A Chester-based mobile marketing innovator has made Scottish students more connected to education than ever by sending out results by text.

 

Students traditionally receive their National Qualification results through the post from the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).

 

But this year, more than 45,000 students opted to receive their results by text message.

 

Results day can be tense as students wait to receive their results, so the SQA partnered with award-winning mobile communications company Textlocal to make the delivery of grades more efficient and personal.

 

SMS has proved to be the fastest and most accessible way to deliver results to students, who can access their grades anywhere, such as away from home or on holiday, as long as they have their phone with them.

 

Receiving the information early provides candidates the most opportunity to consider their next steps.

 

In 2006, SQA introduced ResultsOnline, a service, allowing candidates to register for online delivery of their grades. In 2008, this was re-launched as MySQA, a portal that candidates could use to access an online record of their qualifications and achievements.

 

By registering and activating a MySQA account, candidates can opt to receive their exam results by email or SMS. The all-important results are delivered through these channels from 8am, which reduces that agonising wait for the post to arrive.

 

Jason Palgrave-Jones, Managing Director from Textlocal, said: “Students are becoming more connected than ever to education thanks to a service that enables them to receive their results the moment they are released.

 

“Textlocal is about speed, efficiency and personalised service. They are the key elements for good communication in the digital age and it is vital that students going on to the next stage in their lives can receive the information they need using a service they use most frequently.”

 

As more students register with MySQA every year, the awards body foresees SMS becoming an ever more popular choice. This service also demonstrates how SQA is listening to their candidates’ needs and providing information via an accessible route.

 

Stuart Davidson, SQA’s Director of Business Systems, said: “Our partnership with Textlocal has been incredibly helpful.  Their team immediately understood how important it is for us to get candidates’ results to them quickly and efficiently on the morning of results day.

 

“The Textlocal team worked collaboratively with us throughout the planning process to ensure that their systems were ready, tested, and proven well in advance.”

 

SQA is the national awarding and accreditation body in Scotland and helps people realise their potential and achieve their ambitions by providing a wide range of high quality, internationally recognised qualifications and associated services.

 

One of its suites of qualifications are National Courses and Awards, which were achieved by more than 140,000 students in 2016, from around 600 schools and colleges.

 

Textlocal is an award-winning mobile communications company, based in Malvern and Chester, and founded in 2005. More than 160,000 users have sent more than one billion text messages using their Messenger platform.

 

Textlocal have been transforming the way businesses communicate using Messenger.

 

They have been listed by Media Momentum’s Top 20 fastest growing digital agencies across Europe for three consecutive years and in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100.

SMS can be a more effective engagement tool for business than email or social media, because the open rate is so much higher. The average open rate across all industries is less than 23 per cent, while 99 per cent of all texts are opened and nine out of 10 are read within three minutes.

Manor Church of England Academy in York has over 1,000 students and 140 staff members. Like most schools, they initially recorded performance reviews on paper, but this ran the risk of files being misplaced, developmental needs that couldn’t be tracked and material that wasn’t always on hand when needed. Here, vice principal, Mike Thunder, discusses how the school has benefitted from moving to a digital, cloud-based solution for performance management.

 

When it came to performance management, we needed a tailored solution that was flexible to our needs and incorporated all the key elements of school improvement. With our paper-based system, staff didn’t always know what their targets were and that meant we couldn’t monitor them effectively.

 

We chose to work with SchooliP because it provides a centralised location for staff members to see all the information they need easily and quickly. Everything is customised to individual staff members, so they can see their own objectives and reviews. They can even update their record and upload supporting evidence with the help of handy reminders to make sure that they are meeting their required actions.

 

Monitoring professional development was also a challenge previously, as we would spend a great deal of time filling in spreadsheets with details of the courses staff members had been on and whether they had been worthwhile. However, working digitally means that staff members can now provide this information themselves in a few clicks, and we can then collect the data in one place to see where we’re allocating budget and staff time.

 

By adding an ‘impact box’ for staff, we were able to measure the results of the training they received, which is incorporated into reports and provided for accountability to the board of governors as evidence of our spending. More importantly it also allows us to demonstrate the impact of professional development activities against teaching and learning, and school improvement.

