject content is more specific compared to ICT. ICT topics were seen as more relevant by students not aspiring to pursue a career in technology. If a student wanted to be a historian or lawyer, they could still relate to ICT but when being taught CS topics and programming, they have found it less relevant to what they aim to do in the future.

With all exam boards offering courses in Computer Science rather than ICT, it was important to look closely at their respective specifications. As of date, different exam boards expect different topics to be covered in different depths at GCSE and at A Level. This has major implications on how to structure the KS3 curriculum so that students are ready to cope with the GCSE contents by the end of Year 9.

When we started teaching CS to Year 7 back in September 2013, our students were excited to learn a subject different from what the previous groups had studied. Indeed, CS was a much welcomed change for our girls. This group of students are now in Year 12. Four girls are currently studying the subject at A Level and are keen to study it at University. They are our most senior girls in the subject and the only group from WHS who have a GCSE in CS. Last year’s year 11 result in CS saw all 11 girls score a grade A or A*, (100% A*/A, 46% A*).

Unfortunately, like in many schools, after the first wave of keen Computer Scientist, the numbers of students opting for the subject has fallen. Several studies have been conducted both nationally and internationally to investigate why it has been hard to attract students to study CS. At WHS, we have taken on board these researches and have worked on a plan to address the challenges that we face. We have restructured our KS3 curriculum by introducing key challenging topics early with the aim of making students feel more comfortable and confident with the subject by the time they decide whether to continue studying CS at GCSE. I believe that one of the reasons ICT uptake at GCSE was higher than CS was because students were confident and comfortable with the ICT curriculum. The introduction of programming in early years is also very important to achieve this aim. However, it is not simple to teach complex concepts to children who are too young to learn them. Fortunately, the emergence of several pieces of “children friendly” software that allow students to learn programming through “blockly” has aided teachers incredibly. We are now able to introduce coding to students as early as Year 4. This will produce a generation of students keen and enthusiastic in CS.

On the other hand, there can be a risk of bringing challenging topics to the KS3 curriculum. Students can be put off the subject if they find it too hard. Hence, it is paramount to strike the right balance between “fun” lessons and relevant CS concepts. At WHS, we have brought various new fun activities into our KS3 curriculum. Girls are now able to use the micro:bit to program ringtones and LED strips in Year 7 (see image 1 below). They can create websites and web apps in Year 8 (see image 2 below) and they can use Minecraft and robots to enhance their programming skills in Year 9 (see image 3 below). The department also offers various extra-curricular clubs to engage the students. We are also working with our Scientists in Residence every week to reinforce knowledge learnt in the classroom.

Image 1: Year 7 have been using the micro:bit to program LED lights.

Image 2: Year 8 have been using appshed to create web apps.

Image 3: Year 9 learn how to program the picaxe 20X2 robot.

Our efforts towards promoting this new subject at WHS remain as strong as ever. We are continuously thinking of new ways to promote CS amongst the girls with a view to preparing them for their technological future. We also reach out to Universities such as Imperial College and work with them on projects that allow female students to come in and inspire our pupils. Being a Microsoft Showcase school, we are lucky to participate in events run by Microsoft and we are also looking at inviting experts to deliver talks on latest technologies and innovations in the world of CS. The future of the subject at WHS is bright and we are all ready to embrace it.

Research articles:

1.Computing or ICT: which would serve our pupils better?

https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/aug/12/computing-ict-curriculum-teaching-debate

2.Encouraging Girls to Participate in Computer Science

https://www.slideshare.net/kimarnold28/encouraging-girls-to-participate-in-computer-science-1-092014

3.School ICT to be replaced by computer science programme

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16493929

4.Women in Computer Science: Getting Involved in STEM

https://www.computerscience.org/resources/women-in-computer-science/

 

Twitter: @CS_IT_WHS

Chaucerian Challenges: Studying The Merchant’s Tale at English A Level

Studying Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Merchant’s Prologue and Tale from The Canterbury Tales as part of A Level English is, undoubtedly, a daunting prospect for any Year 12 or 13 student. It is intimidating reading unfamiliar Middle English aloud in class (e.g. ‘fetisly’ – elegantly; ‘chidestere’ – nagging woman). However, despite initially seeming inaccessible, Chaucer is anything but elitist. In fact, the challenges of studying his work is what makes it continually surprising and rewarding. Stephanie Gartrell, Second in English KS4 at Wimbledon High School, explores the challenges and delights of studying Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ in Sixth Form…

