Timeline

My mind is on red alert! Too many thoughts are zooming around so I have tried to get them down on paper. Following the thrid campus session on Wednesday, I have taken Paula's advice and created a sort of timeline to help me focus. I will also be creating a more refined list of 'things to do' just this week. I really recommend doing this - it definitely helps to 'sort' things in your head.

Interview technique

This week I conducted two of my interviews. One interview was with the Vice principal of the school I work in and the other was with a mother of a teenage girl. Something that I noticed and had no anticipated was how differently I had to conduct myself when interviewing two very different people. The interview with the Vice principal was much more formal. I read the questions from my sheet of paper and very much stuck to the wording I had prepared. I was quiet as he spoke with the occassional nod of interest and agreement. When interviewing the mother, I quickly found that the questions were too formal and I needed to differenciate them to suit her understanding. The Vice principal was obviously used to academic style questions and answered in a similar style. This was unsuitable to the mother. I found that I had to almost 'translate' the questions to an appropriate terminology. She also needed more promting to develop her answers through verbal encouragement such as 'yes/ I see what you mean/ can you explain a bit more'.
I found this very interesting as it was something that I have not heard anyone talk about and the experience, although quite obvious with hindsight, was not something Iwas prepared for. I felt pleased with myself that I was able to instantly adapt my technique. Has anyone else had this experience?

Goldsmiths open day

Today I went to Goldsmiths university open day to attend a talk on 'being a secondary school teacher'. The talk was conducted by Ruth Bailey who works at Goldsmiths and the people were there to find out about the PGCE course they offer. It was very eye opening to be told that Drama students are not offered any bussery funds for taking the course whereas students taking a Maths or Science PGCE are entitled to £20,000! This is a prime example of how the government favour these subjects and have no revere for Drama.

Here is the information table provided by the Department for Education. I asked Ruth if Drama came under the 'other priority' section but it doesn't.


Financial incentives for those who train in 2013/14

Training bursary 2013/14	ITT subject/phase
	Physics1, chemistry1, maths	Modern languages	Primary maths specialist2	Other priority secondary3 and primary
Trainee with first	£20,000	£20,000	£11,000	£9,000
2:1	£15,000	£15,000	£6,000	£4,000
2:2	£12,000	£12,000	£0	£0

Guardian article

An excellent article from today's 'Guardian'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/nov/02/arts-leaders-concerns-ebacc-schools?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

Department of Educaiton - What is statutory?

Today I have been researching 'what is statutory?' in education from the Department of Education website. What I have discovered has shocked me. I had no idea that Dance and Drama are not even on the statutory curriculum list! I knew that they were not 'core' subjects but I had no idea that a school can actually choose not to teach them at all! See for yourselves, below:

About the school curriculum:
What is statutory?

Key Stage 1

The statutory subjects that all pupils must be taught at Key Stage 1 are: art and design, design and technology, English, geography, history, information and communication technology, mathematics, music, physical education and science. Religious education must also be provided.

Key Stage 2

The statutory subjects that all pupils must be taught at Key Stage 2 are: art and design, design and technology, English, geography, history, information and communication technology, mathematics, music, physical education and science. Religious education must also be provided.

Key Stage 3

The statutory subjects that all pupils must be taught at Key Stage 3 are: art and design, citizenship, design and technology, English, geography, history, information and communication technology, mathematics, modern foreign languages, music, physical education and science. The teaching of careers education, sex education and religious education is also statutory.

Key Stage 4

Key stage 4 National Curriculum requirements are set out in section 85 of the Education Act 2002, as substituted. Students study a mix of compulsory subjects (core & foundation) and, if they so elect, a course of study in a subject within each of four ‘entitlement’ areas. The compulsory subjects (with statutory programmes of study) are:

Core	Mathematics
	English
	Science *
Foundation	ICT
	PE
	Citizenship

* In relation to science, students have a statutory entitlement to have access to a course of study leading to at least two science GCSEs. Schools have to offer all students access to either science GCSE and additional science GCSE or all three of physics, chemistry and biology GCSEs. Schools may choose to offer other combinations of qualifications, but these must be in addition to, rather than instead of, these combinations.
In addition to the core and foundation subjects, students may opt to follow a course of study in a subject within one or more of the four ‘entitlement areas’ as they may choose. These subjects do not have statutory programmes of study. The entitlement areas and subjects within each of them are:

Entitlement area	Subject
Arts	Art & Design Music Dance Drama Media arts
Design & Technology	Design & Technology
Humanities	Geography History
Modern foreign language (MFL)	Any modern foreign language specified in an order made by the Secretary of State – no such order has been made

The statutory requirements of the entitlement areas are:

• Schools must provide access to a minimum of one course in each of the four entitlement areas.
• Courses available under the entitlement areas must give students the opportunity to obtain a qualification approved by the Secretary of State for the purposes of section 96 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000.