 

The overall impact of digitising administration for our academy means that our performance management processes, our professional development, our whole-school development plan and our self-evaluation forms, are much more effective than they were before. All staff save valuable time and effort. The real benefit is the ability to quickly and simply generate reports, as it enables us to not only access vital information easily but also to share it with our stakeholders including staff members, governors, and of course Ofsted!

 

Our staff feel empowered by the ability to build their own portfolio of professional development and evidence that contributes towards their own performance. All staff members, not just teachers, have really taken ownership of their training and performance management, so it saves us time and we have a comprehensive record of how we’re doing as a school. The system is continuously updated to fit with education and government changes, so we can ensure that we’re always up-to-date and meeting the required standards.

 

The main benefit of having a cloud-based system is that everything is integrated. We have everything we need for performance management and school improvement goals in one, easily accessible place!

 

For more information, visit: www.manorceacademy.org or www.schoolip.co.uk

By Kate Robinson, Editor in Chief, HundrED.

Education is a human system. Sir Ken Robinson describes it as being ‘not an impersonal, inert engineering system, it’s constantly in flux and changing. It exists in the actions and activities of people every day.’ This means that, as with all human systems, it is unpredictable and subject to influence by any amount of circumstances – making it impossible to guess what the future of education will look like.

 

How the next 100 years of education should look however, depends on a number of factors, including what the purpose of education is believed to be, and whom education is believed to be for. With that in mind, we turned to 100 education thought leaders, influencers and change makers from across the world to discover their views.

 

The first, if not totally surprising, point to make is that not one of our interviewees put forward an argument that current methods of schooling are adequately preparing students for the needs of the world they live in. That being said, Keri Facer, Professor of Educational & Social Futures at the University of Bristol, UK, advises that ‘the idea that we definitely can [fully prepare students] is a bit risky … Education is part of a much wider set of factors that are going to help young people survive and thrive over the next 100 years.’

 

Still, there is no denying that education certainly should be playing a significant role in equipping our children with the tools they require for life in the 21st century. Across the board, our interviewees repeatedly raised concerns about the way children and young people are currently being educated. These range from too narrow a focus on academic skills, to counter-productive learning environments, to assessment that is far too standardised and not based on real-world concepts that students can relate to.

 

That’s not to say that they imply that we are purposefully and maliciously setting our kids up for failure. As Sugata Mitra, Professor of Education Technology at Newcastle University, put it: ‘it’s not as though we are being evil for the sake of being evil. It is just that we are in the grip of two things: one is history, and the other is exponential change.’

 

Undeniably, education needs to be personalised as schools are made up of real, one of a kind people. Standardisation may be convenient for adults trying to tackle accountability, but by trying to educate all children in the same way we are letting them down spectacularly. ‘We’ve pretended to be doing the best for kids but we haven’t really,’ argues Stephen Heppell, ‘we’ve got to start by wondering how good kids might be and then go from there, rather than wondering how convenient things could be.’

 

So how do your personalise education? Andy Hargreaves of Boston College, USA, amongst others, believes that ‘learning how you learn’ is a critical skill that schools should be encouraging. Helping students to discover how they each learn best is the first step in personalisation. Once students feel empowered to take an active role in their learning experiences, the teacher can then work in partnership with them to best suit the needs of the class and the individuals in it.

 

Learning to learn is just one skill raised in our interviews that our interviewees feel schools have a responsibility in encouraging. In addition to traditionally valued skills such as numeracy and literacy, leaders in the field are also calling for an additional set of competencies to take centre stage.

 

Exactly what to call this skillset falls under a variety of names – 21st century skills, life skills, soft skills, or non-cognitive skills, to name just a few. ‘Whatever the language,’ says Anthony Mackay, CEO, Centre for Strategic Education, Australia, ‘it is clear that we need to attend to an expanded conception of skills and dispositions in addition to knowledge and understanding.’

 

Ultimately these are the essential life skills required in modern day life, including: communication, collaboration, creativity, resilience, grit, and critical thinking. ‘Rather than defining education through a group of subjects,’ suggests Sir Ken Robinson, ‘I think it is better to think of the competencies people need to make their way in the world now and to engage with the world the way it seems to be evolving.’

