Suddenly we begin to hear a new phrase used with increasing frequency in the press, at conferences, during training sessions, in the staff room. Do you remember some years ago it happened with "creativity"? Gradually we begin to build an understanding of what the new phrase means and then consider how it will impact on our settings and the children we work with. Sometimes, with interpretation, we begin to understand that the new phrase, in part, relates to something that we have valued for some time. I believe this to be the case with Personalised Learning and the young child but before I explore this let us look at the big picture of the government’s agenda around "Personalised Learning" and how the phrase has become so high profile.
Background
In the Spring of 2004, David Milliband, (then Minister for Standards) gave a speech in the North of England in which he spoke about the individual’s opportunity for Choice and Voice. How everyone should have the chance to take the educational pathway right for them and how the individual should have the opportunity and the ability to voice his/her opinions and views within their community and society in general. He said “The question facing us today is simple; what do we need to do to make personalised learning the defining feature of our educational system?” *1
The government’s agenda was further emphasised by Charles Clarke (then Secretary of State for Education) when as Mike Gibbons (Lead Director,Innovation Unit)*2 says in his foreword to “Learning about personalisation:”Charles Leadbetter “You would be hard pressed to disagree with Charles Clarke’s comment that “in this changing world we know that education has to put the learner at the centre”…the debate now is about how we can do this.”
The government believes that personalised learning should offer:-
- High standards for all
- The best children’s services, individually tailored to their needs and circumstances
- The most effective teaching, which is based on deep knowledge of each pupil, of what they already know, how they learn and what helps them to progress
- Teaching that ultimately offers each pupil a personalised pathway to more education and employment
- …..”so that the system fits to the individual rather than the individual having to fit to the system”… (Department for Education and Skills: Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners. July 2004)*3
The question then for practitioners is how do we do it: how do we make the system respond to the individual’s needs?
Let me share with you the route I took as the Headteacher of a large Primary School(500 children) which includes a Nursery and Children’s Centre catering for children with an age range of 6 months to 11 years. For the purpose of this article I am focussing on the children in our Children’s Centre, Nursery, and Foundation Stage which for us extends into Year 1, in total 250 children weekly covering the age range of 6 months to 6 years.
In February 2004 I was invited by the Innovation Unit (Dfes) to join a national experimental workshop involving 30 Headteachers (settings age range 6 months to 19 years including Special Schools and Units) to consider what personalisation could look and feel like in practice. How could it change schools? How could it alter teaching and learning? What kind of relationships would be needed to support personalised learning? Initially we were asked to consider what we thought Education might look like in 2020. A challenging experience! Ask yourself the question now. What do you think education will look like in 15 years time? I used the same question with my staff (39 teachers / support / admin /site). We began by looking at where we had been 16 years ago (remember I did this last year) and 16 years ago we had been celebrating the school’s centenary. We reflected on the fact that the year was 1988 which was also the year of the Education Reform Act which introduced the National Curriculum, Testing for 7,11,14,and 16 year olds, a change in the way in which schools were funded and a change in the role of the Governing Body….and look what’s happened since then….Ofsted..Targets…Literacy / Numeracy Strategies / Foundation Stage Curriculum /Profiles /Birth to 3 Matters / The Primary Strategy: Excellence and Enjoyment…etc,etc..
So project forward 16 years to 2020 what might the changes be in the next 16 years? What will learning look like? Where will it take place? Who will lead the learning? Well already we have a major change with Workforce remodelling resulting changing roles and in the creative ways settings are using support staff and specialists such as sport coaches, musicians, artists enabling us to offer a wider choice of activities to children. The government initiative resulting in “Every Child Matters” sees us beginning to work more closely with multi agencies and the “Extended Schools Agenda” offers flexibility of provision so that the child’s day outside the home may begin before 8a.m. and end after 6.p.m.After School Clubs offer both child care and opportunities to try out activities that currently the school day has little space (time) for. Already we have in place opportunities to respond to the individual needs of a child…putting the child at the centre of the learning.
The management challenge is how we bring it all together in a manageable way.
- One outcome of the workshop was to produce a tool kit in box form that gives practitioners the opportunity to explore their thoughts together, to visualise a fully personalised school / setting. It is called Picture This! planning for personalisation. The activity is fun and in no way prescriptive. The outcome is what you as a group believe is possible for your setting within your community. Try it… email dfes@prolog.uk.com and quote DfES/0904/2004 to get your free box.