Schools must also provide religious education, sex education and careers education.


Looking on the TES website, I looked in to how many hours in terms of timetabling, lessons should have. This is the Keystage 3 guide line (Years 7 and 8). Note that Drama and Dance are not even mentioned.

KS3 Curriculum Time

Subject	Recommended time per week*	Total hours over year	Percentage of a 21-hour teaching week
English	3 hours	108	12%
Mathematics	3 hours	108	12%
Science	3 hours	108	12%
ICT	1 hour	36	4%
D&T	1½ hours	54	6%
History	1¼ hours	45	5%
Geography	1¼ hours	45	5%
Modern Languages	2 hours	72	8%
Art & Design	1 hour	36	4%
Music	1 hour	36	4%
PE	1½ hours	54	6%
Citizenship	45 minutes	27	3%
RE	1¼ hours	45	5%
TOTAL	21½ hours	774 hours	86%

In my school, KS3 pupils have 18 hours of Maths, English and Science in a 6 week period. They have 2 hours of Drama and 0 hours of Dance in a 6 week period.

Is intelligence based on academic ability?

Today I had a conversation with a colleague of mine who is a Maths teacher. I asked her why she thought that Maths is given more timetable space than other subjects. She immediately informed me that in fact English is given an hour more a week than Maths and she couldn't understand why this was the case. She said that 'everybody can already speak English'. This made me giggle and of course, presumming you have been brought up in England, she was quite right.
I went on to say that I completely see that Maths is very important in day to day life and an education system without Maths, would be unthinkable. I explained my suggestion that education should differenciate between 'numeracy' and 'hardcore maths' more. Those that want to go in to a career where factorising quadratic equations are necessary should opt for 'Maths' and the rest of society can opt for 'numeracy' ( multiplication, graphs, adding and subtraction etc). I believe the same could apply for English. Those who see themselves heading towards a career in poetry, author, journalist, teacher etc, may need to understand personifciation, metaphors and hyperbole. Others, I  believe would benefit more from 'literacy' lessons where they learn spellings, grammar, punctuation and how to read. Believe me when I tell you, these basic skills are not being mastered at the moment in schools!
My colleague didn't agree with my suggestion and said that without the current timetable space for Maths and English, we would be left with an unintelligent society. This I thought was very interesting as she completely confirmed what Ken Robinson had said in his TED talk :
 Robinson talks about how our education system is based on a hierarchy wherein most uesful subjects for a job are considered to be the most important and academic ability has really come to dominate our view of intelligence because the universities designed the system in their image!

Making Mathematics Count article - What are your thought?

I have just read an article taken from a report called Making Mathematics Count, Smith, 2004. I wanted to find some information that explained why Maths is considered to be so important in education. There are many comments from the article that I agree with. I do think Maths is important. My question however, is whether it is more important than other subjects that are not considered 'core' subjects (Maths, Science and English). I would appreciate any thoughts and comments on the section below.

Mathematics is of central importance to modern society. It provides the vital underpinning of the knowledge economy. It is essential in the physical sciences, technology, business, financial services and many areas of ICT. It is also of growing importance in biology, medicine and many of the social sciences. Mathematics forms the basis of most scientific and industrial research and development. Increasingly, many complex systems and structures in the modern world can only be understood using mathematics and much of the design and control of high-technology systems depends on mathematical inputs and outputs. Mathematics provides a powerful universal language and intellectual toolkit for abstraction, generalisation and synthesis. It is the language of science and technology. It enables us to probe the natural universe and to develop new technologies that have helped us control and master our environment, and change societal expectations and standards of living. Mathematical skills are highly valued and sought after. Mathematical training disciplines the mind, develops logical and critical reasoning and develops analytical and problem-solving skills to a high degree. The acquisition of at least basic mathematical skills - commonly referred to as "numeracy"- is vital to the life opportunities and achievements of individual citizens. Research shows that problems with basic skills have a continuing adverse effect on people's lives and that problems with numeracy lead to the greatest disadvantages for the individual in the labour market and in terms of general social exclusion. Individuals with limited basic mathematical skills are less likely to be employed and, if they are employed, are less likely to have been promoted or to have received further training.

Sir Ken Robinson literature review

Sir Ken Robinson is an education and creativity expert. I have come accross a talk he did at the TED conference in 2006.