 

Another hope raised is for education to embrace digital technology. HundrED is not an edtech specific project, but it is impossible to attempt a complete look at the next 100 years of education without acknowledging the impact of this. As Anneli Rautiainen of the Finnish National Board of Education puts it, we can’t ‘continue to make progress without embracing digitalisation as a part of learning or teaching.’ Edtech is not a phase, it is an integral part of our future. Of course, that is not to say that digitalisation will solve all of education’s problems. ‘It’s really important that we don’t see technology as being the panacea for engaging kids,’ cautions Dan Haesler, international speaker, educator, writer and consultant, ‘it’s about what we’re asking them to do with that technology, and asking them how they can empower themselves to connect and find real value in what they are doing.’

 

It is also important to mention that digitalisation in education is not implemented at the cost of outside, real-world learning. The value of embracing nature and alternative learning environments is something brought up time and time again. For example, Abdul Chohan, CEO of the Essa Academies Trust (Essa Academy in Bolton was the first school in the UK to equip each student with an iPad) makes the point that ‘the world is really a classroom you should be able to go out and explore’. The matter then to consider is how best to use technology to create a variety of learning experiences.

 

All of these changes require a different approach to teaching, and across the world the role of the teacher is already shifting. There is a dedicated and determined community of educators who are challenging the status quo in their schools and classrooms on a daily basis. This is crucial, as in the age of information the traditional role of the teacher as an all knowing vessel of knowledge has passed.

 

Sheizaf Rafaeli, Founding Director of the Centre for Internet Research, Israel, began teaching forty years ago: ‘when I started I was expected to know the answers. Every month that goes by I’m expected to know less because Google knows more than me.’

 

So what is the role of the teacher becoming? There is a phrase circulating the education world: ‘from sage on the stage to guide on the side.’ Cheesy and overused as the phrase may already be, it accurately describes what many believe the new role of the teacher to be. With endless amounts of content online, students need to be able to decipher which information is relevant and trustworthy, and which is not. Sugata Mitra describes the new dynamic between students and teachers as being ‘as though a group of you are going somewhere unknown and you have a trustworthy friend, who also doesn’t know where you are going, but who could be useful.’

 

This of course means that teachers need additional support in this transition. Susan Crichton, of the University of British Columbia, Canada, raises the point that ‘often we want teachers to teach in ways that they’ve never experienced as learners themselves, and then we wonder why they struggle to do that.’ Teacher training and support needs to be re-evaluated as we move into this next era of education.

 

Additionally, our interviewees feel that education should be global. A huge benefit of digitalisation is that it has made the world a much smaller place. Children today no longer live within the confines of their immediate communities. Former headteacher Carolyn Stuart, comments that students ‘can learn with anyone at all so long as they can reach them via the internet.’

 

Connectivity and global awareness are essential skills to promote in schools, as we can no longer pretend that global issues don’t affect us all. As Eileen Lento, Director of Marketing and Advertising at Intel Education, argues: ‘to be a participating citizen, you need to be educated to understand the complexities of the world in which we live.’

 

Of course, the negative implication of globalisation in education is that international league tables can be directly linked to extra pressure and stress on teachers and students to ‘beat’ rival countries. Instead of endorsing this approach of competition, we should be harnessing our awareness of other education systems to create an atmosphere of international collaboration. In fact, empowering students from across the world to connect may in fact light the fire that sends education reform into a whole new era. Stephen Heppell believes that ‘given the number of children we’ve got and the circumstances of the world, it’s very hard to not see education being transformed by children rather than for children.’

 

This is a critical point to make, and possibly the most important – children should be involved in shaping the future of education. The next 100 years of education should empower students to harness all of the tools and opportunities at their fingertips to take control of their own learning and experiences. Children and young people are not impartial bystanders, they are not test results, numbers or figures on a league table. They are invaluable to our shared future. They are the future.

 

Chandrika Bahadur, Director of Education Initiatives at SDSN, India asserts that ‘there is no country in the world that gives its citizens an equal and equitable right to a prosperous life without having invested in large scale public education.’ It is time we started including children in the conversation.