English students face the challenge of identifying a clear moral from the competing narrative voices throughout The Canterbury Tales. The frame narrative establishes the central plot: a socially diverse group of pilgrims travelling from Southwark to the tomb of Thomas Becket. En route, they initiate a rather profane tale-telling competition to liven up what is, ostensibly, a journey of spiritual reflection and penitence. The prize for the best story? A free meal at the Tabard Inn, Southwark, on their return. Thus, from the outset, a conservative framework of Catholic ritual is subverted by a much more anarchic series of interrupted tales. Many tales are replete with ribald vulgarity typical of the fabliau genre; others use Estates Satire to expose institutional corruption; several puncture courtly pretensions of more high-status literary genres or forms (fin amor, chanson de geste, sermons…).

Our text falls in the so-called ‘Marriage Group’ in which the Wife of Bath, Clerk, Merchant and Franklin share tales that directly rebut and challenge one another’s views on marriage. This further destabilises a clear moral message about what constitutes the ideal marriage or marital partner. Some critics, such as George Lyman Kittredge, perceive the Franklin’s final message of mutual love and respect to be closest to Chaucer’s own views (‘We need not hesitate, therefore, to accept the solution that the Franklin offers as that which Geoffrey Chaucer the man accepted for his own part…’). However, there is a residual sense of irresolution on the matter. There is no authorial intrusion or omniscient narrator to clarify our ‘take-away’ message before the Tales move on.

Chaucer also builds a tantalising pattern of parallels and contradictions within The Merchant’s Tale itself. For instance, the Merchant’s Prologue reveals the Merchant to be unhappily married for ‘Thise monthes two’, describing marriage as ‘the snare’ and yearning to be ‘unbounden’. Nevertheless, his tale begins with a disconcerting eulogy lasting 135 lines in praise of marriage. This eulogy is generally perceived as a ‘mock encomium’, satirising the foolish naivety of the aged knight January whose idealised and blinkered view of matrimony as a ‘hooly boond’, echoes the Merchant’s earlier image of wedlock as a binding ‘snare’ or trap, transforming it into a sacred tie. Similarly, January’s vision of a wife as his ‘paradis terrestre’ (earthly paradise) ironically subverts the Merchant’s description of his ‘wyves cursednesse!’ The fact that large sections of the mock encomium are neither direct nor reported speech further blurs to what extent we are reading a filtered version of January’s beliefs, or whether the ironically inappropriate Old Testament examples of female virtue (Eve, Judith, Abigail…) are supposed to express the Merchant’s misogyny to the reader.

To summarise the plot of The Merchant’s Tale very roughly: after 60 years as a promiscuous bachelor, January finally decides to marry a teenage bride named May. Whilst his concerns are partly economic (to beget an heir), his primary motive is to legitimise his lustful desires and protect himself from sin. January is comically specific in his ideal bride: ‘She shal nat passe twenty yeer’ and he refuses to marry any ‘woman thritty [thirty] yeer of age’, who he dismisses as ‘bene-straw’ [dried bean-stalks]. Chaucer swiftly debunks any notion of January embodying chivalric values of spiritual refinement, repeatedly applying the ironic epithets ‘gentil’ [refined] and ‘noble’ to his protagonist, highlighting the absence of these stereotypical knightly qualities. Might this partly reflect some of the Merchant’s own social anxiety – a nameless member of the trading classes aggrandising his fictional self to the status of a knight? Or is the Merchant attempting to expose the fiction of aristocratic nobility to comfort his own wounded pride? Again, it could be neither or both!

In any case, January’s young bride May quickly establishes an affair with their servant Damyan. When January is unexpectedly struck blind, they capitalise on this opportunity to consummate their affair in a pear-tree in January’s private garden, at which point January miraculously regains his sight. With a bit of female ingenuity, May explains that his sight is still impaired and not to be trusted. The gullible knight accepts her explanation and continues to live in a state of prelapsarian Edenic bliss with his ‘paradis terrestre’ – remaining blind figuratively, if not literally…

One of the main pleasures of teaching and studying The Merchant’s Tale is because it is difficult. Ambiguities abound. For instance, who is in the ‘snare’ of marriage by the end of The Merchant’s Tale: May, who is largely voiceless and objectified, or January, the architect of his own trap, likely to raise an illegitimate son as his heir? Why would the Merchant present January as such a contemptible lecher if his main moral were to vilify wives? And are we imposing 21st values onto a 14th century text by casting May as a proto-feminist figure struggling for sexual autonomy?

