Harnessing Technology for Every Child Matters and Personalised Learning

John Galloway

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN:
  9780415458719
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134047215
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book takes into account three core policies: 'Every Child Matters', 'Personalised Learning', and 'Harnessing Technology', combined they are at the heart of changes to children and young peoples' experiences of school. Harnessing Technology considers these policies and their interlinked relationship. It outlines the ways in which technology allows us to assess, track and monitor pupil progress and use this information to better support both their learning and their broader needs, making it an essential resource for training and practicing teachers, school leaders, and all those involved in educational transformation.

To achieve the five outcomes of the 'Every Child Matters' agenda requires an approach that is pupil centred, with developments in new technologies making it possible to not only understand each individual more precisely, but also for them to learn in more flexible and personalised ways. Through innovations such as web based information sharing, learning platforms and e-portfolios, schools will be able to offer content appropriate to pupil's personal goals, breaching conventional orthodoxies of time and place.

How far these policies will transform schools and services for children and young people remains to be seen. Consideration is given within the book to the barriers to their success, the issues that impinge upon them, and questions asked about their capacity to bring about long-term, systemic, change.

Chapter 1

Policy development and interconnection

Each of the various strategies and policies developed in recent years to meet the needs of and to support children and young people has an individual identity and purpose; they are also closely interlinked, and to some degree the success and development of each is dependent on the others. Here the policies are briefly outlined and the interdependence drawn out – starting with the role of ICT, as in some senses it has a service function for the other strategies to build on. They cannot be fully implemented without it, and they also give purpose to the faith and money invested in it.

Harnessing technology

In 2004, the Department for Education and Skills (subsequently the Department for Children, Schools and Families) launched Harnessing Technology, Transforming Learning and Children’s Services, a five-year strategy for change – although it had shown its faith in ICT before that. Since its election in 1997, this government has demonstrated its belief in the transformational abilities of ICT through its heavy investment in resources, infrastructure and training. While there is much debate about the efficacy of this expenditure – involving both those who think it has been wasted and those who think it is too little – it can be seen as part of a long-term strategy.

Spending in education began by concentrating on increasing the number of machines in schools, then moved on to connecting them all up and ensuring staff knew how to use them. This saw funds ring-fenced to be spent on hardware and on fast connections, and dedicated funds for training to bring all teachers up to a national standard, with an ICT skills requirement added to the prerequisites for achieving Qualified Teacher Status alongside Maths and English.

Annual surveys have monitored these changes, showing for instance that in 1998, the average primary school had one computer for every 18 pupils. By 2007 that had become 6.2 pupils per computer. A similar shift has happened in secondary schools, from 9.1 pupils to each computer to 3.6. Although these might be considered crude measures, as the quantity of machines does not determine the quality of learning they are used for, it does show the growth of penetration of ICT in state schools. The discussion is also made more complex by the range of devices that are now used in teaching and learning, no longer just desktop and laptop computers, but handhelds, tablets and even mobile phones.

The measures for connectivity have become less important. It is taken for granted now that all schools are connected to the internet with fast broadband access, compared with only 17 per cent of primaries in 1997. With the growth of mobile connectivity through wireless and phones, and home broadband access rates of more than 60 per cent, the expectation of being connected not only at school, but at any time or place is developing. Regional broadband consortia have been established to create a National Learning Network, with schools and libraries connected across authorities, and authorities across regions. In London, for instance, the London Grid for Learning was established, one of ten such consortia. Not since the demise of the Inner London Education Authority in 1990 had there been such a collaborative endeavour across the capital, only this time involving more boroughs, all 32 of them. This cooperation saw institutions able to negotiate preferential rates for procurement of the infrastructure to connect up state schools across the region, along with the learning portal running on it, and subsequently content and software for use in class. This includes, for instance, a deal whereby clips from the British Pathe News film library can be downloaded free by teachers while working on a computer connected to the Grid.

Alongside the provision of hardware and a network infrastructure, there was also a need for staff to be skilled in using what had now become available. A large-scale training programme funded from the National Lottery’s New Opportunities Fund was instigated (hence it was known as NoF training). This spent £230 million¹ on bringing practising teachers’ skills up to scratch – but had only limited success. One of the reasons for this was the mode of delivery: much of it had to be undertaken in teachers’ own time, often using distance training materials, with no means of ensuring engagement. (In contrast to the Numeracy and Literacy Strategies, through which all primary teachers had five full days’ training in each.)

