the microsoft education envisioning guide · 6 the microsoft education envisioning guide objectives...

The Microsoft Education Envisioning Guide

Innovative Schools

For stakeholders involved in building transformed schools for the future, and for those otherwise engaged in the agenda for a step change in the delivery and organisation of education and learning.

A process guide to support the creation of a vision for transformation of education and learning

2 The Microsoft Education Envisioning Guide

ContentsAcknowledgements 3

Authors and Contributors 3

Introduction 4

Pathways for Change - The T-Route and the P-Route 5

Objectives of the Envisioning Guide 6

Audience 6

Section 1 - How to use this guide 7

Section 2 - Engaging Wider Stakeholders 10

Section 3 - The Educational Change Process 12

3.1 Developing the Vision 12

3.2 Sharing and Using the Vision 13

3.3 Reviewing the Vision 14

Section 4 - Pathways for Change 16

4.1 The ‘T-Route’ and ‘P-Route’ 16

4.2 Evolution of the Models 19

4.3 Routes for Transformation 19

Section 5 – Pathways for Change - Model Examples 22

5.1 The Near-Term Vision of a ‘T-Route’ school (T1) 22

5.2 The Future Vision of a ‘T-Route’ school (T2) 23

5.3 The Near-Term Vision of a ‘P-Route’ school (P1) 25

5.4 The Future Vision of a ‘P-Route’ school (P2) 28

Section 6 – Educational scenarios 32

6.1 Using the scenarios 33

6.2 Educational scenarios in more detail 34

Section 7 – ‘Day in the Life’ Narratives 38

7.1 An Example ‘Day in the Life’ Narrative 39

Appendix 1 - References from Main Narrative 46

Appendix 2 – Example Scenario 50

Appendix 3-Glossary 61

The Microsoft Education Envisioning Guide 3

Acknowledgements Authors and ContributorsThis guide was developed by Naser Ziadeh of Microsoft and Dan Buckley of Cambridge Education, with contributions from Chris Poole of Microsoft, Guy Shearer of the Northamptonshire Learning Discovery Centre, and a range of subject matter experts from Microsoft’s Education and Consulting Services teams.Additionally, Microsoft is grateful to the following UK organisations for making time to participate in the interactive workshops held in the development of this document: Partnership for Schools (PfS), NAACE, Becta, Qualifications and Curriculum Agency (QCA), the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT), the Oxford University Internet Institute, and staff from the local governments of Sheffield, Sandwell, Durham and Knowsley.

Their contribution was significant and welcome.

A Note from the EditorsAny document about the provision of IT in education can easily fall into the trap of using jargon, sometimes to obscure the fact that the contents are not up to scratch. In this document we have tried very hard to base the language on normal everyday use, in order that you can see clearly the substance of the work that has been undertaken to create the models of future learning.

However, technical language and acronyms abound in education - if we used full names throughout this document, it would be twice as long. So what we have done is give you a full name at the first mention, used the acronym elsewhere and then finally provided a glossary for reference.

This is less than ideal – some paragraphs still read as though all of the vowel keys did not work on our keyboards! But I hope you appreciate that in a complex world of technology, teaching, government policies and predictions for the future, we have done our best to simplify our message, and also to translate others’ views into natural language.


IntroductionThe United Kingdom government is committed to ensuring that all children are educated in 21st century, e-confident schools – defined by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) as “schools with information and communication technology (ICT) embedded in their culture, and across all aspects of their remit.”

Nations see new ways of teaching and learning, enabled through technology that put the learner at the centre as key enabler for a skilled national workforce for today and in the future. To support this aim, governments around the world are making significant investments in their national education programmes.

In the UK, the government has made significant investments into IT and education to help transform teaching and learning. Many schools and local governments across the UK are implementing new projects and processes supported by technology in order to improve education outcomes. An educational transformation process is taking place against the backdrop of an unprecedented scale of development within the education sector as a whole. Schools are consequently suffering pressures on time, budgets and procurement.

This situation presents a vital challenge to everybody involved in education. Throughout every new project or process, the focus must be on education outcomes. A clear educational vision is not only critical but central to educational investments and plans.

IT is at the heart of the educational transformation process. The goal is to establish an IT infrastructure for all schools in a local government that can:

• personalise the learning experience for all students

• deliver a real change in overall achievement.Microsoft has been involved with many school improvement plans and projects involving IT from an early stage and recognises that the processes can be daunting – even for the most experienced.

This document acts as a guide by outlining potential routes through the educational transformation process, identifying the different stages of development and the different perspectives of the various parties involved. Detailed exemplar routes are illustrated to help achieve this aim.

While the example referenced in this guide may be UK based, the challenges and aspirations are likely similar in other countries. Therefore, the concepts, models, and processes described here are likely applicable just as well outside the UK.

Two companion guides complement this document, addressing the Business Value and Technology perspectives. Together, all three guides can be used by educationalists to help develop substantial visions and robust business cases. They also offer clear pathways through a diverse and complex system.

An important and frequent request for help is with the envisioning process to help broaden minds and raise awareness of the full potential of IT to support a significant change agenda over time.

The Microsoft Education IT Planning GuidesThis document is one of three Education IT Planning Guides created by Microsoft to aid the planning and development process for those responsible for planning, procuring and implementing a new model of learning supported by IT.

• The Envisioning Guide contains an overview of the practical process to help you create your own vision of the future school and what transformed learning will look like. If you have not already read the Envisioning Guide, it is the key document to start with, as it sets the information in this guide in context.

• The Business Value Guide describes how additional value can be gained through the complementary and appropriate use of IT, and indicates routes to deliver that value. The guide is intended for local governments, schools and suppliers.

• The Technology Guide describes a technology baseline which can be used as a benchmark for the provision of IT-related services within the educational environment, and links to the ideas created in the other two guides.


Pathways for Change - The T-Route and the P-RouteThe model of transformation contained within this document and used throughout our planning process is based upon choosing one of two Pathways for Change, known as the ‘T-Route’ and the ‘P-Route’. The T-Route philosophy is one in which the balance of interactions are more Teacher-directed, whereas in P-Route philosophy the balance of interactions are more Pupil-directed.

Identification with either route does not come about on its own. Instead it is the result of one or more extensive envisioning exercises, where key stakeholders spend a significant amount of time considering their near and long term education and school requirements - looking at what can be done and what has to be done.

This process focuses on the “art of the possible” in terms of what can be done in an educational context and may expand to encompass the broader children’s services agenda as well as other government services. Scenarios and Day in the Life examples are tools provided to engage all those involved and to promote informed debate. At the conclusion of this exercise, the participants can match their near and long term required educational capabilities with the aspects of the scenarios and ‘Day in the Life’ narratives that they agree with. They will be better informed about the values and benefits of the different Pathways for Change.

There are two stages of the Pathways for Change on both the T-Route and the P-Route. The near-term vision is referred to as T1 or P1, while the longer-term future vision is referred to as T2 or P2.


Objectives of the Envisioning GuideThis document aims to:

• Provide alternative routes for those involved in school transformation, ensuring that a school’s educational vision is clearly linked to the IT capability required to support it.

• Provide a framework that promotes and supports good practice, helping develop a common language so that the impact of IT on achievement can be replicated elsewhere.

• Help all users to define and critically examine their requirements, enabling them to make better-informed decisions about resource allocation and to strike the right balance between physical assets such as school buildings and IT-enabled educational services.

• Help purchasers and providers to recognise, understand and ultimately test the choices they make about future adoption and use of IT.

• Help suppliers deepen and share their understanding of school requirements and how these impact upon service provision.

By focusing on the educational change process, this document provides a framework for each audience to engage with each other, using a shared language and a common set of models.

Audience This document is aimed primarily at those involved in educational transformation. There are five distinct stakeholder groups in this process:

• Those who specify the requirements for particular projects or plans, including Head Teachers, governors and staff of the local government.

• Those involved in the governance of schools, including trusts and sponsors.

• Those who are contracted to deliver against those requirements such as service companies and IT providers.

• Those who act as advisers or consultants to both educational institutions and contractors.

• The ‘end-users’ of these schools – including learners, teachers, parents and the community. Their views should impact positively on the changes.

Parts of this document may be relevant to other public sector organisations which interact with education, such as central government agencies and other areas of local government, for example social care.


Section 1 - How to use this guideThis guide places transformation within the context of a whole school vision and shows how educational scenarios can be improved or enhanced through the use of IT. It also seeks to highlight the implications for change management - a process requiring detailed analysis. (The separate Microsoft Educational Business Value Guide offers a framework and a set of tools to support this change management process.)

For ease of use, the guide is structured into five sections:

• Section 1 explains how this guide can be used to help you plan effectively for transformation.

• Section 2 outlines educational change processes. This includes not only how to develop future and near-term school visions but also how to use and review these visions effectively.

• Section 3 describes the two ‘Pathways for Change’ in further detail. These are used to help apply the educational change process.

• Section 4 explains education scenarios in more detail, showing how they relate to other elements of the model and outlining how you can use them.

• Section 5 contains ‘Day in the Life’ narratives which can be used to bring together and test the change processes, education scenarios, and stakeholder interactions for the various schools’ models.

Used together, education scenarios and ‘Day in the Life’ narratives are powerful tools for checking that the vision and direction of the school will deliver a final structure that is consistent with the needs of learners and the educational goals of the community. You can also use them to explore the implications of different educational models and change pathways.


We recommend you follow the steps in this section, as shown below, to maximise the benefits of this resource:

Step 1: Become familiar with the change process used The UK Becta Self Review Framework (Becta SRF) has been used as a guide to support the educational change process in this document. We recommend you consider the Becta SRF if you are not already familiar with it. This is available at http://matrix.ncsl.org.uk/selfreview The change process suggested may differ from other systems that you may already have used. For example, the language describing the stages in the process may be different or the steps may be in a slightly different order. Step 2: Read through the examplesThis document refers frequently to the ‘T-Route’ and ‘P-Route’ approaches. We strongly recommend you read the overview and examples in section 3 before proceeding to choose a particular route for your school.The ‘near-term vision’ describes where the school will be in approximately four years. The ‘future vision’ describes the same school a few years later, when technologies are more advanced and the school philosophy has progressed towards the later vision. Sections 2 and 3 will help you develop a ‘near-term vision’ and a ‘future vision’ for your school. Step 3: Align your school with the P- or T-Route PathwayThe ‘P-Route’ and ‘T-Route’ approaches are designed to help schools see which of the two categories they fit into, enabling the wider envisioning process. The categories have been developed from an extensive consultation exercise with key educationalists. The two routes are not mutually exclusive, but they do identify requirements for recognisably separate solutions and pathways.

Choosing one exclusive route is not easy and may not be possible immediately. However you should be able to agree broadly with the overall direction of one of the routes.

Step -1Familiarise yourself

with the change process used

Step -2Read the P-Route and the T-Route

examples

Step -3Align your School

with the P- or T-Route Pathway

Step -4Familiarise yourself

with one of the scenarios

Step -5Read ’day in the life’

narratives

Step -6Use the change

process model in your own context

Head Teacher

Local Authority

Learner or Community

Member

Bidder, Architect or Supply Chain

Governanceof Schools

Consultants and Advisors

Setting a clear direction for innovationPrioritising funding and resourcesPlanning a route to transformation

Ensuring breadth of sample schoolsGuidance framework for e-maturityPedagogy-based Education Transformation Programme challenge

Clarity of what is possibleCommon direction, focusing innovationIncreasing aspiration

Pedagogy-based solutionsEvolution routes built into designCommon language for negotiation

Toolkit for exploring the school visionFrameworks around which to set targetsCoherent advice and CPD planning

More informed debateAligning funding decisions to strategy

Figure 1: Six Steps to maximise the benefit of this guide

http://matrix.ncsl.org.uk/selfreview


Step 4: Familiarise yourself with one of the educational scenariosThe educational scenarios are highly detailed descriptions of some of the processes involved in daily school operations. In order to appreciate fully the complexity behind these processes, we recommend that you become familiar with one scenario in detail. You will use scenarios in step 6 to help review and refine your near-term vision.

Section 4 explains educational scenarios in more detail. Section 4.4 contains a list of the scenarios developed and brief descriptions of each. Appendix 2 presents a full description of the e-portfolio scenario as an example.

Step 5: Read the ‘Day in the Life’ narrativesThe ‘Day in the Life’ narratives are a way of testing if a vision is consistent. These help examine a particular vision in more detail, walking through step by step how a learner and a teacher might experience the future school. Details and interactions can be recorded from multiple perspectives in a logical way. Narratives are used to share visions with a wider audience, helping them to engage effectively in the debate. This happens when people are able to appreciate and visualise the interactions and relations that take place between learners, teachers, the learning environment, and the wider community – both locally and internationally.

Non-specialists can find ‘Day in the Life’ narratives easy to relate to compared with change process models and scenario planning. Appendix 1 contains a sample ‘Day in the Life’ of a P2 school.

Step 6: Review and refine your vision using the change process model in your own contextIn step 6, you will use scenarios to help review and refine your near-term vision in two ways. Firstly, reviewing a scenario from your own context helps you ensure that the decisions you have to make are robust. Secondly, you can evaluate to what extent your chosen pathway through the education change process corresponds with the future vision you identify with most strongly. Reviewing scenarios from the perspectives of different people helps challenge or support particular aspects of your vision.


Section 2 - Engaging Wider StakeholdersThe ‘Audience’ section of the introduction listed five stakeholder groups. These contain six perspectives, comprising different roles:

• Head Teachers, Principals and Senior Managers.

• Those involved in school governance.

• Local governments.

• Suppliers and partner organisations.

• Advisers and consultants.

• Learners, parents and community members.Here we suggest how these different people can best use this document:

Head Teachers, Principals and Senior ManagersThe first five steps of the process described earlier will have helped identify which of the two Pathways for Change (P-Route or T-Route) best matches your vision for school development. You can now confirm that this route fits your educational philosophy.

First, identify which aspects of your chosen pathway for change do not match your views. For example, you may disagree with the description of the registration process. Next, check which scenarios cover this process and read them in the context of all four school models to decide which model best matches your view. This can be repeated for other school processes to confirm your choice of school vision. Later sections help you develop and refine near-term and future visions for your school.

Those involved in the governance of schoolsGoverning bodies for schools often engage with the business value case for investments in IT. This case must be built around the key drivers for the school. This envisioning process, together with the more detailed scenario descriptions, enables such drivers to be identified. Understanding which route suits the school and the processes that are key to supporting this route will enable you to communicate through a common language. As your backgrounds are likely to be wide ranging, you may wish to align yourself to a particular audience.

Local GovernmentsReview your knowledge of the schools. You may already know how they perceive their IT capability. Use these details to obtain a view of the balance of T-Route and P-Route schools you have across your local area. You can also use the T-Route and P-Route model to help schools develop their vision and pathway for change.

Supplier and Partner Organisations If some schools have already worked through this model, check which aspects and scenarios best reflect their views. This will provide you with clear descriptions of infrastructure implications, scope for future flexibility and the overall IT needs of the schools. Identify the areas where their vision differs from either model and construct questions around these to refine your proposals.