And if that weren’t enough of a challenge, students compare The Merchant’s Tale to Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband – a divergent text in form and context. An Ideal Husband was first performed on stage in 1895 for the Victorian elite at the Haymarket Theatre, whilst The Canterbury Tales is a narrative poem from the 1390s. However, despite the 500 year gap, both texts share a prescient (and hopefully timeless) interest in exposing individual folly and abuses of institutional power – whether religious or political. They mock moral hypocrisy and the false ideals perpetuated by those guilty of self-deception or duped by sentimental dogma.

Since all of these concerns are as pertinent today as they were for Chaucer and Wilde, it seems vital that students continue to engage with the delightful, troubling complexities of Chaucer’s work.

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The importance of belonging

Jane Lunnon

By Head, Jane Lunnon.

Earlier this year, research published by the Girl Guides suggested that girls as young as 8 years old are feeling the pressure of gender stereotyping. Amidst much commentary around the ‘mental health crisis’ besetting our young people, girls in particular, alarming headlines accompanied the publication of The Millennium Cohort Study (research by Liverpool University). As a Head teacher, I am often asked why there is such a worrying decline in the mental health of young people and I do my best to answer. I talk about the impact of commercialised childhoods, of exam pressure enhanced by league tables and economic gloom and the perceived impossibility of ever being able to realise adult aspirations, of the omnipresent digital landscape with its relentless messaging about various forms of unattainable perfection, of crazily late nights and reduced sleep poring over snapchat and of the over-protective adult generation which has worked so hard to contain the recklessness of youth that it has unwittingly taught children to be fearful and timid rather than independent and self-assured.

All of these things and probably a whole lot more feed into the problem and there are many people much better qualified than me to speculate on them. What I can do though, is talk with great certainty and with my whole heart, about the things we can (and do) do, in our schools, to enhance wellbeing and to keep our girls engaged and truly grounded in their work and play. And things which don’t necessarily cost a penny.

There are two key ideas which seem to matter most in helping to develop the happiness and confident achievement of our young people.  Firstly, it’s about belonging. And I don’t mean this as a weak sentimental cliché. More than ever perhaps, our teens need to feel that they belong to something bigger than themselves and their social media echo chambers. They need to feel that they are part of something that matters and has a sense of continuity, value and resonance far beyond the latest baby that Kim Kardashian is paying someone to have for her. In the past, that need might have been filled by the Church or by the local community, by the family, or even by an accepted collective sense of nationhood. And I know that many young people of whatever faith are lucky enough to still find solace and identity through some or all of these things. But this is not invariably or universally the case now. And that is where schools come in. They can fill a vacuum where and if there is one. No matter what or where the school, every child in it belongs to something larger than themselves. They are part of a joint, collective enterprise full of the energy, industry, imagination, beliefs and expertise of large numbers of people who broadly care about stuff that really matters: learning, their subjects, the development and wellbeing of other people.  And that is hugely powerful and inspiring. Their school connects children to the past – to the generations who have come through the school gates before them – and to the future – all those who will follow after them. And every school has its own story, which it will be telling in its own way. This matters and is one important ingredient in our bid to help our children make sense of the world and their part in it. They will find themselves by looking beyond themselves. And that’s an important skill for teenagers to learn.

The second key thing is about wonder. One of our school aims (perhaps the one that resonates most strongly with me), is our bid to nurture scholarship, curiosity and a sense of wonder in our girls. That idea – which is about the delight and satisfaction and joy that can come from the process of questioning, exploring, discovering…feels absolutely central. Of course, the wonder can be in many forms. It may be from finally unpicking a torturously challenging maths question, or from suddenly spotting something beautiful in a line of poetry, or from asking something crazy in a science lesson and finding out the astonishing answer. It could be from playing your violin in the third row of the school orchestra and finding that collectively you are making an incredible sound. Or from finally nailing a move on the football pitch. Or from finding that you had a powerful voice in a debate or as an actor or as a stand-up comedian. It could even be from simply looking afresh at the playground with your mates and being glad that the sun is shining briefly on your school! It doesn’t much matter what it is but it does matter that we work hard to develop it. Not least because that is what makes working in schools such enormous fun for us all. So, schools as a place full of collective wondering…that’s what we need to be offering, that’s where power is. As Edgar Allen Poe pointed out: ‘it is a happiness to wonder; — it is a happiness to dream’.