- A second outcome of the workshop was a roll out series of conferences across the country at which practitioners shared in the activity challenging themselves and each other to be able to think outside the constraints of current practice. You can see what people thought and did by going to www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/innovation-unit/
- And finally 100 Headteachers met with David Milliband in December to share our vision for Personalisation and the issues around moving forward. Since then both he and Charles Clarke have moved posts in a government reshuffle but I return to the point I made earlier which is the consideration of how in Early Years I feel we have always tried to put the child at the centre of the learning. The practice should not be dependent on government initiatives.
Mount Pleasant School . Personalised Learning…a work in progress!
To begin our reflection on the government initiative we took stock of the current “Learning Journey” of each child.
- What was the experience for the 2 year old , the 4 year old, the 6 year old? Every individual child.
- How did we know?
- What evidence could we provide to support our statements? What form did the evidence take?
- What did we consider to be the entitlement for each child in their Learning Journey?
- How did we take into consideration their individual point of view?
- …their parent / carer’s point of view?
Giving users a voice:-
how can parents and children be given a greater say?
- What was our current practice that enabled the child or the parent to make a choice about learning?
how can children and parents and be supported in making better choices?
- What was our current practice that enabled the child and the parent to make informed choices about learning?
- What practice promoted the child’s skills for independence and ability to take more responsibility for informed choice?
- What life skills should we be building as part of a child’s development?
Over a period of time and by using a variety of “inservice methods” the whole staff addressed the above questions through:-
**Whole staff meetings,
**Year meetings,
** Cross Phase meetings,
Governors
**School Council -Y1 to Y6,
**Site users,
**Action Research
until we come to where we are now on our journey to personalise learning.
- we reflected,
- we listened,
- we responded,
- we built on current practice,
- we changed some of our practice,
and we know we have a work in progress!
Current Practice.
As with all change this practice has evolved over a period of time .
- We created a Children’s Centre to actively engage family members with children’s learning and development. There are weekly sessions for groups of children to spend time with a member of their family sharing play based activities. The groups are in ages so that our Mini – Mounties are 6months to around 12 months. Our Tweenies are around 12months to 2 years and our Play group sessions cater for the 2-3 year olds. The groups are small with no more than 10 children (plus 10 family members) in each session of Mini’s and Tweenies. The Play groups are no more than 16 with a weekly rolling programme of family involvement. In any week we can engage with up to 100 children. The workers are NNEB’s Classroom Assistants and Student’s from neighbouring Colleges and have created an environment that is non threatening, informal and fun. There are drop in visits from Health Visitors, the School Nurse and members of the local community although as these are voluntary they are not as many as we would like. There is a great deal of informal communication throughout and we have found that parents and family members feel informed about and involved with their child’s learning and development. There is support for each other from within the group and modelling of good practice and parenting skills from both leaders and group members. Questions arise and can be answered then so that informed choice becomes established.
- We have a Wrap around Care facility in the Breakfast Club, Kid’s After School Club and Holiday Club which offers care from 7.45a.m. – 5.30p.m. daily and Holiday care which often sees children taken off site for visits or working with specialists on site. Plans are made after discussion with children and parents.
- There is an extensive before and after school club programme offered by teaching, support staff,and bought in coaches from October half term to July. Some of the club’s run for 6 week taster sessions others may run throughout the year. The skills and talents of both children and staff extend the learning experiences including the life skills of choice, teamness, problem solving, stickability and perhaps the most important one, self discovery in finding that a new experience may light a spark, fan an interest that will grow and give great personal pleasure.
- We have an extensive Visits out and Visitors in programme that runs from our Children’s Centre throughout the school funded by both school and parents so that the learning activity is augmented by quality additional experiences involving people that are not teachers expanding children’s understanding that learning can be anywhere and led by anyone.
- The PIPProgramme (Parents in Partnership) offers real opportunity to become involved in the child’s learning. From Playgroup through to Year 2 there are regular opportunities each term for parents to come in and spend the morning or afternoon session alongside their child. This is not about voluntary helping in class to assist other children or support the teaching and learning agenda, this is about seeing how your child learns…seeing the actual progress throughout the Year…seeing how they function in the learning environment…seeing how their individual needs and strengths are catered for…inputting into the discussion with the child and the teaching team about what could help the child to move forward…seeing what could be done at home. Developing the voice and making an informed choice. Parents develop a real understanding of how individual learning is and how valuable home support is in their child’s learning journey.
- Within all our Early Years rooms we have introduced Plan Do Review a process that invites children to be part of the planning, take part in the action and review the outcome. A very powerful tool in developing the child as an independent learner and enabling child initiated learning.
As I said earlier, a work in progress. We acknowledge the importance of the Personalised Learning agenda and that “Every Child Matters”. At Mount Pleasant we feel every child always has. As Early Years practitioners I’m sure that you do too.
Gail K Bedford.
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