If the schools are not using this model, they are unlikely to be familiar with the terms T-Route and P-Route. However, you can use the scenarios to gain a fuller description and functional specification of what is required by the schools – or at least, what to consider and what solutions are available and within budget.

Advisers and ConsultantsThe envisioning process helps develop a comprehensive and flexible solution that can be owned by the local government and schools. Use the T-Route and P-Route models in Section 3 to promote debate of, and engagement in, the change process. Work through the educational scenarios to enrich and clarify the visions that have been agreed with the client. Use the scenarios to evaluate proposed solutions. Using the P- and T-Route as a guide helps and promotes discussion of the process in schools. It is important to recognise that school leaders may be reluctant to align with a particular route in the early stages of the change process. Advisers and consultants can address these concerns and improve engagement with the change process. By introducing school leaders and teachers to scenarios and ‘Day in the Life’ narratives, visions and educational priorities will come together. You can then build on this understanding to explain school models and Pathways for Change (T- and P-Routes) in greater detail.


Learners, Parents and Community MembersIt can be hard to join in debates about the future of schools without understanding the processes involved. The Pathways for Change, scenarios and the ‘Day in the Life’ exemplar all aim to help learners, parents and community members influence the future of their schools. Read through the different visions (P-Route and T-Route) to decide what kind of school is most likely to suit your community. Use the scenarios to help you better understand the processes that happen in schools and how these could be different. The ‘Day in the Life’ section helps translate the different visions into actual experiences for learners.


Section 3 - The Educational Change ProcessThe diagram below shows the educational change process used in this document. Some readers may recognise the basic features of a review cycle. This section explains each stage of the process in more detail.

The process consists of three main stages, each containing a number of key points. These are explained below

3.1 Developing the Vision Future Vision This is a ‘blue skies’ view of what education and the learning experience could be like if there were no barriers or organisational constraints. Schools are complex environments where IT-driven change is rapid. Most teachers have a clear view of what they would ideally want as an education system, but few have the time to develop these views into a workable and detailed future vision. Using the UK as an example, schools in recent years have been directed by high-level government education initiatives and strategies. As a result, they have not had the same exposure to the envisioning process compared to other sectors. The UK Government’s education agencies have all identified strong future vision as a key factor of successful schools. This is therefore a critical aspect of the change process, requiring particular attention.

There are as many future visions as there are schools, but there is also much common ground and many shared aims. In the UK these are summarised in the five outcomes of the Government’s ‘Every Child Matters’ agenda. It states: “Every child should be able to achieve to his or her maximum potential in a healthy and safe environment; develop a lifelong love of learning and contribute positively to the economic and cultural wellbeing of their communities.”

Head teachers naturally have different views on how these aims are best achieved, leading to differences in school visions.

The T-Route and P-Route pathways have been developed to address the implications of different philosophies. They are described in more detail later.

Near-Term Vision Schools that have a clear future vision can often both easily establish their present position and estimate possible short-term achievements. These depend on the school’s particular context, starting point and individual priorities. The P1 and T1 school models illustrate near-term visions, corresponding to the future visions described by P2 and T2.

Schools introducing any new major project or process must have a workable near-term vision. Without this, there would be nothing to evaluate results against and no way of ensuring that real educational transformation is taking place.

Future VisionEducational philosophy(P-Route or T-Route)

Developing the Vision

Reviewing the Vision

External Internal

Near-Term VisionStrategic plan or

business case

ReviewDiscussion considering

all available sources of data

EvaluationWhat was

learnedthough the first

period of thestrategic plan?

Success criteria met?

The Strategic PlanYear-by-year

outcomes

What is possible?Using the scenarios that

describe all majorschool processes

Checking the VisionDay-in-the-life

(walking through thevision as different people)

Learning from Others

– Case studies– Input from the design team– Consultancy– New research

ActionsRational for

innovation (common goals) PoC (Proof of Concept)

Models are trialled Ways of sharing best new practice as

these emerge

Education Transformation

Programme: The case for new learning spacesRoom data sheet

LA exemplars Output specification

Sharing and Using the Vision

Internal External

Figure 2: Change Process


A key objective for fulfilling a near-term vision is for a school to achieve ‘e-confidence’ through its new, IT-led model of learning.

The term ‘e-confident’ is used as described in the Becta Self Review Framework 1, and as recognised through the UK IT Mark2 . The UK IT Mark recognises schools that have demonstrated a commitment to continuous improvement through the use of technology on the route to becoming ‘e-confident.’

Schools can use the T-Route and P-Route models to develop their own near-term school vision and to achieve ‘e-confidence’ as part of this development process.

Detailed Planning ScenariosHaving established a near-term vision and its aims, the next step involves planning exactly how to carry out such developments. An example may be the introduction of cashless catering to help reduce bullying.

Putting such a system in place would require adequate IT infrastructure, the ability to identify each child automatically and to keep personal details secure, as well as ensuring top-up payments can be made online from home. Every decision has a matching set of consequences, which add to the overall complexity of the vision.

We have created a set of detailed planning scenarios that describe several school processes. Each scenario is explained in the context of four school models (T1, T2, P1, P2), reflecting the different Pathways for Change over time. The scenarios describe how school processes work to ensure suppliers can provide the right solutions. The planning scenarios have been designed to stand alone as much as possible. As a result, in cases where the P-Route is not favoured overall for example, a scenario from the P1 school model can still support a particular vision.

‘Day in the Life’ Narratives Once the future vision, near-term vision, and detailed plan have been established, these plans should be checked from the perspectives of the different people involved. Our research showed that narrative descriptions are helpful in representing and expressing requirements. We have therefore developed the ‘Day in the Life’ exemplar.

Narratives help identify issues that are most apparent from a learner’s perspective. These may require a review of the plan or even the vision. The most effective ‘Day in the Life’ narratives involve several individuals with different needs. This document provides a selection of characters reflecting an accurate cross-section of the learning community. Further examples can be provided by Microsoft through our consulting partners.

3.2 Sharing and Using the VisionThe vision can be used to guide several internal and external processes. These include:

• Promoting and increasing innovation within the school, sharing good practice and informing staff development.

• Sharing the vision with everyone involved.

• Guiding staff towards spending priorities.

Promoting and increasing innovation within the school, sharing good practice and informing staff development

A clear vision helps schools to recognise projects and individuals that can contribute to the long-term goals. Innovation takes place in schools all the time and is often driven by a key individual. Unless such actions are supported and co-ordinated, they are likely to be lost. A clear school vision helps in ensuring that both innovation and good practice support the goals that are consistent with this vision. These are more likely to be visible to others who can reuse them effectively. They can also be used to inform the decisions of the head teacher.

Successful schools have processes in place for sharing good practice. These may include regular meetings, peer observation and video recording of lessons and events. Schools with the Investors in People mark will recognise the importance of linking the school vision with the allocation of training resources so that development can proceed more quickly.

1http://matrix.ncsl.org.uk/GMATRIX_

4617462_20285993/1147708847418/

rebrand/matrix/srf/index.cfm2http://www.naace.org

http://matrix.ncsl.org.uk/GMATRIX_4617462_20285993/1147708847418/rebrand/matrix/srf/index.cfm



http://www.naace.org

http://www.naace.org


Sharing the vision ‘Day in the Life’ narratives are particularly useful for sharing a school’s aspirations with all involved, from school staff to the wider community. They can help the school justify decisions about allocating resources, such as giving one group a set of laptop computers to develop good practice.

Having a clear vision and basis for the processes helps parents understand and support pilot programmes that will benefit the whole school in the long term. Guiding staff towards spending prioritiesThe UK government has made considerable investments into schools and to support these, any change process must begin well in advance and be sustained long after the investment has been made. Schools can maximise the return on investment and speed up the process of development by focusing resources effectively from the start.

A clear direction and vision will support more open and effective spending decisions. For example, the science department may request funding for data logging equipment that connects with a personal digital assistant (PDA) or Smartphone. Funding for this project may be refused due to cost. However, the future school vision may include an expectation that pupils will have their own PDAs. In this case, it would make economic sense to make funds available to support the science department’s expenditure, as well as additional, complementary technology such as the PDAs. Good practice can therefore be developed.

3.3 Reviewing the VisionA key feature shared by successful schools is their ability to reflect - to evaluate successes and review their vision in the light of experience and lessons learned. The review process can be informed by many sources, including:

• Feedback from learners and discussion forums.

• Evaluation of innovation projects within the school.

• Findings from local and international case studies.

• Input from consultants and the local government.

• Feedback from staff and community envisioning workshops.

• Feedback from external training courses and other professional development sessions.

However, it is challenging to coordinate a consistent response from such a diverse range of sources. The envisioning process helps to prioritise feedback to inform thinking and practice in order to support the achievement of the desired goals. The school’s planning stage also helps develop measurable success criteria. The success or failure in meeting these criteria can indicate the likely pace of change within the school, but it must be open to new ideas, as well as planned successes.

The review cycle can be a rapid and intense process for schools and challenges may be faced that question aspects of the vision. The school must therefore have processes in place to deal with these challenges.

One possibility is to use the Pathways for Change suggested in this document to identify and resolve any problems or conflicts at an early stage.

An alternative is to ensure that regular and frequent meetings with staff take place during the process to resolve issues quickly.

Having to re-write or re-define a large part of a school’s vision will slow down the process of educational transformation. Establishing a robust future vision from the outset helps everyone involved to be clear about the school’s aspirations and requirements.

For example, any school of the future will need to provide physical spaces that can be changed to provide the different learning environments required during a school day.


They will also need to be flexible enough to accommodate changes in learning processes and educational requirements over time.

A future vision also makes any re-issuing of the near-term vision less significant if it becomes necessary. It is considered good practice to review vision and planning documents annually, setting monitoring points and deadlines at shorter intervals.

The future vision may also require several revisions as time and projects develop. Revising the future vision does not mean a huge change to school requirements, but ensures that it is accurate and thorough as well as flexible enough to incorporate benefits from experience.


Section 4 - Pathways for Change We use the expression “Pathways for Change” to describe the method we have designed for creating a vision of your future learning model. There are two routes of change and two key stages for each route, as described below. By keeping both routes clear and simple, we have been able to provide a series of resources which can help you fully to engage everyone involved in and affected by your model. They can help you describe a future vision which is agreed by all and which has solid examples.

4.1 The ‘T-Route’ and ‘P-Route’

Change may be viewed as evolutionary or transformational, depending on the point of view taken. Some people involved in creating the vision may hold strong value judgements or preconceptions, which unbalance the envisioning process and may not be apparent until later stages. These can be identified and addressed by getting everyone involved to identify with one of two Pathways for Change in schools: known as the ‘T-Route’ and ‘P-Route’.

Learning is recognised as a complex process and for our models we have considered the teacher pupil relationship as a core function in both routes. At some times this relationship will be more directed by the teacher and at other times directed by the pupil. The T-Route philosophy is one in which the balance of interactions is more towards Teacher directed, whereas in P-Route philosophy the balance of interactions is more towards Pupil directed.


‘T-Route’ overview ‘P-Route’ overview

‘T-Route’ head teachers believe the current school model will form the basis of future schools. They believe the current system is the most beneficial for students and the only effective way to ensure children receive the education they require.

P-Route’ head teachers feel current school models may be holding back the progress of learners, believing that education should be transformed. Although there are several approaches to achieve this goal, enough common features can be identified to describe a coherent and workable general model.

‘T-Route’ summary of key concepts ‘P-Route’ summary of key concepts

Subjects are delivered through a timetable of lessons. Key skills are delivered through subjects and specific courses

The curriculum focuses on what learners are capable of - what skills they have and what skills they want rather than subject-specific content.

Learners are primarily organised into year groups. Learner ability is recognised through setting.

Learners work in multi-age and multi-stage environments, supporting a wider range of courses, based on the ability to achieve.

Learners are engaged in a range of learning methods. The most common is classroom learning, with a teacher managing the content.

Learning methods still include classroom teaching but the most common approach is likely to involve longer periods of self-organised or problem-based work.

Evidence is primarily collected by subject teachers and fed into the learner profile for reporting purposes. This keeps teachers informed of progress.

Learners choose some of their mentors. Evidence is mainly collected by the learner and enabled by mentors. This evidence is fed into the learning profile.

IT is embedded in current teaching practice, adding value by enriching and extending the ways in which students can learn.

IT acts as an enabler, supporting new ways of encouraging creativity. It is also used to monitor the kinds of skills, knowledge and progress that are currently difficult to assess.

Assignments are set by teachers, usually based on classroom resources and marked by teachers.

Pupils mark and comment on each other’s work through the greater role of peer assessment. Through IT, there is more focus on, and opportunity for, personalised learning.

Teachers use assessment data to help them ‘personalise’ the resources and courses for students.

Personalisation is a more learner-centred process: learners have a greater say in what they learn, when they learn, where they learn and how they approach their learning.

The table below provides a summary of key concepts that characterise each route. These can be compared to appreciate the different philosophies that are behind the two main perspectives, which can inform your choice of Pathways for Change.


‘T-Route’ overview ‘P-Route’ overview

‘T-Route’ summary of key concepts ‘P-Route’ summary of key concepts

The school defines ‘personalisation’ as being similar to ‘differentiation’ or ‘individualising work’.

The school defines ‘personalisation’ in terms of the choices that learners are presented with.

The school may ask students for their opinions, which may influence policy and practice.

The school provides structures to ensure that parts of the school are student-managed, sometimes including the option of student-held budgets.


4.2 Evolution of the Models

Many schools have examples of both ‘T-Route’ practice and ‘P-Route’ practice. Our research has shown that schools do not have the resources to support efficiently both models equally. As schools evolve, resources will need to be allocated to support one of these two routes.

To illustrate these ideas, the diagram below considers the example of a school that considers two possible routes for development; the P-Route and the T-Route, which will result in either a P1 school or a T1 school.

The P1-school has a near-term vision philosophy best described by the P-Route; the T1-school approach is explained by the T-Route. Both schools will be on target to achieve e-confidence.

A P1 or T1 school will have a future vision described by P2 or T2 respectively. These pathways show how the school believes it can further its aims and meet its aspirations by maximising the effectiveness of available technologies, as well as technologies not yet developed or affordable. As schools become more e-confident, aspects of both pathways may overlap. This is expected as future plans are based on current technologies and ideas of future developments. The visions of P2 and T2 schools represent aspirations of excellence. As technologies evolve, so will their aspirations, producing a constant cycle of advancement and innovation. Detailed descriptions and comparisons of the different schools’ models (T1, T2, P1, and P2) can be found in Section 5. These models include all the different factors, from learning and teaching, administrative services and IT systems to the community and extended provision.

4.3 Routes for TransformationGood schools constantly reflect on their practice and developing improvements. These improvements are guided by a desire to meet their aims, which are usually related to each student realising his or her full potential.

One of the central goals of this document is to help schools achieve their aims, thereby helping local governments, students and parents to achieve theirs. The two clear and simple routes help schools make the most of their resources and efforts.

T- Route TransformationThe T-Route is a logical progression from current practice, where the status quo is maintained. Considerable guidance is available, as are products designed specifically for the current classroom and subject-based teaching. T-Route development can take place gradually by increasing the capacity within the school and by devoting curriculum development and meeting time to share this emerging practice.