From 1999, all newly qualified teachers have had to achieve a mandatory level of skills in order to qualify. This is now administered by an online test of competence. Those successfully completing it are given a certificate to show they have met this requirement.

There has also been considerable investment in content for teachers to use on the machines provided. Not only have regional broadband consortia been expected to negotiate aggregated rates for online resources, but schools have received ‘e-learning credits’ to spend specifically on software. This was ring-fenced money that could be spent only on programs that had met a set of criteria sufficient for them to be approved for inclusion on a designated website.

This was partly in response to an investment of £75 million provided for the BBC to develop online curriculum materials (known as BBC Jam – see Chapter Two for examples of the content). To assuage concerns about a lack of competition in the delegation of this money, very stringent conditions were placed on it, determining the breadth of curriculum coverage, the need for commissioning from third parties, and that all mainstream resources had to be produced in four languages – English, Welsh, Scots Gaelic and Irish – in order to be accessible to all pupils in the member countries of the United Kingdom.

This investment saw the development of some truly innovative and original materials. However, despite the stringent conditions imposed, BBC Jam was challenged by software development companies and fell foul of EU competition regulations. Having been withdrawn from public use in 2006, it was eventually announced in March 2007 that the BBC Governors had decided to pull the plug on it, despite the considerable investment of public funds.

Moving forward with ICT

The government had put into place resources (both hardware and software), an extensive and all-inclusive network for schools, and a workforce that was becoming increasingly confident in using these tools (81 per cent of secondary teachers expressed confidence in their abilities to teach with ICT in 2004; Prior and Hall, 2003). But this is not the whole story.

There is a cautionary note from Ofsted (2005b) in its report Embedding ICT in Schools, in which it observes that while staff competence and confidence have improved, this is more in using the applications themselves than in using them effectively in learning and teaching. There remains a tendency to stick to safe, tried-and-tested approaches to classroom practice. More optimistically, there is evidence that this increased confidence has led some teachers to try new approaches and activities, and to discover for themselves the impact on pupils and on the teaching and learning process (Condie et al., 2007: 19).

As the impact of resourcing schools and training staff began to take effect, the new strategy began to move towards ‘e-maturity’. Although this was not the end of initiatives to tackle specific aspects of ICT in education, it marked an overall shift to a more strategic view. In 2007, for instance, attention turned to the digital divide: the perceived gap between those who have easy access to ICT (usually at home) and the learning benefits this brings, and those who do not – often considered to be determined by income and social class. (However, this is a more complex issue than at first glance: pupils from low-income families may have computers and connectivity, but they might not be using them for learning.)

To address this, the Computers for Pupils scheme was launched. This is designed to provide secondary-age pupils from the most deprived wards across the country with a computer to use at home and a connection to the internet. Funding was provided to local authorities using a formula that took into account the index of multiple deprivation and free school meals, then, as 50 per cent of these pupils were thought likely to have access already, divided the total by two.

However, there was clearly a belief that ICT was becoming embedded and needed less targeted expenditure, as previously ring-fenced monies now became part of a more generic Harnessing Technology grant, allocated through local authorities.

The Harnessing Technology strategy itself also began to shift at this point. At its launch, it had four main foci:

• transform teaching, learning and help to improve outcomes for children, young people, and adults through shared ideas, more exciting lessons and online help for professionals
• engage ‘hard-to-reach’ learners with special needs support, more motivating ways of learning, and more choice about how and where to learn
• build an open, accessible system, with more information and services online for parents and carers, children, young people, adult learners and employers; and more cross-organisation collaboration to improve personalised support and choice
• achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness, with online research, access to shared ideas and lessons plans, improved systems and processes in children’s services, shared procurement and easier administration.
  (DfES, 2005a)

By the 2007 review of the strategy, these had been crystallised to become:

• fit-for-purpose technology, systems and resources
• capability and capacity of the workforce, providers and learners
• efficiency, effectiveness and value for money across the system
• improving learner and system performance.
  (Becta, 2007c)