Are Schools Killing Creativity

In this talk, Robinson gives examples of children (under the age of 10) who, like most children, are artistic and learn through visual, auditory and kinesthetic means. These learning practices, such as drawing, dancing etc are encouraged at this young age but as the child matures, it is customary to discourage such learning measures in favour of an academic education. Robinson believes that this has a negative effect on people. Children slowly become more and more inhibited as their education progesses.
In all countries around the world, creative subjects are given the least learning space, in terms of the number of hours taught per week. Robinson says:

“My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.”

I agree with this statement. In my own place of work, I regulary see pupils who are not academically minded, flurishing in creative subjects. Robinson gives an example of how Gillian Lyn, choreographer of 'Cats', was taken to see a doctor during her school years as her mother thought that she may be ill. Lyn was 'unable to sit still'. These days she may have been diagnosed with ADHD, which medication is prescribed for. Luckily the doctor Lyn saw, performed a small experiment on her rather than medicating her. He left her in a room on her own and turned on the radio. Lyn immediately began to dance. This child was not ill. She had simply not yet found her true calling. She is now a millionaire, highly successful and regarded as one of the world's leading choreographers.

What I found so useful about Robinson's talk was that he understands and explains to the audience that success can not be solely recognised by academic achievment. What does success actually mean? To today's educational board, success means passing exams with an A*-C grade. Most importantly in English, Maths and Science. I myself had to re-take my GCSE science exam in 2010 at the age of 29 so I can go on to teach dance!!! Why is a C grade in science imperritive to a dance teacher?

Robinson also says:

 "our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability". Yet there are so many highly successful individuals who are not academically capable. Or maybe they are, yet they do not consider academic areas to be of interest to them and have chosen a creative path.

I shall be using some of the quotes from Robinson's talk when carrying out questions to my interviewees and look forward to hearing their thoughts in return.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with Robinson that creative subjects should have as much timetable space as academic subjects?

Campus session 2, Module 3

Here is a summary of yesterday's campus session held by Paula and Adesola.

To start of the session, Paula briefly spoke about the literature that we are in the process of collecting. She encouraged us all to create a 'digital file' in which we keep all our sources of literature under. An obvious suggestion, though all of us admitted to having not done this! She also explained that literature can be used from previous references we have come accross during the course ie. Schon. 

Things to do

• For week 7-It is not long until we need to send your advisor a 1 page description of our artefact. This can be blogged but also send directly to your advisor.  
• On week 9, send your advisor your Critical Review draft for feedback. 
• Continue to blog about conversations you  are having about your inquiry at work.
• Watch Peter Thomas' 'writing' youtube clip from libguides
• Say what your action plan is. This will help to remind you what you have left to do and what stage you are up to.

Today we spoke about the Critical Review and then the Professional Artefact.

Critical Review: 
Paula explained to us some of the contents the Critical Review should contain.
In order to show what you have shared with SIGS, you can report any  actual conversations via your blog and/or journal (aswell as any on LinkedIn, Facebook etc).

Explain if/how your writing skills have been improved from doing this course.

Be sure to explain how you interpret certain words. Others may understand a word in a different way. For example, what does the word success mean to you? Financial stability? Fame? Respect? Full time work?

The Critical Review is a piece of writing which explian the journey you have encountered during this course.

This is also true of the Professional Artefact.

Professional Artefact:
Adesola explained to us what the intention of the Professional Artefact is. Just like the Critical Review, the Artefact is there to demonstrate your journey throughout this course. Academics like to see a 'report' in written form, however, as we all come from an artistic background, a written report may not be suitable in your line of work. Your artefact should be formed as a suitable 'language'  that your industry will understand. For example, if you work as a dancer, your artefact might be a dance. Both the Critical Review and the Artefact must show the journey, not the the outcome.

        Critical Review       +        Professional Artefact

 (written form)                     (non written form)

=Two form of explaining 

My lightbulb moment!!

During the session, Paula went round each of us, asking us to explain to the group one of our findings. This exercise was very beneficial to me because I realised that I have been trying to 'prove' that my way of thinking is right rather than acutally carrying out an inquiry. I actually feel that a lightbulb has been switched on in my brain! Up until now, I have been steering the outcome of my inquiry in the way I want it to. Adesola actually said to me ' but that's not an inquiry'. I now realise that it is impossible to know the outcome of an inquiry before you have finished it. Maybe my inquiry will show that dance and drama is not important in mainstream education. Just because I think it is, my finding may show otherwise. I feel very enlightened by this simple realisation. I felt quite embarrassed that I had been so slow to pick up on this, but also reassured when it turned out that other members of the group have been doing the same thing. I will be making sure that my literature resources are not one sided and there is a possibility that my sources of data/interviewees may also have to be reassessed. This is something that I can then reflect upon and talk about in my Critical Review. Adesola also warned us not to try to get your findings/data from your own experiences. You will endoubtedly be biassed!