Figure 3: Possible Routes (P, T) in Relation to SRF

‘T-Route philosophy’: the balance of interaction is more towards Teacher-directed learning

‘P-Route philosophy’: the balance of interaction is more towards Pupil-directed learning

P-RouteT-Route


P-Route TransformationThis pathway requires a much more structured approach to development planning because many of the teaching methodologies and their supporting systems are new. There are three ways for a P-Route school to transform education:

• Whole-scale change.

• Focus on ‘low-risk’ groups.

• Use of curriculum time.

• Experience points towards the use of curriculum time as the most effective route. However, each of the options is discussed below.

P-Route: Whole-scale changeThis describes a revolutionary change where the school philosophy and its entire support operations change over a short period. This is a massive step forward and requires significant preparation and careful implementation. It should come as no surprise that quick transformation is risky, requiring strong planning to soften the impact.

Occasionally such transformation is inspired by other schools. In this case, detailed guidance and support may be available from the school(s) in question. It may also be that one or more schools join together in a collaborative federation or networked partnership.

To maximise success, such large transformation schemes should be based around a well-defined and well-constructed route map. They should also be directed by an educational philosophy that helps staff to understand the vision for their school.

For such schools, the education scenarios and the Pathways for Change in this document can provide valuable support. The detailed descriptions of school processes can be customised to individual needs.

Schools that have developed transformational models because they have little to lose - ie those emerging from special measures or with serious weaknesses - are amongst the most radical and successful group of schools for transformation. The fact that the school has publicly recognised that change must happen means that there is a solid base for retraining and re-skilling staff in line with the new school philosophy.

In the UK, the Grange School in Long Eaton3 is an excellent example from ‘worst’ to ‘best’ performing school in a county, through a radical transformational approach that is consistent with the P-Route. The school defined a clear vision focusing on ‘Living, Learning, and Laughing.’ It then redefined the way it educated its students by focusing on their learning, their capabilities, their skills, and their ability. Every learner now has a personal skills profile which is used to record his or her learning experiences. The real change was in moving to a skills-based curriculum and empowering the learners to use newly-gained skills and knowledge to inspire and raise their aspirations, all while making the most out of IT.

P-Route: Focus on ‘low-risk’ groupsSchools using this approach identify a group of students who seem to be underperforming and who would therefore, benefit from transformational change. This approach offers a fresh opportunity for such students who can then act as a pilot group for testing new ideas, training staff, developing systems, and demonstrating proofs of concept to support wider-scale transformation at a later stage.

This approach, relying on increasing flexibility over time, is currently used in many schools. Typically it runs in parallel to existing practice. Opportunities for extending the new methods across the whole school may be restricted for two reasons. Firstly, the new models typically involve limited numbers of staff and are often viewed as not scalable. Secondly, the students chosen may be considered ‘low risk’ in terms of achievement profiles, but they may not possess the skills needed to redefine the curriculum route offered to them.

3http://www.alite.co.uk/studies/

holisticlearning.htm

http://www.alite.co.uk/studies/holisticlearning.htm




P-Route: Use of curriculum timeThis method is arguably the most effective for successful transformation. It is a gradual, considered, scalable approach to step change in educational philosophy. There are several successful models in the UK using this approach.

The process suggests that a year group, tutor group or percentage of curriculum time is selected to adopt a transformational curriculum. The scale of adoption across the school is expanded or reduced, based on the extent of achievable and measurable success.

Examples of such models include:

• The Royal Society of Arts (RSA) ‘Opening Minds’ curriculum4 , which engages students in longer-duration problem-solving activities. This is typically used with all or a group of KS3 students, taking up 10 to 50 per cent of curriculum time.

• The CASE project5 which provides students with problem-solving activities and does not require them to take notes or revise for examinations. It is typically used with year eight and nine students, taking up between two and 10 per cent of curriculum time. This approach encourages collaboration, team working and critical thinking, although the directed nature of the activities makes it difficult to use for more than 10 per cent of curriculum time. However, it is excellent for developing staff expertise in problem-solving methodologies.

• Cambridge Education’s ‘Skills Ladders’ for UK primary and secondary schools which provides a curriculum based on skills, capabilities, and attitudes that can run in parallel to the taught curriculum. It can be used from half a day a week up to full curriculum adoption.

• The International Baccalaureate which contains elements of student-determined learning and e-portfolio work. These can be started as courses within traditional learning structures, expanding over time to take up a greater proportion of curriculum time, with more complex awards.

• ‘Laptop groups’6 which are used in several countries. Children, with parental consent, take part in an alternative curriculum which brings together a set of radical ideas to formulate a new model for one group of students. Parents may view such ideas as carrying a high risk of failure. Schools can deal with this by gaining parental support through evaluation and review processes that enable students to leave the programme if it is felt the approach is not working. Within the UK, Eggbuckland Community College in Plymouth ran a project where students were provided with teacher training, then researched and delivered the KS3 curriculum to each other. Their performance increased significantly which resulted in the scheme expanding to one-quarter of the school.

The ‘curriculum time model’ supports the gradual expansion of the alternative curriculum and staff development. Under the right conditions, the head teacher can change the remaining part of the curriculum time over to the P-Route model. Such conditions are that:

• staff feel they have the necessary expertise to work with the new concept of teaching and learning

• students are ready to learn effectively in the new environment

• parents and the wider community support the change.

At this stage, developments can move quickly and funding can be more targeted to support the individual school’s future vision.

Schools employing this gradual transformation report considerable success, of which the Grange School and Eggbuckland case studies are just two examples. Cases where the proportion of P-Route curriculum time has decreased is rarely due to concerns over academic achievement. Instead it is almost always due to a change of school leadership which reflects a shift in educational direction back to a T-Route philosophy.

4http://www.thersa.org/newcurriculum/

5http://www.leeds.ac.uk/case/

6http://www.microsoft.com/Education/

aalresearch2.mspx

http://www.thersa.org/newcurriculum/

http://www.thersa.org/newcurriculum/

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/case/

http://www.microsoft.com/Education/aalresearch2.mspx



Section 5 – Pathways for Change - Model ExamplesT-Route and P-Route School ModelsThe following pages provide a detailed description of the different school models along the Pathways for Change. It looks at the two exemplars for the T-Route (T1, T2) and the P-Route (P1, P2). The objective is to use the examples to show what a school might look like in the different models. The description, particularly of the technology, should not be considered as a ‘must have’ list. It simply indicates some typical school characteristics and capabilities as well as types of empowering technologies.

5.1 The Near-Term Vision of a ‘T-Route’ school (T1) A school with base-level technology

Overview

• A T1 school is likely to be similar to one that is currently viewed as an example of best practice in e-confidence.

• The school uses a traditional curriculum, based on the National Curriculum.

• The school has a device-student ratio of better than 1:4, plus wireless and wired network coverage which is capable of supporting a class using laptop computers in any school location.

• This school model is included to challenge the model of what is possible within traditional structures and funding constraints.

Learning and Teaching

• All teaching areas have Internet-linked presentation capability, with a data projector or large plasma screen display.

• T-Route schools use technologies that support the teacher working at the front of the class, such as electronic whiteboards.

• The school is assumed to have classes of between 24 and 30 students in each subject, with specialist rooms for art, design and science, and to be running standard days.

• Non lesson-based structures may include:

• An annual activity week when the timetable is suspended and students enjoy a variety of activities.

• Occasional ‘off-timetable’ days, such as industry days or citizenship days, when the timetable is suspended for a day to cater for visiting speakers and demonstrations.

• Extended school facilities; out-of-hours clubs and activities that are typically optional, serving a smaller number of students.

• Some lunchtime and break time clubs, run by staff who take the time to do so.

Administration and IT systems

• The school has a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) used as an e-portal, including assigning homework to students, and limited automated marking,

• The school has all the necessary infrastructure and technology and follows the Becta guidelines for services.

• The management information system (MIS) system is integrated with the other systems in the school. It supports electronic registration and pupil tracking as well as a lesson-driven timetable facility.

Community and Extended Provision

• Community links mainly take place out of school hours. To an extent, they merge with the extended school provision.

• Primary and tertiary links. The school is assumed to have a specialist school status and there is a degree of collaboration between the local primary and secondary schools. In broad terms, this usually consists of an annual investment that enables visits by primary students to the secondary school – the most common ‘traditional’ approach.









Building Implications

• IT infrastructure is fundamental when considering new buildings or revamping old classrooms. Examples of how to ensure that IT is flexible and can develop with the times include;

• Placing the services around the edge and placing trays at the back of student desks to hold the cables.

• Desks that plug in to each other to extend services.

• Floor boxes.

• Overhead services with drop-down leads.

• Service islands.

5.2 The Future Vision of a ‘T-Route’ school (T2) A school with advanced pedagogy and supporting technology.

Overview

• A T2 school incorporates best practice from the most e-confident schools from around the world that share the ‘T-Route’ philosophy. It represents a collection of the most effective examples of how IT can be incorporated into the traditional classroom. This is the assumed future aspiration of the traditional school philosophy, sometimes called ‘embedded’ or ‘blended’ learning.

• The school still uses IT to deliver a traditional curriculum, arranged around a timetable of lessons.

• The school provides 1:1 access to an IT device which has at least the capability of a current mid-range laptop computer. As a result, lack of access will never be a reason for stopping a learner from using IT.

• Students move classrooms for lessons in various specialist departments, as they do in the T1 school. All the other structures described in T1 are the same or enhanced.

• This model attempts to show what may be achieved within traditional pedagogy and structures. It assumes that the pace of technological advancement and teacher skills development are both maintained for the next five years.

Learning and TeachingAs T1, plus:

• Paper is used where there is a pedagogical advantage in doing so.

• IT rooms, suites, and ‘clusters’ no longer exist for the different subject areas. Instead they may form part of the teaching within subjects, usually in a ‘hot desk’ scenario. In these cases, the mobile device held by the student or his/her identity will respond to a virtual or physical PC-like device around the school.

• Students use digital video, sound manipulation and expressive media in all subjects, as dictated by the tasks which the teacher sets.

• All classrooms support multimedia working and specialist facilities have evolved to meet the new demands set by IT. For example:

• Technology uses computer-aided design (CAD) as integral to the design process. Computer-aided modelling (CAM) is used for prototyping, testing and construction in all fields, including textiles, food, and electronics.

• Science subjects use real-time monitoring and wireless sensing devices, just as real scientists in the field do.

• Specialist media includes broadcast quality TV and radio, used both internally and for external pod casting.

• Specialist art facilities include 3D graphics, modelling and animation.

• Humanities and science use global positioning system (GPS) location data, including electronic information noted by learners on field trips and researched using existing databases.

• Language teaching and other subject areas use collaborative real-time technologies, working with groups of students from different schools, countries and academic levels. Supporting technologies include multicasting, multipoint video conference, voice, application sharing, and presence such as instant messaging (IM) software.

• Sports teaching uses video technology to compare student performance with the actions of professional athletes.

• Maths is dynamically delivered. It supports personalised learning and automated marking, ensuring that students are set appropriate challenges. Work ties in with numeracy across the curriculum by providing appropriate links when maths-related challenges occur in other lessons.

• Students use their mobile learning device across the curriculum to help them learn how to gain marks in assessments, as well as to access their current targets.

• E-portfolios empower children to share their informal and formal learning with their teachers and parents. They also serve as a storage and recording facility for their work. Such a work store is considerably more reliable and secure than paper-based versions, and replaces paper as a working medium.


Administration and IT systemsAs T1, plus:

• Access control, proximity detection and biometric technologies supporting the full automation of attendance, access, inventory, and ordering.

• All school functions are web-based and working practice provides paper-based reports to parents only if specifically requested or required by legislation. The school ensures that families have access to school systems through home systems, such as TV, telephone and broadcast technology, or by providing devices and connectivity.

Community and extended provisionAs T1, plus:

• A ‘wired community’, supported by WiMax and similar technologies,. This means that all resources, including transmitted media, are available wirelessly throughout the school catchment area. This supports off-site community provision at multiple locations, using collaborative and video meeting systems.

Infrastructure implicationsIn addition to a T1 school, the way IT is used across the school depends upon the way in which effective 1:1 access is managed. The most likely solutions are;

• Solution 1 – All learners have their own laptop computer or Tablet-style device. This requires secure storage to be available outside classroom areas so that laptops can be collected without disruption. Such lockers require individual doors, power supply, and remote activation over a local area network (LAN). The area requirement for such lockers is considerable. The school would require a minimum of 35 square metres of accessible space to house them.

• Solution 2 – All learners have their own PDA-sized device and ‘hot desk’ screens. Such a solution does not yet exist, so the way in which this technology is incorporated into schools can only be estimated. A battery-charging area will be needed in each classroom, so PDA batteries can be swapped. Thin client computer terminals should be available in most classrooms to give half the students in each class access to a computer and keyboard. The PDA contains the main processor and connects using a wireless link.

• Solution 3 – Each classroom has a set of laptops or Tablet PCs, which learners collect when they enter. This requires each class to be fitted with a locker that can house, charge, and connect 30 laptop devices. Space for a laptop battery-charging block will be needed or central power supply islands.

• Solution 4 – Students have a ‘thin-client laptop’ device. This looks like a laptop and uses servers to run applications across a wireless connection. This device is lighter and cheaper than a standard laptop and can be taken home by students in their bags. The device is worthless to anyone outside of the school, minimising the risk of theft. The long battery life means individual charging lockers are not required. The school would require a significantly larger server room, as this is where most of the computing power would take place. This solution has not been tested in terms of its impact on students’ multimedia creativity.

• Solution 5 – The school has a large supply of PCs so students can use them where and when they need to. This solution requires additional space built-in to most areas across the school, and a larger server room compared with the other solutions.

• Several of these solutions will require a large service desk area in order for IT technicians to deal with technical issues for both students and staff. This service desk must be directly accessible to the students and available at break, lunch and after-school . A solution that does not include a service desk arrangement will probably not work because of the number of minor maintenance issues that will require support. If students are using technology to support their learning, they must have access to immediate technical help.


5.3 The Near-Term Vision of a ‘P-Route’ school (P1)A school with base-level technology

Overview

• A P1 school is e-confident and has a solid IT infrastructure in place. Beginning the journey away from traditional teaching, it has started to develop its own approach to personalised learning.

• Personalisation can be interpreted in many ways, including:

• Curriculum structures.

• The RSA Opening Minds scheme.

• The Cambridge Education Personalisation by Pieces Scheme.

• International Baccalaureate structures.

• Problem-based learning schemes.

• Enquiry-based learning schemes.

• Ownership structures.

• Student leadership.

• Student-owned environments for learning.

• Student involvement through team roles.

• Peer learning and peer assessment.

• Multi -site learning.

• Working from home.

• Co-ordinated working with different organisations, schools and other learning places.

• Multi-age communities.

• Multi-pace working.

• These concepts are not mutually exclusive. A valid model of personalisation may include one or more of the above features, plus others not covered here. Approaches to personalised learning are based upon the following educational principles:

• The school uses skills-based assessment wherever possible.

• It seeks to empower learners to become more actively engaged in their own and others’ learning. It encourages them to take an active role in the operation of their school.

• It has focused on the use of 1:1 computer access to help teachers move away from whole-class, single-age, and single-stage teaching.

