“ The staff’ s support in welcoming more than half the new intake with stimulating learning activities, was inspirational [...]”
“ The staff’ s support in welcoming more than half the new intake with stimulating learning activities, was inspirational [...]”
DRAGONS SHOW WAY TO TACKLE‘ CROSS PHASE’ AT SHIRELAND
If only the former promise to trust teachers and schools had been held on to. Because there’ s plenty of evidence to show that they are perfectly capable of ensuring that we discover just how good our children might be, and that successful policy works best when it comes from proven practice. A visit to Shireland Collegiate Academy this year as a dragon for the‘ Digital Dragons Den’ culmination of their annual Summer School showed duty of care taken to new levels.
Given that research shows that most children’ s progress stalls in the move from primary to secondary( known as‘ cross phase’), the staff’ s support in welcoming more than half the new intake with stimulating learning activities, was inspirational for this particular visitor. Just as it clearly was for the new students who even got a taste of the‘ flipped learning’ that Shireland is pioneering( and with its local primary schools for a major national research study with the Education Endowment Foundation – see also European Schoolnet’ s“ Enhancing learning through the Flipped Classroom: Shireland Collegiate Academy”).
BROADCLYST TAKES ENTERPRISE GLOBAL- AND SECONDARIES JOIN IN
Then there is Broadclyst Community Primary School in Devon, another of those schools that defies the boxes that people try to place them in. Yes it’ s a Microsoft showcase school( like Shireland), but schools like this are always going to achieve the best for their students with or without technology partners.
Of course the partnership makes it work better. And Microsoft and Broadclyst learn from each other.
Take Broadclyst’ s Global Education Challenge which, in its second year, reached 700 students aged 9-12 in 200 teams across 20 countries.
The 2016-17 event has been extended to involve secondary students( aged 12-15). Schools from the Dominican Republic, Spain, Jordan, the Netherlands, USA and Albania have already signed up( see“ Devon primary’ s global enterprise reels in secondaries”).
This also has huge implications for cross-phase work as both primary and secondary will collaborate on similar enterprise projects that entail real-life tasks, international collaboration, sharing with external audiences.
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