Perhaps that’s as good a response as any to the malaise of our times.

@Head_WHS

This article first appeared in TES on 26th January 2018.

An environmental education: more than ‘saving the world’?

Globe

Nicola Higgs, Head of Geography, investigates the importance of an environmental education and challenges us to think about the concept in a more complex way.

Environmental education is not simply about ‘saving the whale’ or indeed ‘saving the world’. It is equally about the development of an appreciation of the wonders and beauty of the world, and a sense of wanting to save it – in short, the development of ecological thinking or of an environmental ethic (Palmer, 1998, p. 267).

Environmental education as described by Joy Palmer above is a relatively young, but increasingly significant, area of study. The importance of developing means to live more sustainably, conserving natural resources, and preserving the Earth for its future inhabitants are at the heart of environmental education. However, it does not always hold the priority in education systems that this urgency advocates, and it seems to constantly be battling for its position against the “intricacies and demands of education in general rather than be a core element of it” (Palmer, 1998, p. ix).

The 1968 UNESCO Conference called for all education systems at all levels to provide space and resources in the curriculum to learn about the environment and to create a global awareness of environmental problems. The definition of environmental education was agreed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)/UNESCO in 1970:

…the process of recognising values and clarifying concepts in order to develop skills and attitudes necessary to understand and appreciate the inter-relatedness among man, his culture, his biophysical surroundings. Environmental education also entails practice in decision-making and self-formulation of a code of behaviour about issues concerning environmental quality (IUCN, 1970).

And in 1975 the UN founded the International Environmental Education Programme, which had 3 clear objectives:

  1. Foster clear awareness of and concern about economic, social, political, and ecological inter-dependence in urban and rural areas
  2. Provide every person with opportunities to acquire the knowledge, values, attitudes, commitment and skills needed to protect and improve the environment
  3. Create new patterns of behaviour of individual, groups and society as a whole towards the environment

This strong international focus on environmental issues and environmental education reflected increasing public interest on the environment. Fast-forward to 2018 and environmental education has, in many ways, been deprioritised within national and international school curriculums across the world, due to competing tensions between the significance of the environment compared to economic and social development (Tippins, Mueller, van Eijck, & Adams, 2010).

The folly in this is that in order that people and societies can continue to function and develop we must look to find balance in the human-environment relationship. As educators we have a duty to ensure that students are equipped to handle the 21st century world which they will inherit. Understanding the way in which space-place-environment operates as a conceptual and procedural nexus, each inseparable from the other, will be crucial in achieving the sustainable development ideal. Teaching ‘about the environment’ is no longer enough, teaching ‘for sustainability’ has the potential to engage and reinforce the tools with which our girls will enter the world and lead the change we need to see (Corney & Middleton, 1996).

An approach that we have adopted in the Geography Department at Wimbledon High School is to ensure schemes of learning at all key stages build on the concept of sustainable development, that is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Brundtland Report, 1987). We expose our students to a variety of real-world scenarios in which they could have an impact in the future.

For example, Year 8 have recently debated the construction of a wind energy farm having first designed and built a prototype wind turbine in the STEAM room, Year 9 will evaluate options for development of the low-income country Zambia in the face of an increasingly interconnected world. Year 10 and 11 explore the tensions between our quickly urbanising global population and the growing size of ecological footprints beyond the boundary of the city, whilst proposing sustainable solutions to issues of water stress and water scarcity in the UK, which, as Londoners, will be critically important to them.

As a Geographer I feel a sense of duty to ensure that my students have as full an appreciation and understanding of environmental issues as I am able to help them discover. The complexity of environmental problems, opinions and solutions is vast, and our programmes of education at WHS aim to inform, empower and inspire:

Our task as environmental educators in the 21st century is to recognise this complexity of experience, and to assist the overall process – by striving to implement programmes of education that inform our students about the complexities of the environment in which they are growing up; empower them to address environment and development issues in their own lives; and provide them with opportunities to be inspired by the joys, wonder and mysteries of the natural world and human achievement (Palmer, 1998, p. 277).