• This model attempts to picture the degree of personalisation that a school can achieve within its operational and funding constraints.


• The school day will contain extended periods of time for more in-depth work.

• Schools may restrict personalised approaches for some students. Alternatively, they may enable all students to take examination courses – either partly or entirely. This would be achieved by using well-managed systems and resources supported by IT.

• Students will be set extended problems that give them the opportunity to manage their time and plan complex working patterns. Some students will manage such blocks of time better than others. A system of continuous and progressive assessment of ability enables the teacher to create appropriate limits and opportunities for students.

• Rather than being offered as a separate subject, IT is likely to be delivered through extended project working.

• Subjects are usually grouped to develop wider themes, topic areas, or perspectives, to make time within the curriculum for extended project work.

• Many students lack the skills to direct their own learning and that of others. To address this, the personalised school will provide progressive training and assessment in these skills. Such programmes will take different forms in different schools, but will usually involve:

• Students working in a range of teams, taking responsibility for what their classmates achieve.

• Students managing services, projects, and budgets that have a direct impact on others.

• Students being consulted and engaged through meetings of their own and, in some cases, in their own offices.

• Students working on extended problems will be able to use a range of facilities, from multimedia and expressive arts to the more traditional breakout and library areas.



• A VLE is essential and will:

• Support the minimum level of personalisation.

• Ensure that assignments can be set for extended periods of time.

• Enable students to create their own web pages, using web parts of their choice.

• Offer teachers many easy ways to view tasks that their students have both completed and not completed.

• Contain version control that helps students to keep a complete set of draft copies along with the final copy.

• The timetabling and school management software must be flexible enough to:

• Support mid-year changes in structure.

• Support variable lesson lengths and registration times.

• Automatically register learners working in other centres which have been endorsed by the school.

• Every student’s e-portfolio must:

• Store evidence of progress both from school and home.

• Contain filters that help the mentor focus on aspects of the learner’s work.

• Have ‘show and tell’ public access, so that learners can choose which bits of their work they would like other people to see, without revealing their own identity.

• Link the access control and registration systems by a single sign-on system. This helps learners to move freely within the areas where they are permitted. It also ensures they can always contribute to their portfolio – whether they are learning at school, at home or in another location.

• Although the model encourages responsibility and trust in students, security and incident tracking must be supported. Access logs, CCTV and print management solutions can be combined to create an effective monitoring solution. Additional solutions can help teachers to view all of their students’ computer screens at the same time - and, if possible, the students’ actual location.

• Wireless PDA devices for teachers, together with laptops, help them to record data on-the-spot. This is essential if they are to capture evidence to support learner progression.

• Having a paper free policy encourages all staff to use the school’s portal rather than their own folders to store, modify and share work.

Community and extended provision

• The move towards greater personalisation results in more open and varied facilities, supporting extended provision. Such facilities are much more in line with adult learning.

• Larger periods of learning help involve the community in several new areas, presenting greater scope for mentoring.

• Mentors can include people from the local community, business community and parents.

• Mentoring sessions at weekly or fortnightly intervals offer the greatest impact on learning. Many people in the local community are willing to offer this kind of commitment.

• This approach to learning helps create more links between students and local businesses. For example, students seeking support for a marketing project often approach local companies to identify real-life situations they can work on.

• Experienced external speakers can be used for important lectures and experts who may be intimidated by large audiences can address smaller group sessions.

• Longer project timescales frequently lead to higher quality and more in-depth outcomes from the students. Such outcomes may benefit by being shared with a wider audience, either through the web or face to face through presentations and performance. For example, one school puts on its own film festival at the end of each term, showing the best video work achieved in all subjects.


Infrastructure implications

• At the time of writing, limited national qualifications are available that are computer–based rather than pen and paper. Although this is likely to change, a P1 school must ensure it meets current needs, for example examination spaces that are large enough for whole year groups. (Current requirements for computer-based exams do not require student attendance on such a large scale and are unlikely to do so.)

• Much of the curriculum will be delivered across extended periods of time, so work areas within schools must be multi-functional to support this. There are several solutions, including:

• ‘Department clustering’: by placing breakout and resource areas at the heart of department areas, students can use specialist facilities more flexibly. Consider for example, a learner using music resources to support part of an English project. By pooling resources across departments, learners have far more choice and opportunities in their work. This will help further creativity and support the many different ways in which a learner prefers to learn.

• Facilities clustered around a central work area provide this required flexibility. Many of the best technology departments already work this way. For example, if students need to design and build an electronic device that has wooden and metal elements, they will need access to resistant materials and electronics facilities, plus CAD, CAM and possibly graphic design resources.

• Specialist small group facilities: students wishing to create production-quality media as part of their projects will need specialist facilities which are not yet common in schools. These include; digital video studio facilities, sound recording facilities in quiet areas and areas for staging, group meetings, presentation practice and role-play. An example activity would be getting learners to investigate Newton’s third law of motion through active engagement. A group of students may need access to; video equipment, overlay editing software, large areas suitable for a sequence where they are using roller blades, bench areas for traditional approaches using trolleys, and small rooms for chroma (‘blue-screen’) video production equipment. Small groups can complete their work either in enclosed glazed rooms that can be easily supervised, or in larger areas which are sound-absorbent and have good acoustic properties. Current examples can be found in office spaces using acoustic ceiling and floor treatments.

• Conference facilities: schools require areas for guest lectures from inspirational speakers, delivered in larger areas or halls and complemented by nearby ‘breakout’ and private study areas. Professional conferences typically use this model, where large groups break off into smaller working groups. This model supports the idea that students have different learning styles and work best in environments that suit their individual needs.

• ‘Corporate identity’: students need to identify and connect with the environments in which they are working. Extended projects requiring self motivation from students will not work if there is an anti-school culture. Schools should reflect a shared environment. This can be achieved through uniting staff and student facilities and reducing ‘staff-only’ areas. Such an environment can also be enhanced through a corporate identity approach to colours, school emblems, signs and plasma displays, all helping identify school-owned material. Providing students with areas to manage formally themselves is another good way to address this balance. These may include student-led radio and TV facilities, student-managed bulletin boards and interactive whiteboard ‘scribble walls’. The balance of trust and opportunity must reflect the school ethos. Schools implementing larger, more distributed learning environments need to think of the fact that many teachers will not be trained in teaching this way,

• It is important that the physical structure of a school reflects its learning ethos and educational vision. Any new or remodelled buildings must be designed in line with this vision. Schools with open, transparent spaces will enable classes to work within the same proximity, promoting more effective student-teacher interaction.

• Design is critical to create an atmosphere that feels open and trusting, while providing maximum security and supervision. Using hidden structures that use ‘safe-by-design’ concepts will help achieve this.


• When a new school or learning space opens, it is likely that many of the staff will not have had sufficient training to help them to teach in larger, more distributed learning environments. Any school constructing new spaces must ensure they can accommodate such environments as well as any increase in staff and student numbers. One way in which schools can ensure that any new buildings are fully flexible is to design larger spaces, first with the structural walls and core services, then divide these into smaller spaces by building solid but non-structural walls. These walls can then be removed (during the summer holidays for example) if the larger space is required. Alternatively, a school could use movable partitions in these spaces, but equipping these with the required acoustic properties makes this an expensive option.

5.4 The Future Vision of a ‘P-Route’ school (P2)A school with advanced pedagogy and supporting technology

Overview

• This school is much further advanced than P1, following the same pedagogic principles. The technology and staff training has evolved, increasing the extent of personalised learning.

• Since the systems required to operate such a school do not currently exist, speculation and creativity must be used to feel the way. Looking at the work that some cutting edge schools are doing in this area can help, for example schools that support students in non-traditional approaches. It is important to develop a solid understanding of the views of others as to what truly personalised learning could be.

• We welcome challenges to our model in terms of what degree of personalisation will be possible, assuming that the pace of technological advancement, educational research and teacher skills development is maintained for the next five years.

• The P2 model considers how individual learners could share the same school as others that learn at a different pace, have different interests, are at different ages and have different preferred learning styles.

• This model is based on considering, models that accelerate rather than moderate. We have looked at research into cognitive development and international best practice from schools that have accelerated cognitive development.

• As one of the core features of a personalised learning system is the degree of variation both in terms of learning pathways and learning environments, it would be counterproductive to describe such schools in detailed terms. Therefore P2 schools are described in terms of general solutions and experiences of learners. The guiding principles are common to all and provide a solid framework that debates can take place around.


• If learners are working at different paces in relation to their interests, it becomes increasingly difficult to imagine a content-based curriculum that can meet their needs. If learners are to learn effectively and independently, the skills infrastructure helps unite them. The focus centres on gaining subject knowledge, supported by the development of transferable skills.

• With such a skills-based infrastructure, links can be made between a student’s formal and informal learning experiences.


• Progression is essential for ensuring motivation and evaluation. For this reason, each skill must have a clear progression route. The P2 school concept is based on a basic learning cycle which consists of five steps:

• Evaluate: learners evaluate their current skill in a particular area - for example time management, - and are helped in this by complex forms of personal digital assistance.

• Mentorship: a meeting with a mentor can review the evidence and work contained within the e-portfolio, upon which the learner has based his or her conclusions regarding a particular skill.

• Target setting: with the mentor’s help, the learner sets targets within his/her e-portfolio for the coming week. For example, the skill ‘time management’ may require the learner to provide evidence of planning and management of a project that takes three days to co-ordinate.

• Planning: IT resources, such as dynamic timetabling, can help learners to plan how they will collect the evidence they need to show their progress. Precise identification of users enables students to access the right resources for their competencies and skill sets.

• Evidence collection: the evidence is collected by the learner in whatever form is suitable.

• Each cycle helps develop the learner’s evidence base and experience.

• Greater complexity and achievement enables a wider range of opportunities, as well as enabling learners to choose their own specialist area and to see for themselves how their progress compares with the skill framework.

• Monitoring software alerts the individual if the learning profile is becoming unbalanced, or if key concepts and ideas are missed. The degree of control would vary over time and would need to be more open than the current National Curriculum, yet more restrictive than a general free-for-all.

• From the learner perspective, both formal and informal learning are valued and recorded as both types can contribute evidence to their skills achievement framework.

• Smaller mentoring facilities are coupled with a wide variety of environments. This means P2 schools can respond to the considerably large range of possible projects and environments needed by learners.

• It is likely that some of the mentors will still provide formal courses that students can attend. This would be similar to the way in which fringe events are held in parallel to conferences. Flexibility means that teachers who wish to teach a linear course can still do so as part of the overall P2 offering.


• Integration is the key word here. A system linked to cashless catering could, for example, alert the learner that his or her diet is unbalanced based on what has been eaten over the past month. A good school system could ensure that reasonable targets and suggestions are fed into a learners’ e-portfolio. If the learner did not address these issues, the school system may notify parents and mentors, block access to vending machines, and possibly areas of the school at specific times. On the positive side, when the alerted learner begins to make progress, this news can be related to parents and mentors, and site access privileges restored.

• The following service information will need to be available over the web to a mixture of audiences, selected by audience needs:

• Catering: food choices made, nutritional analysis of diet, cost, turnover, analysis by product, individual, ability group and behaviour profile and card cash balances.

• Access: who has been where, who is permitted to go where, flow rates, analysis of student choices, overlay of where students should be compared to where they are. Verification is based on learner ability and skill levels.

• Library: individual and group use, reviews of resources, individual reading record, ability profile against reading pattern.


• Behaviours: incident logging for both good and bad behaviour, progress rates, targets met and failed, peer-to-peer report logging, behaviour analysis patterns, health information, secure access to health and social services data, such as medication and home situation, alerts, access, and catering.

• Academic progress: experiences, courses, reviews, assessments, source of assessments, achievement timelines and e-portfolios that any kind of files can be added to. Such files can be cross referenced to specific criteria or assessment grades. For example, if a teacher thinks a student’s video clip contains evidence of empathy, the relevant criteria can be attached to that part of the clip. Later, the teacher can use an evidence filter to search for empathy examples. The clip will appear in the search results. From an analysis of all of the assessments by source and level, a learner profile can be built and managed.

• Building Management System: carbon reduction contribution from areas of the school buildings, energy use, U-values, temperature variation with sunshine and usage variation, cost analysis, efficiency, water use, electricity generation and area occupation and use.

• CCTV: output of the cameras, plus control of zoom and position of some cameras.

• Teacher training: audio-visual class monitoring facility, output of teachers’ and learners’ screens.

• Position: the location of each learner within the wireless range, attendance at external venues or off site activities, parental alert if an individual learner cannot be located, the merging of position and attendance data and the ability to attach such data as a tag to students’ work and files.

• Inventory: dynamic device and resource tracking, alerts generated by incorrect position or use related to time of day, room booking data.

• Evaluation systems: bringing reports together for schools in an specific area, and progress towards targets or key performance indicators, rate of academic progress through staff skills as well as learners’ skills, the sharing of good practice and a full search facility.

• Centralised resource area: for printing or media processing. Most resources will be delivered electronically and paper will be used only as a last resort.

Community and extended provision

• P2 school portal services will be made available to the whole community.

• The way in which student achievement is analysed is more like adult learning. Therefore in time, a common learning and administrative infrastructure for community education is developed, regardless of where classes take place. In the interim phase, this may need to run in parallel with a prescribed, curriculum content driven agenda.

• Every effort would be made to engage the community as mentors to learners of all ages, either virtually or in person.

• Learners in P2 schools are increasingly driven by interest and self-generated needs. Both the school and the community should respond to this.

• The language of skills is a common language understood by both employers and educators. The focus on skills establishes the school as a learning hub with common community and school interests. Local groups and companies can set the contexts for skills development and gauge the effectiveness of such programmes for their own employees. Working so closely with schools in this way would give local groups and companies a reason for setting up within or close to the school grounds and for offering extended services.

• The provision of health and other community services presents accommodation needs, which may result in further expansion of schools. Where this happens, the schools would need to have an established ethos of involvement. The anonymity of the Web must be used to best effect through secure reporting and advice.


Infrastructure implications

• According to our research, variation in the design, size and shape of different rooms had little meaning for schools that were largely teaching students in groups of the same size. The key concept to absorb when considering the P2 school is that learning in this school is not generally taught in groups of the same size. This is a profound change in design and purpose.

• Students will generally move around much more in a P2 school, either on their own or in small groups. It will be rare to see mass movement and mass canteen use. This has implications for corridors and social spaces as well as acoustics etc.

• Since P2 school systems have not yet been totally developed, both school staff and the buildings will also need to deliver traditional elements of education while moving progressively towards the P2 model.

• Students develop the skills to help them to earn the trust required to work in a more responsible way. Therefore schools need to have a strategy of zoning, i.e. student privilege access to areas and resources that require greater responsibility.

• Mentoring rooms or areas are required to support the learning cycle outlined above.

• Schools must respond to the flexibility of learners’ needs. In the commercial world, this has led to work environments that are more open plan, have few structural barriers and that can be easily reconfigured internally.

• Areas of the school must have distinct identities. Such identities, or ‘home areas’ for groups of students can be formed around any theme, but it is probably logical to form them around the current themes of learning. Examples of these may include science and technology, global cultures, languages or ecology.