 

HundrED is a global, non-profit project aiming to bring together a vision of education for the next 100 years, collecting 100 innovations from Finland and a further 100 from around the world, along with commentary from global thought leaders. The findings will be documented as a book, a documentary, a series of international seminars and a toolkit for teachers, all shared with the world for free.
All insights have been gathered from HundrED findings, and all quotes have been taken directly from HundrED interviews. To read the full interviews, and learn more about HundrED visit www.hundred.fi

~Ends~

Notes to editors:

 

About HundrED

HundrED is a two-year project bringing together a vision of education for the next 100 years. For decades, the Finnish education system has been hailed as one of the best performing in the world. As part of the country’s centenary of independence in 2017, the idea of HundrED is to help Finland maintain its world-leading status in education. The project is being implemented by SCOOL, a Helsinki-based start-up providing innovative learning solutions for schools to encourage curiosity and cooperation.

 

For more information, visit  https://hundred.fi/about and https://scool.fi/en/about

The legacy and impact of the abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its connection to Kenwood revealed for schools on site

 

Kenwood House in North London is expanding its education offer from September with a brand new expert-led Discovery Visit based upon Kenwood’s connection to the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade through its previous owner, Lord Mansfield.

 

Students will explore the role of Lord Mansfield – one of England’s greatest judges – in the abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, gain an insight into the main arguments used by campaigners both for and against slavery and learn about Mansfield’s role as a senior legal figure in Britain and the impact of his rulings, in particular, the Somerset case and the Zong case.

 

Whilst other school trips looking at this topic will explore the theme in a museum setting, Kenwood House itself has a unique connection to this particular topic as it was the former home to Lord Mansfield from 1754. In 1766 Lord Mansfield and his wife then took in their two great-nieces Elizabeth Murray and Dido Elizabeth Belle. Dido was the daughter of Sir John Lindsay, nephew of Lord Mansfield, while Dido’s mother was an enslaved African woman.

 

At this time it was extremely rare for a mixed-race woman to be educated, literate and living at a house such as Kenwood. On the Discovery Visit journey, students will tour key rooms, use and critically evaluate a range of source material to piece together the stories of the lives of some of the individuals who lived at Kenwood. Students will be exposed to the methods of historians and the development of interpretation and be able to engage with the evidence available to form reasoned judgments of their own.

 

Caroline Candy, English Heritage’s Education Visits Officer for London said; “The story of Lord Mansfield and Dido Belle and their significance in the national abolition movement of the Transatlantic Slave Trade is a fascinating and inspiring part of London’s local history. The Education Department is delighted to launch a new Discovery Visit at Kenwood House which will bring this story to life and engage students with their local history in the place where history happened.”

 

The new Discovery Visit is an excellent opportunity to teach the Key Stage three History curriculum topic of Ideas, political power, industry and empire 1745-1901 outside of the classroom, and comes complete with an accompanying resource which can be taken back to school after the visit. Teachers can also link the Discovery Visit to a local history study.

 

Guiding young people through a story of such significance at a site such as Kenwood helps to consolidate students’ understanding of this topic through discussion and debate within incredibly inspiring surroundings.

 

Following the Discovery Visit, students will be able to consider the long term implications of the trade in enslaved Africans on the African continent and draw parallels to modern day examples of slavery such as human trafficking. They will be able to understand the story of Dido Belle and her life at Kenwood House and consider her experience and use that to contrast with the experience of other black people within 18^th century London.

 

In addition to the life of Dido Belle, students will be able to make a judgment on the significance of Lord Mansfield and his legal rulings within the context of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Abolitionist movement. The visit also includes using a variety of sources and handling items, plus a resource which has been developed to support the visit. The learning outcomes are also specifically tailored to fit within national curriculum requirements for history.

 

The Kenwood Connections: Lord Mansfield and the abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Discovery Visit can be booked now charged at £100 for a maximum of 30 students per session. Visits are available Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday all year. Schools are advised to call the English Heritage Education Bookings Team to check availability and to book on 0370 333 0606.