Environmental education is vital for our future, it could well be the most important thing we teach our young people. Subjects and disciplines change and evolve, as societies and politics and belief systems and ideologies change and evolve, and priorities for people and countries change.  The future belongs to these young people; they have a right to be able to fully engage in it, and above all to be well informed about it.

Follow @Geography_WHS on Twitter.

References and further reading:

Corney, G., & Middleton, N. (1996). Teaching environmental issues in schools and higher education. In E. Rawling & R. Daugherty (Eds.), Geography into the twenty-first century (pp. 323–338). Chichester: Wiley.

Palmer, J. A. (1998). Environmental education in the 21st century: theory, practice, progress and promise. London: Routledge.

Tippins, D. J., Mueller, M. P., van Eijck, M., & Adams, J. D. (Eds.). (2010). Cultural studies and Environmentalism. The Confluence of EcoJustic, Place-based (Science) Education, and Indigenous Knowledge Systems. New York: Springer.

Ted Talk – ‘Let the Environment Guide our Development (Johan Rockstrom) https://www.ted.com/talks/johan_rockstrom_let_the_environment_guide_our_development

Where academic and pastoral meet: why we should value what we remember and will remember what we value.

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Fionnuala Kennedy, Deputy Head (Pastoral), looks at research in to memory and how this can be used to aid revision for examinations.

As with most of my thoughts about education, this one was provoked by a conversation over supper and a glass of wine with someone not involved in the educational field. Unlike most of my thoughts about education, it is based on the work of a Dutch psychologist and Chess Master born in 1914, whose initial thesis, “Het denken van den schaker”, was published in 1946 (the English translation, “Thought and Choice in Chess”, appeared in 1965).
During the 40s, 50s and 60s, Adriaan de Groot conducted a series of cognitive chess experiments which ultimately formed the basis for ‘chunking’ theory and allowed for the development of chess computers. Testing all levels of chess player, from rank beginners through to Grand Masters, de Groot’s goal was to explain how the very best chess players could visually absorb a full chess board, assess the positions of pieces, process the different numbers of moves they could make next and rank them in order of preference, and all within seconds. This process was divided into four key phases, occurring rapidly in sequence:

  1. The orientation phase – assessing the position and coming up with general ideas of what to do
  2. The exploration phase – analysing concrete variations
  3. The investigation phase – deciding on the best move
  4. The proof phase –confirming the validity of the choice reached in phase three.

This in itself is an incredibly useful model of thought and study, particularly for the examination student under pressure of time. It is, however, not this which really piqued my interest in de Groot’s study, but rather the next phases of his thinking which have since been built upon by psychologists in the US.

Having determined the role of visual perception and thought processes of Grand Masters that lead to their success, de Groot went on to consider how they would memorise and what it was about that method of memory which made them so particularly successful. And the findings were – and are – fascinating.

In de Groot’s most famous demonstration, he showed several players images of chess positions for a few seconds and asked the players to reconstruct the positions from memory.  The experts – as we might predict – made relatively few mistakes even though they had seen the position only briefly.  So far, so impressive. But, years later, Chase and Simon replicated de Groot’s finding with another expert (a master-level player) as well as an amateur and a novice.  They also added a critical control: the players viewed both real chess positions and scrambled chess positions (that included pieces not only in random positions, but also in implausible and even impossible locations). The expert excelled with the real positions – again, as might have been predicted – but performed no better than the amateur and even the novice for the scrambled positions. In essence, then, the expert advantage seems only to come from familiarity with actual chess positions, something that allows more efficient encoding or retrieval of the positions. The grand master’s memory, the test suggests, will only have absorbed the positions on the board which matter to them, which have meaning and purpose; it is not that their memories are simply ‘better’, or better-trained, but that they have become more efficient in storing meaningful patterns. Without that meaning, the expert and the novice will both struggle equally.