• Research suggests that 150 individuals is the upper limit for a close community with high intrapersonal responsibility. P2 school buildings should aim to provide such ‘home’ multi-age communities for learners – these would logically be based around the educational themed areas. Six home areas could be expected to exist in a P2 school. Learners in transition from primary to secondary level would initially be expected to spend a great deal of their time in such areas. This would decrease as they earn trust and gain more responsibility.

• As the areas should be flexible and will depend on individual needs, it is of little use to specify what they should consist of. However, it is important to consider how they could develop, for example an initial model of five or six classrooms and offices, catering for 150 learners, should be flexible enough to change shape and type.

• One evolution route may be to provide one ‘break-out space’ large enough to accommodate a class. Here, a teacher can support a topic to learners working at different paces, using local resources and 1:1 devices. Teachers can develop their skills in supporting this approach, and the curriculum design for the module could develop. If successful, the next step could be to remove a non structural internal wall and to create a second area, increasing capacity in terms of teachers, students, curriculum and the building.

• A second evolution route may be to join individual subjects under department headings and create larger periods of time for problem-based learning. For example, by combining history, geography, religious education, citizenship, IT, thinking skills, language and global awareness into one department, learners would study on one extended project over a week. Such a curriculum change can be mirrored in the building and staff training. As teachers become more comfortable working with each other, they can increase the range of provision available to these students during the day and develop best practices.

• A school developing its practice directly from TI to P2 is likely to require a starting point using standard classrooms throughout. A school starting at P1 will already be able to support year group problem-based or inquiry-based learning so progress can be more radical.


Section 6 – Educational scenariosAbout the scenariosIn the previous section, the four school models were described at a holistic level. These models can be broken down into a set of processes, which we have called scenarios. These can be used to develop a clearer view of what learning can be like in a transformed educational setting. Scenarios consider particular tasks in greater detail, helping you see what functional specification may be required. Scenarios describe situations, transactions, and sets of activities that reflect daily life in the schools of the future. A scenario will involve one or more of the following roles:

• Learners

• Teachers

• Administrators

• Parents or guardians

• IT co-ordinators

• Other community members, such as police, medical staff, etc.

In each scenario, measurable and observable outcomes are specified for each role.Scenarios can be considered individually or used in combination with other ones to create a more complex scenario. The scenarios have been written as separate units to assist this ‘building blocks’ approach. Schools can mix and match these scenarios to help develop or confirm their own vision.

The diagram shows how scenarios and change management processes relate to the school models and Pathways for Change:

Chan

ge M

anag

emen

t Pro

cess

es

Scenario

Policy

BuildingManagement

TeacherSkills

StudentOrientation

Curriculum

Financial

Technological

The T-Route The P-Route

Progression Routes

Technology Baseline Extended

Technology Baseline

Specification

T2

T1 P1

P2

Figure 4: Schools Scenarios Model


The Pathways for Change (T-Route and P-Route) are in the centre of the diagram. The scenarios represent school processes within these models and will help stakeholders understand the Pathways for Change in greater detail. The change management processes, listed in blocks on the right of the diagram, are continuous processes affecting all schools, regardless of the model adopted.

The model has the following benefits:

• It offers two possible pathways for educational change: T-Route and P-Route, each with its own characteristics, features, assumptions and requirements.

• It offers a framework for describing an educational scenario or process in four school models. Comparing and contrasting a scenario in multiple school models can make certain things clear. For example it might highlight important or less important aspects of school processes. The scenarios are also used with a ‘Day in the Life’ narrative to describe interactions of people, processes and environments.

• It helps visualise the impact on ‘business processes’. Where new processes may be required, existing ones may become unnecessary or need changing.

• It presents insights into the creation and definition of local governments’ and schools’ education visions, and related drivers for change.

It is recommended that you view at least one scenario to understand how they are structured. Section 6.4 lists the education scenarios that have been developed and contains a brief summary of each one. A sample scenario is included in Appendix 2.

6.1 Using the scenariosThere are several ways to familiarise yourself with the sample scenarios:

• Choose the areas of interest to you from the following complete list. It is recommended that you do this if you wish gain a better understanding of areas where you have limited experience, or where you find particular aspects difficult to envisage.

• It may be useful to review scenarios in different schools models to help you appreciate the differences and develop your own model.

• Read the ‘Day in the Life’ narratives and follow the links to the relevant scenarios.

• Read the summaries of individual scenarios which follow. These explain how each scenario contributes to the ‘bigger picture’.

Linking scenarios to functional specificationsFor each scenario, detailed functional specifications are available which can be used to build clear requirements. This will help you successfully to engage your potential supply chain partners.


6.2 Educational scenarios in more detailThe table below contains a list of educational scenarios developed by Microsoft to date. The hyperlinks in this table link to the corresponding overviews of each scenario, which comprise the rest of this section. These provide a description of the educational process covered by each scenario, according to the T-Route and P-Route philosophies.

Scenario Description

Achievement Tracking Using new technology to monitor learner performance.

Attendance Management Using new technology to monitor and manage attendance.

Creativity Skills How new technology can be used to extend learners’ creativity.

Educational Development Plan and Monitoring How schools can use new technology in the educational development planning and review processes.

e-portfolio How e-portfolios can be interpreted and used.

Formative Assessment Explaining formative assessment and the technology which can be used to support it.

Inclusion and Equality Promoting inclusion and equality of access through the use of technology.

Inspiration-led Collaborative Learning How an online speaker could be used to inspire group work.


Scenario Description

Problem Solving Skills How the capability to solve problems can be challenged and extended.

Student Empowerment How students can be provided with opportunities to represent their peers and develop responsibility for others.

Target Setting and Time Management How learners’ capacity to manage their own time and set targets could be extended.

Teacher Professional Development What opportunities and systems exist for teacher training.

Timetable and Organisation of Learning How the school day might be organised and how the timetable might operate.

The following pages offer brief descriptions of the T-Route and P-Route interpretations of each scenario.

Achievement TrackingTeachers in T-Route schools use new technology to monitor student progress and to identify learning styles for each learner. This data helps teachers to meet the needs of individuals, setting more appropriate targets and personalising lesson materials. The teacher is managing the relationship and making decisions on content and process.

Learners in P-Route schools use new technology to exploit opportunities, enabling them to develop a balanced programme of learning that is challenging, yet achievable. Mentors use achievement-tracking tools to facilitate discussions and agree targets with learners in regular meetings. Such tools can enable interaction between learners and multiple mentors (or tutors). Learners use real-time capability tracking tools to gain regular instant feedback, helping them to review their own progress and make better-informed decisions about their learning programme. The pupil is making guided decisions on content and process.

Attendance ManagementT-Route schools use technology to automate attendance registers. Parents can be instantly informed if their child is absent. Reporting statistics are automatically generated, helping schools match and compare attendance against other indicators, such as educational performance. The focus is on physical and/or virtual presence.

Learners in P-Route schools have greater responsibility to organise their own working patterns. They use technology to decide where to work, and can choose to take part in learning opportunities of their choice. Their preferences are remembered for future use, including future registration procedures and understanding how their choices relate to their achievements. Success leads to greater responsibility. The focus is on promoting and gauging student “participation” in the learning process.

Creativity SkillsT-Route schools use technology to develop and support new forms of creativity. New subjects will emerge that let students combine traditional art and technology subjects to create media, as will new IT courses that provide specific skills for designing games and using mixed-media. P-Route schools will increasingly use technology to ensure that creativity is a core tool within learning. By providing longer periods of self directed learning, the scope for individual creativity increases. Less structuring of problem solving activities will further enhance the opportunities for creativity. Students use whatever medium they feel is appropriate when collecting evidence of achievement for their e-portfolio. The focus is on longer, self directed learning which maximises the opportunity for creativity.


Education Development Plan and MonitoringT-Route schools will increasingly be using technology to integrate all collected information. This wealth of data through common standards can be used nationally as well as locally to determine which interventions and development plans had their intended effect. Development plans will be fully linked into this database so that review processes are centred around one planning cycle.

P-Route schools will increasingly use technology to develop a “market economy” of opportunities. Students will be monitored for their skills, attitudes and what they are capable of as well as their knowledge and understanding. Students can see the successes of their peers and make choices accordingly. In this way schools will offer increasingly popular and increasingly effective opportunities. Development will focus more around the policies and structures that support such opportunities.

e-portfolioT-Route schools use technology to create student e-portfolios, containing student work, teacher assessments and key data and resources collected by the school. This large-scale ‘online coursework folder’ helps schools to moderate student work. Schools can also use e-portfolios to train their staff. Using analysis tools, Administrators can interrogate learners’ e-portfolios and link to their other assessments. Moderation of student work at a national level as well as the school assessment process can also be supported. Learners at P-Route schools are responsible for maintaining their own e-portfolios. They can add coursework to demonstrate evidence of achievement against their targets. Peers, parents and mentors can also add their feedback to the teacher’s assessment. Learners continue to own and add to their e-portfolio throughout their lifetime. Powerful analysis tools are used to interrogate the e-portfolio to obtain a current learner profile, identifying gaps and proposing future learning options. Formative AssessmentAssessment should be used as a tool to support learning. Formative assessment aims to give students feedback on their learning progress and to inform teachers of student progress. Learners gain a clearer understanding of what is expected and how they can improve. Formative assessment makes a vital contribution to improved results. At present, most formative assessment is not formally recorded as it is often short term, subjective, and difficult to capture.

Teachers in T-Route schools use technology to record their assessments of the learner more easily. Learners in P-Route schools are responsible for maintaining their own e-portfolio, supported by technology. Teacher assessment is complemented by formative assessment from peers, parents and online reviewers, which is captured by learners.

Inclusion and EqualityT-Route schools use technology to help all learners be part of the lesson, from gifted and talented learners to those facing physical, behavioural and linguistic barriers to learning. P-Route schools use technology to offer a variety of learning routes. Learners can make choices which support their personal strengths and need not work within their year group. Those needing additional support can use appropriate technologies. Inspiration-led Collaborative LearningT-Route schools bring experts into the classroom to inspire learners. Experts can use videoconferencing and interactivity to reach a wider audience of learners, both inside and outside of classrooms. Learners from different schools and countries can take part in the same presentation and work together on related activities.

P-Route schools can group learners into online peer groups, consisting of ‘novice’ and ‘expert’ learners across different locations. External specialists, industrial partners and inspirational speakers can work in a more interactive and focused way with smaller groups of ‘expert learners’, who can then lead collaborative sessions within peer groups.

Problem Solving SkillsT-Route schools use technology to extend the range of resources available. Teachers have access to a greater range and type of problems, which they can use in their teaching. Problem-based activities requiring investigative study, group work or design activities are used in subject-based teaching. Resource-based learning is supported by greater access to high-quality materials that guide the learner in developing strategies, for example breaking down problems into manageable tasks.


P-Route schools increasingly use technology to provide problem-based learning opportunities. Lessons are generally much longer so that learners can work on their resilience and planning skills for solving problems. Using IT, learners can record evidence of their success, proving they are capable of attempting more difficult problems and challenges. Student EmpowermentThe UK government agenda highlights the importance of engaging children in decisions that affect their lives. Their views must be given the same respect as other groups in society. Schools must actively develop skills promoting responsible citizenship.

T-Route schools bring to life the political and representation structures. Courses, ranging from citizenship to history, are offered to learners and supported by IT. Student councils promote active citizenship, with tools such as electronic voting facilities to enable learners to take part in discussions.

Students in P-Route schools have opportunities to be teachers, event organisers, managers and leaders. The subtle implication of ‘ownership’ of the learning process becomes less pronounced, as both (teaching and learning) are viewed as a subset of skills. These can be developed through the opportunities presented by a diverse set of activities supported by technology.

Target Setting and Time Management SkillsTeachers in T-Route schools can set more accurate targets than before because of access to high-quality data and powerful analysis tools. Students, however, have few opportunities to develop time management and planning skills through large-scale projects.

In P-Route schools, the review cycle is central to the learning process. Learners are expected to set their own targets from an early age, and manage the collection of evidence to prove their learning over agreed timescales. Technology is used to monitor the performance of learners, ensuring that they are set appropriate challenges. Teacher Professional DevelopmentTeachers in T-Route schools use technology to work with their peers, sharing resources, ideas and support. CCTV in classrooms opens up teacher observation. Feedback on classroom practice and training opportunities is available online.

Professional development for P-Route teachers involves helping develop new teaching strategies that reflect the P-Route philosophy. New skills will therefore also need to be demonstrated, such as an ability to recognise learners’ electronic needs, for example the use of an e-portfolio. The systems used to collect student evidence are similar to those used for teacher appraisal. Using their current technologies, schools are able to merge the two. Timetable and Organisation of LearningManagers of T-Route schools control costs through tight planning and resource management. In this way, they ensure that there is enough (although perhaps not ideal) physical space for each curriculum activity. Successful timetabling is critical to the smooth operation of the school, particularly for popular schools, which are at full capacity. School buildings and classroom structures play a central role to the education provision.

Use of space in P-Route schools is more flexible. Such ‘demand-side’ resource models are likely to be less efficient than those used in T-Route schools. For this reason, administrators use sophisticated resource management and planning tools. These support flexible space allocation, while minimising costs. Students ‘book in’ to activities, which may be repeated to support different learning times. Education provision is less reliant on physical buildings and more on access to flexible learning environments.


Section 7 – ‘Day in the Life’ Narratives

The ‘Day in the Life’ narratives help visualise what life will be like for different individuals as they move through the Pathways for Change. This technique helps us to understand and appreciate alternative futures more fully. Different perspectives, such as learner, educator and administrator, are all used to explore complementary views of the future school model. Fundamentally, the ‘Day in the Life’ narratives are a way of testing if a vision will work or not by walking through how a learner and a teacher might experience the future school. The narratives help examine a particular vision in more detail.

This approach helps us to discuss and debate questions such as:

• What skills and knowledge will learners need to attain in school?

• How will a 24-hour timeline for learning change both the learning process and a student’s appetite for learning and teaching?

• What will each person (student, teacher, head teacher) want to achieve and be expected to achieve in a given day? What activities will they be performing, when and where?

• What will the learning environment look like, and how will it be used?

The approach also helps us to identify significant points of difference between the various school models.It is important to emphasise that education will be a 24-hour experience and that all learning, no matter where, when or how it takes place, is valuable and accepted as authentic.

Students who are currently are in clubs outside of school find it hard to link them to their school education. The school of the future is a companion to student learning and is always there to support learners. The ‘Day in the Life’ narratives help us to see the whole life of a learner - from waking to sleeping, rather than limiting our view to the learner’s school experiences. Part of the challenge for the school of the future is to engage with all of a student’s learning experiences and to encourage the student to recognise the value in documenting or capturing high-quality learning experiences that happen outside of what would traditionally be regarded as school.

Narratives are used to share visions with a wider audience, helping them to engage effectively in the debate. This happens when people are able to appreciate and visualise the interactions and relationships that take place between learners, teachers, the learning environment and the wider community – from the local to the international level.

Non-specialists can find ‘Day in the Life’ narratives easy to relate to compared with change process models and scenario planning.

The following pages contain one example of a Day in the Life narrative, told from many different perspectives. You may wish to develop your own scenarios in conjunction with your partner organisations.