The responsibility for delivery had also shifted from the department itself to its technology agency, Becta,² a quango that started life as the National Council for Educational Technology. These crisper, updated aims suggest the strategy has a clearer direction, as expected as it matures and as changes occur throughout the education system. There is more concern with systemic issues than with the experiences and needs of learners, suggesting that pedagogy and process have been addressed, and it is the ability of the system to provide support for these that now needs sorting out. However, this is not quite the case, as each of the updated aims has sub-aims. These, for example, talk about leaders having ‘knowledge and skills’; learners having ‘greater choice in learning opportunities’ and ‘access to appropriate technology’; and practitioners collaborating to ‘share good practice and learning resources’.

There is a clearer understanding of the tasks necessary to give ICT its central role in transforming education and children’s services, not least because we are beginning to see practical examples and are gaining an appreciation of what the policy means in practice, as highlighted in this and subsequent chapters.

Every Child Matters

The Every Child Matters strategy was released in 2003, shortly before the e-strategy. Its agenda of changing the landscape of services, both universal and specialised for children and young people, is reflected in the latter’s extended title, Harnessing Technology: Transforming Learning and Children’s Services. While Harnessing Technology is informed by Every Child Matters, the changes had yet to be introduced through the Children Act 2004 so at this point they were aspirational rather than actual, but they did help prepare the ground for the reforms to come.

These changes included the unifying of education and children’s social care services into Children’s Services through the merger of Local Education Authorities with Children’s Social Services. Similarly, the posts of Director of Education and Director of Children’s Social Services merged to become Director of Children’s Services (although this amalgamation was not made mandatory). The Local Education Authority became simply the Local Authority. While Health Services remain outside the framework, there is an expectation of close working relationships to provide a regime of holistic support, both universal and specialised.

These joint working relationships will become more formalised through the creation of Children’s Trusts. While there is no statutory requirement for Local Authorities to establish these, there is an expectation that all will do so. They are partnerships of services for children in a particular area and, alongside Health and Children’s Services, will include the voluntary sector and extended schools (DfES, 2005b).

This latter is one practical application of thinking about children’s needs more broadly and working cooperatively to meet them. The extended schools programme was established in 2002 in response to the needs of pupils and families in deprived areas. By providing additional curriculum activities, support for parents and access to other services, they are intended to raise standards by recognising and addressing the fact that no matter how good a teacher is, there are times when other areas of difficulty in pupils’ lives impinge on their educational performance.

In 2005, the government declared that all schools should become extended schools as part of the joined-up working of Children’s Trusts, although without determining specifically what one is. The intention is that they will have:

• high-quality ‘wraparound’ childcare provided on the school site or through other local providers, with supervised transfer arrangements where appropriate, available 8 am–6 pm all year round
• a varied menu of activities on offer, such as homework clubs and study support, sport (at least two hours a week beyond the school day for those who want it), music tuition, dance and drama, arts and crafts, special interest clubs such as chess and first-aid courses, visits to museums and galleries, learning a foreign language, volunteering, business and enterprise activities
• parenting support, including information sessions for parents at key transition points, parenting programmes run with the support of other children’s services and family learning sessions to allow children to learn with their parents
• swift and easy referral to a wide range of specialist support services such as speech therapy, child and adolescent mental health services, family support services, intensive behaviour support, and (for young people) sexual health services (some may be delivered on school sites)
• providing wider community access to ICT, sports and arts facilities, including adult learning.
  (DfES, 2005b)

However, not every activity or provision has to be on site; they can be organised collaboratively; and some aspects of them (such as hours of childcare above a certain threshold) may attract a fee. Not all services will be co-located, that is, based at the school; however this will be the case to some degree at one school in each local authority, enabling easier multi-agency support.

There are also changes in the way support agencies are expected to work together. In the first instance, referrals between agencies will be standardised around a Common Assessment Framework (CAF), except in circumstances where a statutory system exists, such as in child protection cases where a prescribed threshold for support has been passed. The CAF is bas...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface: Every Child Matters and ICT – A Day in the Life, 2010
• Introduction
• 1. Policy development and interconnection
• 2. What can the technology do for us?
• 3. A web of support
• 4. A web for learning
• 5. Can practice meet policy?
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index