And this amazed me, and got me thinking. As educators, we know that theories about the ways in which we think and remember come and go, that pupils may learn in different ways, at different ages, in varying degrees of success and failure, and thus we shouldn’t jump on too many bandwagons pedagogically. I know for example that I am almost certainly more reliant on audio and visual modes of learning than kinesthetic, but then I suspect that’s because the latter didn’t really exist when I was at school; and I also tend to believe that I remember letters and words better than numbers, but this I now recognise to be because I grew up with parents who listened to music and read literature. It is not that our brains can or cannot remember aspects of learning; it is not necessarily that we have different ways of thinking and remembering and learning, or indeed brains which ‘absorb’ certain information better or worse than others. Rather:

We will remember that to which we ascribe value; we will memorise where there is pattern and meaning.

Which only goes to add more grist to the mill to Mrs Lunnon’s message delivered in our opening assembly this term: ‘What I do is me: for that I came’ (Manley-Hopkins). If we approach learning as a task which must be achieved simply to obtain an end-goal, we simply will not learn as well. Rather, if each task is ascribed a meaning and value for and within itself, it will become much easier to remember and store away. Thinking ‘I want to get 10/10 in my Spanish vocab test because I want to be top of the class’ will only make your task more difficult. Looking at each word you are learning and putting it into a context where you might use it one day, or including it in a joke in Spanish, or making a connection between the words, will save you time and maximise the chances of your brain storing that information away for you for longer.

What’s more – and this is where the pastoral side really kicks in – such an approach takes away the slog and grind of learning. Instead, meaning will surround us and be ascribed in all we do. And, of course, more excitingly than that: if we are on the look-out for meaning, it will help us to find the area which feels the most meaningful for us, in which we can readily spot and identify patterns of meaning and which fills us with joy and satisfaction. And it is this, and not simply a desire to do well or know more, which will lead to true mastery as we negotiate the chess board of our own learning and lives.

Follow @DHPastoralWHS and @Head_WHS on Twitter.

Engineering – Take a closer look

Alex Farrer, one of our Scientists in Residence, looks at the value of science capital and the potential that this can have on future careers in the sciences.

Engineering 2018

2018 is the Year of Engineering – a government campaign to support the engineering profession in recruiting tomorrow’s engineers. Over the last 30 years efforts to attract girls and women into engineering have been unsuccessful. Currently less than 1 in 8 of the engineering workforce is female; boys are 3.5 times more likely to study A level Physics than girls; and boys are five times more likely to gain an engineering and technology degree (Engineering UK 2017).

Our STEAM focus at Wimbledon High provides insights into a variety of opportunities in engineering and in related areas such as design, sports, medicine and computer science. Through STEAM we strive to broaden what counts as science and help build the skills that future employers will value highly such as communication, problem solving and adaptability. We aim to encourage all pupils from Reception to Year 13 to think that STEAM is relevant and important to their lives, both now and in the future, and aim to build their science capital.

A national survey of young people aged between 11 and 15 found that 5% had a high level of science capital (ASPIRES projects).

Professor Louise Archer from UCL Institute of Education, directs the ASPIRES projects and has developed the concept of science capital which refers to someone’s science related qualifications, understanding, knowledge, interests, attitudes and contacts.

The Science Capital Teaching Approach aims to build on the existing science capital of pupils, encourage engagement with science and promote social justice.

If you have a high science capital you might:

  • watch scientific TV programmes
  • have science qualifications
  • enjoy reading popular science books
  • have friends and relatives that work in science and engineering professions
  • visit science museums and fairs
  • engage in science related hobbies or activities
  • talk about science and engineering news topics with people you know

The evidence from this research project shows that the more science capital a pupil has the more they will aspire to continue with sciences post-16 and see science and engineering as fulfilling roles.

Below are some suggestions that schools could consider to build the science capital of pupils and adults in their communities so that everyone sees science and engineering as something of value.