7.1 An Example ‘Day in the Life’ NarrativeMore details of many parts of this Day in the Life narrative are in Appendix 1. These contain more information on the specific solutions enabling the activity, for example background and questions to stimulate further debate within groups discussing the narrative.

If you are reading this document in Microsoft Word or PDF format, you can follow the hypertext links by holding down the CTRL key and clicking on the link. Hold down the ALT and left arrow key to return back to the main document.

List of Main Characters JuliaJulia is a keen student aged 12. She has a real passion for art and design-related study, an above-average level of achievement and is heavily involved in the cultural life of her school. She dislikes sport and physical activity.

MarkMark (15) has recently joined a new school. He arrived at school having been permanently excluded by another centre. He completed a re-direction programme with the support of an inclusion team associated with the school. Keen to make a good start, he has developed a positive working relationship with Dave who works in the inclusion team.

Dave Dave is an inclusion team worker and mentor. Dave became Mark’s main caseworker when he was identified as a candidate to join the school. From the start he has made home visits and established a positive working relationship with Mark. He is particularly supporting increased participation and directed work for Mark, which have been issues in the past. Dave also works in catering and is well aware of Mark’s strong interest in a possible career in either the leisure or hospitality industry.

JaniceJanice is Julia’s mentor and an art and technology teacher, teaching a popular packaging design course. She is concerned that Julia is dodging sport-related activity.

AlanAlan is Julia’s father.

MichelleMichelle is a ‘lifelong learner’. She left full-time education last year and is taking part in a work-based learning programme.


Early MorningBefore starting work in his catering job, Dave logs in to check on Mark’s location on campus over recent days. He is keen to see whether Mark has begun to spend more time studying onsite and less time working alone, as agreed with his parents. He is pleased to see that, although arrival on-site first thing in the morning is still poor, in every other respect Mark is doing very well indeed. Dave could have chosen to be alerted if Mark’s presence met a particular pattern, but he prefers to check for himself.

Julia quickly reviews part of her previous packaging course unit online from home, using the family computer system. Having made a few last minute changes, she hands in her assignment electronically. She has produced some great creative work, but has made some quite major errors in the calculations and measurements needed. When she goes to collect her handheld device she finds that it has a fault. As she is in a hurry, she asks her father, Alan, if she can borrow his old one. Using her fingerprint and school smart-card to register it as her new device Julia heads off for her first class.

Janice notes that there are now 42 students scheduled to attend today’s class on packaging, four more than she expected. She is informed by the scheduling system that a larger seminar room is available, near her usual venue. Janice approves the recommendation, relieved she can concentrate on supporting a larger group in a room that can comfortably accommodate them.

Mark is in bed – he is not a good early riser. Fortunately, he does not have anything scheduled until mid-morning today.

Michelle has arrived early at the office and checks the campus information system for any updates before starting work. Today is the deadline for presenting evidence of information-handling skills. She agreed with her tutor to submit a report based on her administrative duties at work, and makes a reminder to put this together today. Her other message reminds her that a language session is taking place later in the evening to substitute the regular one she could not attend last week.

Michelle indicates interest in attending the session, but later realises it clashes with a drama group meeting at her old school, which she is still involved with. She also makes a note to check with her line manager that the material she wanted to submit as learning evidence is not confidential.

Mid-MorningMark has arrived at school, and heads to the administration area. This zone is normally off limits, but he is able to enter it this morning and work unsupervised, as agreed. He is arranging part of a forthcoming award presentation as an assignment, and is taking part in a meeting to confirm the running order of the ceremony with the teachers involved and two younger students.

After the meeting, the three students go to a nearby study area, which Mark found earlier and booked online. The group produces a draft of the documents they plan to make and distribute for the event. He shares his knowledge of how to use a software tool with the younger students. During the session, Mark identifies some content which the team can use to improve the document. His tutor will be pleased to hear about this contribution, so Mark asks his colleagues to countersign a record of the help he has given. He can add this to his e-portfolio. Mark peer-assesses an aspect of their work in return. He makes a note in his profile to explain how he believes this demonstrates evidence of his progress, and what he thinks the next steps are. He is enjoying acting as a tutor for the younger students.

As Mark’s group leaves the workspace, a group of teachers arrive for a campus leadership group meeting. This group is responsible for monitoring and adapting the range of opportunities available during the year. Colleagues from a similar group at a local vocational centre, and a local government officer, join the meeting through a conferencing service.

Today’s agenda includes reviewing the take-up of the activities recently offered, and considering the responses received to date. This includes feedback from evaluation and learning activities recorded. There have also been several requests made by the school community for changes and additions to services.


One discussion centres on a request from two people to offer more hands-on workshop activities, as an alternative to some popular seminars. Some of the group expresses reservations about reducing the availability of an over-subscribed opportunity on campus. However, the results of a recent pilot workshop show that, although it was more costly in terms of staff time, the gains for the students who attended were significantly higher. This was reflected in the positive feedback received. The group agree to this change, but are aware that workshop space will be in greater demand. In the medium-term, some flexible work areas on the site will need to be reconfigured.

Julia is on campus in the help desk office. On her way in she realised that her father’s hand-held device only gives her limited access to services so she called the help desk. They asked her to visit the office to register the device and then she could have full and secure access to her services.

While putting out equipment ordered for classes in the technology area, the technician notes a change in venue for Janice’s session and takes the trolley of example materials there. As she arrives on campus, Julia is alerted of the room change by her handheld device.,

Julia attends Janice’s course session. It is popular with students, who work in groups to compare different types of packaging and discuss their responses. The course combines a high degree of learner participation with thought-provoking questions. In today’s session, students are focusing on materials used for packaging and comparing cost implications. Julia reports her group’s findings to the whole class. Her friend records the presentation on a handheld device and gives Julia a copy for her e-portfolio, plus the slides and visuals they prepared. Julia’s main target for the session was not to develop her presentation skills, but it was too good an opportunity to miss – she rarely has the confidence to speak in front of a big audience.

As she leaves the session, Julia deletes her appointment for her scheduled volleyball session and calls into the art workshop instead. Janice is alerted to the change in agreed schedule. The art workshop is Julia’s favourite space on campus: here, she works on tasks from all parts of the curriculum if she can find a reason. She finds it a really positive and comfortable space. Julia makes some final touches to her self-portrait work. The teacher marks a piece with her and suggests she produces a report that reflects on and explains some of her techniques, rather than further develop the piece. They agree to add the report to her work plan. Julia refers to her handheld device to check what work and evidence she needs to complete for this area of study. While she is using it she receives a suggestion to attend another volleyball session that evening or tomorrow, but declines it.

Julia takes the opportunity to use a desktop computer with a larger screen and review some examples from last year’s art class, which were selected as examples of good practice. She receives a message from a friend who has just finished a swimming lesson. They chat for a while and invite a third friend, who is offline at present, to join them at lunchtime to eat and then go with them to a drama event.

Mark buys a sandwich on the way to his mentoring meeting. Food is available throughout the school day, but greater variety is on offer during traditional meal times. His smart card is recognised at the food counter and the price of his sandwich is deducted from his card account balance by the payment system.

Mark has booked a room for his meeting, so that he can conference with his tutor in privacy. He arrives before his interview and browses a wall screen for campus news. He is the only person in the immediate area, so a highly personalised set of news feeds that he has subscribed to is displayed. Mark’s preferences include a profiled set of aims and interests corresponding to his student profile, and he has some authority to filter out some channels he dislikes. The feeds include notices, events, blog entries, and media galleries produced by and for members of the school community.

Michelle wonders if she can use any of her work from last year’s creative writing course for her evidence submission. She did not complete the course before leaving school but thinks some of it might be relevant to her current work.

She accesses her e-portfolio, which archives her completed work for life, and selects the creative writing course. Michelle only has access to material which she was involved with, and does not have access to the work of others, or resources added after she left the course. Michelle reviews the material and decides to go back to her original plan of using work-based evidence.


LunchtimeAlan returns from lunch and sees Julia’s self-portrait on his desktop computer screensaver. He has subscribed to a feed of work that she feels is her best, and that she wants to share with others. He receives notification that her credit for school expenses has dropped below the agreed level, and authorises a top-up payment.Mark has an online review meeting with Dave, who is at work today. Dave is pleased with Mark’s improved attendance and behaviour.

They review some evidence of progress that Mark wanted to share. He has been working on developing his skills to pursue a career in the leisure industry, but is concerned the evidence he has recorded does not adequately reflect his achievements. Dave suggests they meet on campus next week to explore this together. They can identify differences between his current profile and typical progress of students who have taken leisure-related courses.

The meeting goes well, and they spend so much time chatting informally that they over-run. Mark realises he won’t make it to a lecture at the catering department of the local college. Disappointed, he arranges to view a streamed version live. A digital agent acts on his behalf, negotiating access and updating relevant schedules and profiles. Mark realises he will also miss a meeting with two friends who are at the lecture, so he sends them instant messages to suggest meeting later in the evening.

Julia joins her two friends for lunch in the cafeteria. Her handheld device alerts her that an item she has chosen may contain traces of nuts: this information is held an RFID tag in the packaging. She has a nut allergy, but has agreed with her parents she can make her own food choices.

After lunch, the three go to support their friends who are in a theatre group. As they arrive at the drama studio, their handheld devices automatically make a small micro-payment for admission. This is credited to the school council, to help cover production costs. Many of the 20 people involved take part as a leisure activity. For others, this is one of their learning activities; the planned outcomes vary between individuals. Two students ask Julia to give some feedback at the end of the show, which they will record to use later for their report. During the conversation Julia is invited to attend a meeting that night, where she can audition for a part, or help in another way.

Janice’s lunch is interrupted, because of an incident on campus involving a student she supports. She uses her handheld device to indicate she is busy and cannot be disturbed, interviews the student to take a statement, then reviews CCTV and the student’s location information. Janice has been sent a notification of a change in Julia’s schedule that should have been agreed, but her ‘busy’ status means this has been given a lower priority for now.

Michelle’s manager has confirmed she can use data from her workplace as evidence for her portfolio. She submits three pieces of evidence to complete a large missing block of her skills profile, and requests a meeting with her school-based tutor and workplace mentor to plan her next steps. Mid-AfternoonJulia uses a scheduled break to prepare for her mentoring meeting at a desk in a ‘quiet study’ room. She reviews her profile on a large display screen, using a summary view quickly to action points from the last meeting and identify what she needs to do before her next meeting in two weeks.

Julia now prefers to approach her meetings with a clear idea of what she would like to achieve. That way, she has a greater influence on her work programme. This has helped her look for opportunities where she can take on enjoyable tasks and work towards agreed objectives.

Although she does not like to admit it, Julia has become aware of a pattern showing she is avoiding sport activities; more of these have appeared in her suggested programme. Numeracy-related activities have also been added and marked as a high priority, which comes as a surprise to her.

Janice begins her daily mentoring work and catches up with her messages. She notices Julia missed another PE activity this morning, so adds this to her preparation for their scheduled mentoring session. She also reviews the latest timetable suggested for Julia. Janice can review Julia’s e-portfolio in several ways; she can view progress within each area of learning or choose a specific skill, and look across Julia’s entire academic career. Julia’s e-portfolio is more than a record of her learning; it also contains the objectives planned over several years, and her progress towards them between mentoring sessions. These different views help Janice to identify some areas to consider, but do not constrain her decisions.


After completing her mentoring work, Janice has time to review her own professional development; she is interested in offering a new course at a local primary school.

A local online resource for primary teaching, containing lesson plans and resources related to the course she intends to offer, helps Janice refine her ideas. She posts a question to a related online community, which she has found to be responsive and helpful. In turn, she replies to a query from a colleague in another school.

Mark joins the live-streamed catering lecture and demonstration, using the campus connection to connect and register, using his smart card. He is inspired by the superb demonstration, and the fine-detailed holographic transmission can be reviewed later from different angles. He can take part in the question and answer session, and access the assignment set at the end of the lecture.

Mark highlights the session as one he would like to review again, and sees another partner college has a similar demonstration already available, which has been highly rated by other students with a profile similar to his.

Julia arrives early for a statistics lesson. The wall displays deliver content best matching the learning preferences of learners in the immediate area. She takes part in a structured teacher-led session, and leaves with several small assignments to complete in the next few days.

Several students, like Julia, attend the course regularly, as it matches their learning plan. Others join the group occasionally, booking sessions to meet specific goals. The teacher is aware that the majority of today’s class need to develop their ability to interpret pie charts and bar charts, so focuses on this using worked examples and student participation. Late AfternoonJanice and Julia meet for a mentoring session in an interview room near the main foyer. They review progress and quickly agree on Julia’s learning programme for the next few weeks; this includes specific learning targets, deadlines, and activity choices. Janice is concerned that Julia is clearly avoiding sport and discovers she is reluctant to take part without her group of close friends, preferring to work with them in the art area.

Julia agrees to attend a Saturday afternoon volleyball event at local sports centre, plus some on-campus sessions. She accepts responsibility for making last-minute switches to avoid sports classes, and consequently loses the facility to reschedule her timetable.

They review Julia’s last assignment for Janice. This, plus feedback from other work since their last meeting and changes in her skills profile during the past three months, helps to identify priorities for learning. They agree Julia seems to show greater gains when she takes part in group-based activities, although her stated preference is to work alone, and discuss this at length. In common with her recently submitted packaging task, Julia accepts and understands that she clearly needs to revisit some maths work that is actually at a lower level than her normal maths work – a combination of workshop and online work is agreed from the suggested programme and booked in. Alan has expressed willingness to do some coaching to support Julia in this area in the past and it has proved successful, so that’s added to the plan. By already having a good idea of the upcoming activities Julia feels well able to influence her final programme and is pleased with the outcome.

Alan sees that he has a message waiting from Janice and Julia, but he is about to go into a meeting so leaves it for later.

Janice checks her messages as she is about to leave and sees a message from her manager in the school leadership team. It is agreeing to her request to offer more practical-based activities for her design work as take up for the current one, largely discussion and theoretical work, has continued to increase. The results of a pilot smaller practical workshop last week show a greater impact for all those involved, compared to other sessions in their school and others. She replies, agreeing to replace one of her seminars each week with two workshops instead. As she doesn’t have any more appointments that require her presence on campus today, and indeed most of tomorrow morning, she will be able to work off-site. As she heads to the gym to unwind, she marks herself as unavailable on the messaging system.


EveningAs he is about to leave work to head for home, Alan skims the message with the result of Julia’s mentoring session. Although he agrees to the proposed support he is to give, he decides to wait until he has spoken to her tonight before responding. He is able to access a short summary of her e-portfolio, filtered to show key areas for improvement and the most recent pieces of evidence highlighted by Julia. He is in a hurry because he has a class of his own tonight. He is learning Spanish and was notified this afternoon that a place was available with his tutor for a conversation class, due to a cancellation from another student. First, he eats with the family at home and then gives Julia a lift back onto campus again for the drama audition. They arrive at a campus that is only slightly less busy than the one Julia walked into this morning. There are classes, meetings, interviews and recreational events happening everywhere. Julia heads off to the drama area, Alan, checking his personal device, finds out where his conversation class is taking place.

Mark, having met his friends, is catching up with work from home. He knows that permitting assignments to pile up was one factor in his problems at his previous school. He is also aware that Dave regularly monitors his progress, so he has set aside 90 minutes of quality time to get on top of everything. Initially he looks at his work plan and anything marked as overdue, finding several half-finished and relatively simple things that simply need a few minutes to complete, submit, and request assessment. He then begins a longer piece that he has been putting off for some time, and finds it heavy going. He checks for the presence of any of his peer group who might be able to help online. Mark posts a couple of queries, and also requests access from his tutor to examples of similar work from other students. Mark found that these groups of students with similar learning goals and profiles across the region were a tremendously useful resource whilst he was excluded from his previous school. He continues to use it as a preferred place to sound out ideas. Whilst there, he helps another student with his work by sharing a link to a resource he found helpful himself six months ago. Again, by choice, Mark is able to add that record of an online conversation to his evidence of progress in working collaboratively with others. A little frustrated that he didn’t quite finish everything, Mark leaves a message for Dave before taking some time to wind down.

Alan is with his usual Spanish tutor, but with two different students as he has switched to a different group. They are also joined by Michelle. Together they watch a news programme from today and complete some discussion exercises that reinforce their learning. Parts of the session are recorded for later use by the tutor for assessment and by the students for review. The group heads down to the community lounge at the end of the lesson, where Alan waits for Julia to return from her drama session. Even now people are still coming onto the campus, which will be in use well into the night.

Dave is at home giving some thought to a request to host a session at his workplace for some students from school, in part to look at health and safety, and in part as a careers guidance programme. He’d like to be involved, and having enjoyed mentoring, is beginning to consider enrolling with the school on its trainee teacher development programme. He’s a little nervous, but finally agrees. He already has clearance to work with young people alone or in groups and some evidence of teaching skills in his e-portfolio. Dave gives some thought to how this new opportunity might help him to have more useful experience. Although he does not consider himself to be a teacher as such, Dave is already an effective coach and mentor. He has substantial knowledge in his vocational subject area. Indeed, one of his sources of income is responding to questions and giving support on a pay-to-use expert teacher service.

Julia is late because her audition/rehearsal goes really well. She is meeting with the usual group of young people and adults involved in the school production. Tonight they have access to the drama studio for a read through and rehearsal for two scenes that Julia might be in. With a friend she records a short sequence that is eventually used on the show’s promotional blog. Through the school news feed system, the blog will be seen by more than 2,000 people

tomorrow. Some other students are looking at the results of a survey last week in which the student body was asked several questions about their preference for the organisation of the show. Only 64 people responded, but this is still going to be useful for the people who have chosen to use this work for their e-portfolio.

On their way home Alan talks to Julia about the day and points out to her that, although she has signed up for the drama production purely for fun, she has shown some of the skills she is supposed to be working on this evening. They agree a time when they’ll get together to look at some of her numeracy problems.


NightMichelle does not have an early start at work tomorrow and has been enthused by her language session. She stays on site in a private study area before heading home to practise and perfect some of her work, finding this the perfect time of day to get really stuck in. Fewer people are around now. Many parts of the campus are closed for servicing, but she feels safe working there and gets more done than she would have done at home.

Even after the last regular class is finished and the community lounge is emptying, there is still activity on campus. As well as security, cleaning and maintenance, there are people taking advantage of the low cost, off-peak access to services. These include the recording studio and gym. There is also some activity in the medical area, where the out-of-hours health response service for the area is based. Digital resources related to the school, both on-site and at various other locations, are busy late into the night and from early morning. People communicate, access feeds and content, and publish resources and work without pause. Batch processes such as converting media for publication, database updates and automated scheduling make use of the processing power of the school’s systems in the quietest part of the day.


Appendix 1 - References from Main Narrative

This Appendix contains more information on the specific solutions enabling the activities identified in the Day in the Life narrative, for example background and questions to stimulate further debate within groups discussing the narrative. Achievement Tracking

• Teachers will be provided with a profile of each of their mentees.

• Such activities may be in or outside of school.

• There may be a mismatch in lessons and activities, but these can be identified by teachers.

• Teachers will be provided with rich information about the skills of the attendees, and why they are attending particular courses or classes.

• Students will be able to access a learning profile that shows the tracking of their skills and subject based progress over time.

• The profile will highlight areas that show weakest progress and the likely outcome of not addressing these areas.

• The profile will require regular self assessment and comments about the targets for future development.

• The profile will inform the learner of activities taking place that will be beneficial for them to attend or take part in.

• If the choices of the student fly in the face of the progress measures, or do not tackle areas where progress is slow, then their mentor will play an increasingly directional role.

• If considerable intervention and information sharing with parents creates a greater rate of skills development than limited intervention, then this would be used with the proviso that independence, motivation, and engagement were also part of the profile.

• This will lead to a form of ‘internal market economy’ consisting of courses that compete for student uptake.

Attendance Tracking

• Alerts and concerns will be generated if the learner’s location is not consistent with the learning plan he/she has agreed with his/her mentor.

• Learners may have programmes that take them to numerous locations throughout the local area.

• Very teacher-centred schools may use positioning technologies to provide students with freedoms that would otherwise not be permitted, such as going to work alone in the library.

Creativity Skills

• This freedom inevitably leads to personalised approaches, but requires additional input if it is to lead to diversity.

• Creativity comes from learners accessing online communities where other learners are working at similar ability levels.

• Creativity can also come from access to inspirational speakers, resources, and podcasts, plus the learner’s ability to use the full range of creative IT tools to experiment with their learning within a supportive framework.


• Encouraging students to challenge their own creativity through problem-solving opportunities, helps place similar demands to those viewed by students.

• The role of mentoring is a key part of the learning process. P2 schools aim to use peer learning and peer mentoring as much as possible.

• The combination of technologies will ensure that the majority of their children’s achievements are accessible from multiple locations and through multiple devices.

e-portfolio

• All of this data will contain tags so that it can be filtered and searched in numerous ways. Parts of the e-portfolio will also link dynamically with each other. For people using the e-portfolio, the complexity of such technology will not be apparent,.

• Learners can tag a piece of work so that other people can view and assess it.

• Learners can create an achievement profile which shows a dynamic view of the evidence relating to their strengths and weaknesses.

• This profile will form the basis of regular discussions with their mentor(s). The e-portfolio tools can also use the profile to make suggestions for further work. The learner can select the skills he or she needs to work on from these suggestions. He/she can then set up the relevant learning situations in order to collect evidence of skills. These can then be tagged so that the profile reflects progress and development..

• Teachers and mentors use the e-portfolio as the basis of discussions. They ensure that students are collecting evidence effectively by requesting that it demonstrates progress against a particular target.

• Teachers will mark those sections they have requested.

• Teachers can draw on these to create best practice banks and coursework samples.

• Parents can view the current targets and aims of the learning, gain guidance in how to help their children collect the evidence they need to demonstrate their current learning, and can add their own assessments to their child’s work.

• Beyond this, learners increasingly decide what work they want to make available from their e-portfolio and who they want to make it available to.

• Parents can find outside experiences and courses which can provide evidence for their child’s e-portfolio.

Educational Monitoring Plan

• Agreed projects can be used as a way of assessing learner skills such as problem solving, reviewing, time management, and negotiation.

• These projects will be recognised by the school, regardless of when or where they take place. Evaluation and the achievements of such projects will become part of the overall development planning and evaluation processes.

• Teachers can compare performance both nationally and locally. They will have all the tools they need to enable research and evaluation of their own skills.

Formative Assessment

• Learners show that they know why they are in lessons and under mentorship.

• The first reason for this is so that learners understand the goals for the lessons and how they are meeting them.

• The second is about all of the other evidence of learning and achievement that the learner demonstrates in the lesson and that are worthy of note and praise.

• The third is the opportunities provided for others to provide formative assessment within the session.


• Capturing evidence for formative assessment is the responsibility of learners. They will have a range of options for doing this, including electronic ink, video, still photography, and audio.

• Personal mobile devices will store a learner’s current profile and targets. The devices also serve as a way of collecting evidence.

• Parents can ask to see work and add their own assessment as well as giving advice. They can also look at the advice given by others and help their children interpret and understand it.

• The selection of these opportunities is driven by learners’ targets for improvement and by how successful they feel in their work.

• The analysis of qualitative data, and the environments that support success, help create opportunities for leadership engagement.

Inclusion and Equality

• As a student, you are just as likely to be working alongside a teacher as you are to be working as a teacher, extending your own skills by trying to communicate ideas and skills to others.

• Students facing barriers to learning can benefit from access to technology which helps reduces these barriers, as well as from mentors who can support effective progress.

• Students, as part of communities of similarly skilled individuals, will have greater freedom to select for themselves what works. They will also have greater access to higher level study in some areas.

• Learners can benefit from access to a wider community of teachers to help them develop.

• The idea that able and gifted children can take care of themselves can be challenged

• Parents may be useful mentors for their children during ‘school’ time. Structures should be in place to support parents wishing to help their child’s progress outside of school.

• The common infrastructure means that approaches to teaching and learning are, and should be, diverse.

Inspiration-led collaborative learning

• Students will have greater power to select online conference events and through technology, maximise their involvement.

Problem Solving

• Student discussions with mentors will be based on questions such as: “What skills should I concentrate on next?” and “How should I do this?”

• When acting as mentors, teachers will interpret the suggestions and possibilities available to students and use their skills to determine how much challenge is appropriate. They will support students who may temporarily have problems outside of school which require different strategies.

• Teachers providing sessions or courses will use problem-based and problem-solving activities with groups, for as long as the research evidence continues to suggest the benefits for doing so.

• Similarly, where parents have suggested to the system that they want to help their children with their numeracy, the system would be able to offer suggestions and support on what they could do.

• As problem-solving situations will be based around real life, some will inevitably reflect real issues that schools face. Therefore the running, management, direction, operations, and evaluations of school practice must be open for opportunity.


Student Empowerment

• Entrepreneurship and the skills-based routes of most students will increase diversity and create greater opportunities for genuine leadership and management of initiatives, courses, clubs and groups.

• Student must then set up relevant learning experiences, or opt in to experiences and courses which will help them to gain the evidence they need to demonstrate these skills.

Teacher Training

• Trainee teachers will have a set of experiences, which include small group work, mentoring, teaching, and lecturing. They will provide sessions for students and they themselves will take part in training opportunities.

• The online databases of teacher ideas, training and initiatives will provide for greater sharing of ideas and spreading of good practice.

Time Management

• Teachers in P2 schools can create opportunities for students to take responsibility for their own time management.

• Teachers in P2 schools will be clear about the deadlines that learners have. Learners will have access to a range of IT tools to help them meet these deadlines.

Timetable and Organisation

• Technology can support the development of a much more dynamic timetable which can respond to weekly changes in learners’ interests and needs.

• The timetable/diary device will be with the learner at all times and will make suggestions for future attendance at events, based on what the learner has already attended.

• The design of the timetable will be based on advertised courses that students, working with their mentors, have booked on to.

• Teachers and other specialists will offer sessions and services on a timetabled basis. This timetable or diary will be agreed approximately two weeks in advance, to give the teacher enough time to prepare.

• Leadership teams will seek to maximise the efficiency of resources and can be informed about which courses attracted students and which did not, student participation numbers and the effectiveness of these courses in raising attainment and as ways for learners to collect evidence.


Appendix 2 – Example Scenario

A single sample scenario has been included here to demonstrate the detail included within. There are a number of scenarios which have been created for this model and these are available through your educational consultancy partner. The scenarios will be enriched with further information over time, such as adding links to examples of best practice case studies and guidance on change management issues in adopting the different processes in each model. We would recommend that when you are ready to work with scenarios, you check for updated versions.

The scenarios provide an overview description. For each stage of the Pathways for Change (T1, T2, P1 and P2) they analyse the key problems to be addressed, describe the operation of the scenario, the implications for school infrastructure and what technology support is required.

When describing the operation of the scenario at the different stages, there is additional information relating to how all the different parties will operate, from learners, teachers and parents to school senior leaders and other people.

Attribute Scenario Description

Name The e-portfolio scenario

Rationale All learners should have an ongoing e-portfolio to record and document their learning journey. Such a portfolio should extend into their adult working life. It is likely that a similar system will emerge for both staff and students.

Roles/Agents Parents, monitoring bodies, policy makers, learners, teachers, leadership staff, outside agencies, community groups, health, social services, crime prevention.

Related Scenarios Formative assessment, achievement, knowledge economy skills.

Educational category Learning and teaching

Key problems that must be addressed by the solutions

T1 school Store pieces of work for assessment purposes.Maintain an ongoing record of achievement for the student.Share the achievements of students more widely by agreement.Store coursework in formats that can be electronically accessed by examination boards and moderators.

Facilitate storage of all forms of media, in such a way that the coursework elements of a course such as the DIDA can be supported.

Provide a database or data structure that ensures that the teacher-agreed criteria are recorded as a mark book entry.



Key problems that must be addressed by the solutions continued

T2 school All of T1 plus:

• Provide a store of the documentary evidence of learning, as assessed by teachers.

• Provide evidence for a portfolio of ‘soft skills’.

• Help students submit their informal learning and out-of-school learning to teachers and to their e-portfolio

• Enable multiple tagging of work and evidence so that the e-portfolio can be easily managed.

• Capture how work has been redrafted.

• Ensure the e-portfolio incorporates mark book facilities for teachers and that all marks can be stored together.

• Provide a continual position statement/report for parents and learners.

• Provide a system of aggregated assessments from which targets can be set.

• Ensure storage of automated marking results and Web tasks.

P1 school All of T1 and T2 plus:

• Ensure learners can add items to the e-portfolio.

• Ensure the e-portfolio can have a permissions set that enables students to delete work or hide it from public view.

• Ensure the whole e-portfolio can still be used and added to by students who are changing or leaving school and who still want to use it for their own personal record.

• Provide way of recording peer assessment.

• Provide a way of assessing learning and self evaluation.

• Link e-portfolio evidence to progress made.

• Provide ways of recording ‘soft skills’ assessments and the evidence for them.

P2 school All of T1, T2, and P1 plus:

• Help students to store their work so that they have access to it from all locations.

• Provide a catalogue/database of evidence that is searchable by skill type or criteria.

• Offer learners a profile of their current skills using evidence from their e-portfolio.

• Provide multiple tagging of specific locations in the work with assessments linked to criteria..

• Facilitate peer and self assessments to be recorded as searchable tags on the work.

• Provide for increasing learner autonomy and ownership. The Portfolio can transcend school age into professional life and hence become a lifelong learning portfolio

• Ensure students can make their work available for wider viewing, CV construction and/or assessment.

• Provide examination bodies with automated tools for moderation of work.



Other teaching and learning strategies

All of T1 and T2 plus:

• Very mobile or travelling children may end up with a supplier owning the access rights to their work. They may no longer be able to access their e-portfolio because their current school is not using the same service with the same supplier. For this reason all work must be in either open source, government owned or student-owned areas throughout their school career.