  1. Host a family STEAM challenge event. This will help to encourage science talk with family members and show that STEAM is for everyone in the school community.
  2. Encourage science and engineering activities to “pop up” in the playground. Pupils, parents or staff could run the activities and the high visibility will encourage all members of the school community to get involved.
  3. Celebrate interest in scientific TV programmes and films. For example show a screening of a film like Hidden Figures with scientists or historians on hand to answer any questions, or encourage staff and pupils to talk about the science on TV they have seen.
  4. Signpost STEAM books, magazines and events to staff and pupils. An example is Itch by Simon Mayo, which contains a great deal of chemistry, and there are also some excellent science magazines such as Whizz Pop Bang and BBC Focus that can be linked to lesson content.
  5. Think about ways to get families talking about STEAM homework that is set. Linking tasks to science or technology in the news will encourage talk as will setting tasks where help from adults is very much encouraged such as making a marble run, growing a mystery seed or taking a STEAM photograph.
  6. Find out the sorts of science interests, hobbies, and expertise pupils and their families have so that lessons and assemblies can be personalised. Setting a “Science and me” homework will heWHS Gymnasticlp to discover how many parents and pupils you have in your class with scientific interests and skills.
  7. Elicit and value the wider links that pupils have to science and engineering and draw upon them in lessons. For example using the experience of a gymnast in your class in a physics lesson will enable pupils to broaden what they thinks counts as science in their life.
  8.  Invite scientists and engineers that pupils will relate to into lessons and encourage them to talk about the skills and attributes they use. This could be a parent who uses STEAM skills in their job, a STEM Ambassador or someone who has relevant interest and knowledge. Even better if the scientist or engineer visits a lesson other than science! @STEMAmbassadors

Science lesson Wimbledon

If you are a primary teacher and would like to find out more about how you can build science capital in your school we will be hosting a Science Capital Workshop on February 7th 1.30-3.30pm. Please contact joanna.sandys@wim.gdst.net if you would like to come along.

If any parents with STEAM expertise would enjoy sharing some of their knowledge, skills and insights with our pupils please do let antonia.jolly@wim.gdst.net know and we will be in touch.

We look forward to enriching the science capital of our community in this exciting Year of Engineering as our STEAM journey continues.

Follow @STEAM_WHS on Twitter – #YoE

Mindful revision: how to make the best of the revision period

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As mock exams start, Suzanne East, our Mindfulness Lead, looks at how we can manage the pressures of examination revision to achieve our best and stay healthy.

As the Christmas holidays approached and the festivities were beginning to get into full swing, I wished my Y11 tutor group Merry Christmas and asked how they were planning on spending the holiday period; “revision”, they groaned in reply. In their eyes was written the despair at the prospect of sitting alone in garret-like bedrooms struggling with never-ending lists of dates whilst the sounds of forbidden parties drifted up to torment them.

Faced with this, I sought ways to encourage them, and found that mindful practise offered some practical suggestions. So here are my top five tips on how to survive revision, especially revision during the holiday period, in a most mindful way!

  1. Acceptance

At the end of the day, it is what it is and you will not feel any happier by constantly thinking of other things you could be doing. Being constantly updated on the fun that others are having will not help, so put the device away and get on with it!

  1. Focus

Mindful practice encourages you to bring the focus of your attention back to a chosen point, perhaps the breath. We all get distracted but we can improve our attention with regular practice – a vital skill in completing any task! Remember to be kind (you will not be able to focus all the time) but notice the drifting away of attention and gently bring it back to the job in hand.

  1. Self-awareness

Away from the routines of school this is a time when students may be alone for long periods and need to take responsibility for their own care. Mindful practice encourages paying attention to yourself, how are you feeling physically, mentally and emotionally. By getting to know yourself you can make sure you stop and eat when hungry, get some exercise when sluggish and meet up with friends when feeling lonely.

  1. Savouring the good

It is easy to let revision seep into all aspects of the day. Even when not actually doing revision it can hijack your thoughts; regretting not doing more or dreading going back.  Mindfulness practice teaches how to be fully in the moment, so if you are doing some revision, pay attention and do it, but equally when you are having a break really have a break. Immerse yourself in a long soak in the bath, enjoy chatting with your friends when you meet up for coffee, savour that chocolate and get out and be in the world that is buzzing away with life all around you.

  1. Kindness

Remember mocks are a practice run. Things will not always go to plan, and this is almost certainly true of revision plans. Mindful practice encourages students to explore areas of difficulty and to accept that life can make you feel sad, angry and frustrated. No one likes to feel like this, but these are feelings we cannot escape from. Get to know them and learn how you can move forward, being as kind and supportive to yourself as you would to a good friend.

Of course, none of the above come easily.  Regular practice is essential in building mindful habits, but the rewards can be quite life changing, especially when the going gets tough.

Follow @DHPastoralWHS for regular Pastoral updates at Wimbledon High.