Operational Description

T1 school Learners in the T1 school

• As part of formal assessment, children will complete pieces of extended work and coursework. Such work is traditionally stored as their e-portfolio and samples sent to Ofsted and to examination awarding bodies. The child will have access to the e-portfolio and can permit viewing access to parents and other interested parties. New work is given to the teacher to put in the e-portfolio. Non-electronic work can be scanned or photographed to be added to the e-portfolio.

Teachers in the T1 school

• The teacher will grade work electronically and transfer it to the student’s e-portfolio so that the evidence base builds up.

• The teachers manage the entry and deletion of work and are responsible for marking, recording and moderating their assessments. Teachers must generally sign to the effect that the work has been completed only by that student, without help from others. This requirement means that the e-portfolio is often restricted from being available at home.

Parents of students in the T1 school

• This system should integrate with report writing in some form. The parents will be provided with a report that draws upon the grades awarded by teachers. In the T1 school this report is most likely to be the teachers’ assessments and interpretations of their own subject based e-portfolio and limited to what the students have achieved in their subjects.

• Some examples of best work that are not coursework related may be in the e-portfolio. If this is the case, then parents can be provided with access to the work in the same way that parents see their child’s books.

• Stored coursework will be unavailable for parents to view. Generally, this level of access makes it hard for the teacher to verify that the work was done only by the student.

Senior leaders, national and local influencers over the T1 school

• The e-portfolio will permit the electronic storage of this evidence and the electronic transfer of it to awarding bodies.

• In this model, the e-portfolio is effectively the property of the school until the student leaves and then the work is handed back to the student. This normally involves providing students with a window of opportunity to come and take a copy of their work within the first two years of them leaving. After two years the school can delete the work if it wishes.

• Outside agencies would not normally take samples directly from the e-portfolios, as it would be hard to establish the context by this method. They would normally either request a list of e-portfolios to view or give a list and request to be informed of any concerns before they view. Unless a common information structure is achieved and becomes widely used and accepted, then outside agencies may take a more flexible approach to interrogating the e-portfolio.



T1 schools (continued from prevous page)

• The management of coursework and its effects on school results are two key issues for senior leaders. A system providing multiple analyses of the data and the option to generate automated reports would be seen as useful.

T2 school Learners in the T2 school

• Students will submit a piece of work to the teacher, who can review it and send it back for improvements. Both the original and the modified version are stored, together with the assessment that has been awarded by the teacher. This way, the process of learning and revising work becomes part of the evidence. The e-portfolio would only contain work submitted for assessment and which provides evidence of achievement. Some pieces of best work from outside of school may be included if the teacher can assess them against an examination specification or if the school has established a section for other achievements.

• The e-portfolio will given to learners when they leave school as a record of achievement. Because of its dual role as a teacher mark book, some data within it may be taken out and filed by the school so that it can be presented to the student in a more sensitive way.

Teachers in the T2 school

• Improved assessment technology will ensure easier use and sorting of the e-portfolio. Students are increasingly using laptops and mobile devices to create and store their work, making transfer to the e-portfolio easier.

• Automated marking processes and activity monitoring software can maintain an evidence base automatically on students so that their e-portfolios can be enriched automatically as they improve.

• The e-portfolio can be written to directly by teachers in class and at home on their devices. This may be a simple replacement of their mark book, which can be updated as they walk around the class. It may go further in empowering the teacher to record small video, photo and sound clips that provide them with future reminders and evidence of assessment.

• The mark book will link to the pieces of evidence and can therefore be interrogated live. Such overview of subject grades and cross-curricular achievement can be displayed in many ways to suit the user. It can be used to identify areas of strength and weakness that can be discussed at parent consultations and as part of careers and course decisions.

Parents of students in the T2 school

• Parents can view the e-portfolio from any Web browser. They can see the assignments that have currently been set and what grade they may have achieved so far.

• They can view the current assessments as well as the resulting interpretations and reports which have been used to set targets and appraisals.

• They can view any other fields that the school wishes to make public, such as behaviour and examples of poor work that have contributed towards what may be a negative statement.

• Similarly, missing work and poor quality work can be transferred to parents so that they too can help their child improve.



T2 school (continued from previous page)

Senior leaders, national and local influencers over the T2 school

• Examination boards can collect coursework grades live and draw samples for moderation without requiring paperwork from theschool. Examples of best work from all the student e-portfolios can be automatically sent to display areas and can be used for internal moderation of standards to be stored as exemplars.

• There will be tools to analyse missing work and missed assignments so that these can be more easily followed up. Sophisticated copy scanning can alert the teacher and examination board to any form of plagiarism and its likely source.

P1 school Learners in the P1 school

• Students will manage their e-portfolio themselves. Students who have not fully developed this skill will have intervention built in. For example, students may collect too much evidence and struggle to delete bits, especially as they will have been encouraged to work from home and other locations. Mentors can show students simple ways to categorise evidence and reduce the amount of material. They will also be encouraged to add work which they feel shows evidence of personal achievement, but which is not easily aligned to any of their progress in school studies.

• As P1 school students are mainly engaged in longer, more extended pieces of work, the e-portfolio will contain quite well developed and complex pieces. Learners will ensure that the e-portfolio captures the evidence of the ways in which they worked as well as how they tackled extended problems. To assist this involvement in evidence collection, the e-portfolio marking systems will be extended to students and their peers to help them to self assess. This self assessment will not be published directly but will inform the teacher and learner.

Teachers in the P1 school

• Teachers will praise those pieces that have been self and peer assessed and will provide opportunities to carry out such assessments in class. Teachers can propose pieces to be added and in extreme cases can submit work on the learner’s behalf. Normally the teacher would receive work to mark and then return it to the learner to manage their e-portfolio. Any work marked by a teacher may be tagged to act differently when deleted and may return to the teacher or fall into a backup file.

Parents of students in the P1 school

• One of the key roles of the e-portfolio in a P1 school is to ensure that formal and informal learning are combined. It will provide a way of storing evidence gathered outside of school subjects, and also provide an assessment route for parents and peers to praise and constructively criticise. It is likely that the evidence and the grades attached to it will not actually be linked so that it cannot be assessed more than once by different people. Some systems such as Microsoft Class Server already enable parents to view assignments that have been marked and to see the teacher’s marks. In the P1 school this would be extended to help the student set work for others and peer assess pieces of work. Parents could use this in the same way.



P1 school (continued from previous page)

Senior leaders, national and local influencers over the P1 school

• Schools that are pressing ahead with personalisation generally see the importance of the skills framework for a student’s progress, irrespective of their content curriculum. At the P1 stage, you would hope to see some form of assessment that recorded progress against ‘soft skills’ such as teamwork, problem solving, and social ability. Senior leaders would ensure there were policies in place to lessen the risks associated with students storing their own work.

P2 school Learners in the P2 school

• Learners will store all their work in their e-portfolio. The work will be in multiple formats, may be automatically added by Web sites that monitor skills development and may arrive through attendance and participation logs. All of this data will contain tags that ensure it can be filtered and searched in numerous ways. Parts of the e-portfolio will also dynamically link with each other. For people using the e-portfolio, the complexity of such technology will not be apparent,.

• A learner can tag a piece of work to make it available for wider viewing or make it available for assessment.

• Assessments will be attached to the specific part of the work that generated them. Such assessments will need to be criteria rather than grade based as they are to be with the learner for life, demonstrated through Paul Black’s research. The criteria, however, must link to grades of some kind so that learners can use the information in their e-portfolio to create an achievement profile that shows a dynamic view of the evidence relating to their strengths and weaknesses. This profile will form the basis of regular discussions with their mentor(s). The e-portfolio tools can also use the profile to make suggestions for further work. The learner can select the skills he or she needs to work on from these suggestions. He/she can then set up the relevant learning situations in order to collect evidence of skills. These can then be tagged so that the profile reflects progress and development.

Teachers in the P2 school

• Teachers and mentors use the portfolio as the basis of discussion. They ensure that students are collecting evidence effectively by requesting that it demonstrates progress against a particular target. They will use IT tools to interrogate the content and produce a detailed profile of the learners’ current successes across the range of competences. They will use this to propose targets for consideration when sitting with the learner or when compiling reports. Teachers will mark those sections they have requested and draw on these to create best practice banks and coursework samples.

• In this model, peer assessments, parental assessments and self assessments become tags which can be filtered. A peer assessor could even be promoted to a position of greater trust and authentication, if their assessments tended to be in line with teacher ones.



P2 school Parents of students in the P2 school

• Parents can review the skills profile and its supporting evidence. They can view the current targets and aims of the learning, gain guidance in how to help their child collect the evidence they need to demonstrate their current learning and can add their own assessments to the work. Beyond this, learners increasingly decide what work they want to make available from their portfolio and who to make it available to. Their degrees of freedom in this respect are earned through evidence of trust.

• Parents can filter the profile to see the version generated by teacher assessment, external assessment, peer assessment and self assessment.

• Parents can find outside experiences and courses, which can provide evidence for their child’ e-portfolio. In time the parents will also have an e-portfolio so that they can empathise and engage with the process more fully.

Senior leaders, national and local influencers over the P2 school

• This is the basic tool of personalisation. It ensures that the tasks and suggestions presented to learners are appropriate to their age and ability. For example, a student with little evidence of time management and planning would be directed to more supportive and structured environments.

• The power of having all of the work produced by the students in your school or government within a searchable intelligent system, capable of displaying the evidence for progression as well as compiled reports for research and evaluation purposes, cannot be underestimated.

• Very teacher-centred schools may keep tight control of both the assessment processes and the e-portfolio. This would essentially be an online mark book and coursework folder.

• Very student-centred and dispersed schools may see the e-portfolio as the environment for learning. It will be in building up this area that the achievement of the student will lie. In such a context, the e-portfolio provides the student’s lifetime work and an overview of his/her achievements so that no work of significance would be left out.

• Students’ work should form part of the exemplification for all students to see and learn from. An e-portfolio that permitted anyone to comment on each piece and for this comment to be shared, would quickly build up into a bank of well-moderated and well-shared work.

• At the other extreme, schools may separate out e-portfolios for different subjects so that subject specialists can gain access only to their own students’ work.




• One of the reasons why the e-portfolio has been so hard to define is that it means many things to many people. The reason for this is in terms of ownership. The UK is only just coming to terms with the Freedom of Information Act and the concept that individuals own information kept on them. It is not surprising, therefore, that the same concept has not really yet been applied to children. If it were the case that from the earliest of ages, children were responsible for managing the data kept on them, then the e-portfolio would be a highly central and essential component of a student’s education. However if the e-portfolio is simply an electronic version of the teacher mark book then it is not really a million miles away from what happens now. We would simply be looking to take the current practice of teaching and add some IT-driven efficiency.

School Infrastructure Implications

T1 school • There are no specific infrastructure implications beyond those reflected in the school model. The e-portfolio is more a Web-based tool to support learning and as such has limited infrastructure implications.

T2 school • Again, there are no specific infrastructure implications beyond those reflected in the school model. The e-portfolio is more a Web-based tool to support learning and as such has limited design implications.

• In the T2 school, there is an assumption that wireless and wired coverage, coupled with effective 1:1 access, make the inclusion of all work into the e-portfolio as simple as filing it.

P1 school • If the P1 school manages to make the e-portfolio a place to share opinions about work and evidence of achievement, then opportunities to use it in teaching would be beneficial. In reality, this equates to areas that have good IT access and students can come together in smaller or larger groups for discussion whilst displaying their piece.

• The chance for larger audiences to watch a presentation or piece of media created by a student and record their comments is probably not yet technically available for the P1 schools.

P2 school • The school must contain areas that are suitable for mentoring interviews and smaller group work.

• Access control provides differential access to areas of greater flexibility and free movement. As a student progresses and his or her profile passes a given threshold, he/she can be provided with further privileges. Examples of this may be the passively supervised use of equipment rather than assisted use.




• The greater variety in the school the better, but e-portfolios do not restrict or support any single form of school building design. Instead, as has been shown, it is a tool suited generally for learning itself and for any type of school building.

• In the most extreme scenario, the e-portfolio becomes the virtual school and so the infrastructure implications refer more to the virtual infrastructure requirements. The physical requirements support the use of the virtual environment comfortably and safely.

Technologies

T1 school • See current government recommendations for the minimum functionality of the e-portfolio.

• It must be possible to assign marking comments to each piece.

T2 school • All file types must be incorporated into the system. This means that assessments, possibly in the form of comments or markers, will need to be attachable to the location within the media that the comment refers to. Video and audio files would equally be treated in this way.

• All the files and comments within the e-portfolio would be searchable and the grades attached able to be collated mathematically.

• Users could allow other people to view some parts of the e-portfolio and not others.

P1 school • The system should ensure that students and teachers can add any form of media.

• Each file should be lockable against deletion and can be viewed by either ‘student only’ or ‘student and teacher’ or ‘student parent and teacher’.

• It must be possible to assign marking comments to each piece of work.

• It must be possible to access rubrics whilst conducting assessments.

• It must be possible for peers and parents to add assessment comments to files associated with the work.

P2 school • Evidence requirements in the form of assessment criteria must be within the system for a wide range of skills and capabilities.

• The system will ‘know’ which skill and at which level the individual is trying to achieve when they submit a piece of evidence. It therefore, provides a limited set of assessment statements that the assessors could attach to the work as they watch, read, or listen to it. These assessment criteria must be searchable and categorised so a summary profile of which skills have been achieved and at what level can be provided.

• It should be possible to filter profiles so that just peer assessment, just teacher assessment or just self assessment can be viewed.

• Assessments that you make which are in broad agreement with other people’s increase your ‘good assessor’ rating so that people can have more confidence in your future assessments.


Appendix 3-Glossary

ASDAN Award Scheme Development and Accreditation NetworkAn approved awarding body offering programmes and qualifications to develop key skills and life skills. Provides details of programmes, qualifications and centre registration. www.asdan.co.uk/

Becta British Educational Communications and Technology AgencyThis agency has the strategic responsibility for IT in Schools and Further Education in England.www.becta.org.uk/

Educational Service A service provided in support of the education process. This may be delivered through human means, digital means or a combination of the two.

Learner An individual who has a reason to learn, whether self-motivated or externally directed.

Mentor An individual who provides guidance and recommendations to other individuals for courses of action and behaviour.

NAACE National Association for Advisers in Computer-based EducationThis independent association’s membership comprises of advisers for educational IT, for example local government staff who provide support for schoolswww.naace.org.uk

NCSL National College for School LeadershipThe Government agency responsible for increasing the skills and professionalism of head teachers and other school leaders in UK schools.www.ncsl.org.uk

Ofstead The Office for Standards in EducationThe Government agency responsible for monitoring and reporting on education effectivenesswww.ofsted.gov.uk

Pathways for Change The model, used by Microsoft, to identify the direction and stages of change. There are two routes for change, the T-Route and the P-Route, and two key milestones on each route – T1/P1 describes the Near-Term Vision, and T2/P2 describes the Future Vision.See section 4 for full information on the Pathways for Change

QCA Qualifications and Curriculum AuthorityThe Government Agency responsible for the curriculum model in English schoolswww.qca.org.uk/

http://www.asdan.co.uk/

http://www.asdan.co.uk/

http://www.becta.org.uk/

http://www.becta.org.uk/

http://www.naace.org.uk

http://www.ncsl.org.uk

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk

http://www.qca.org.uk/


RSA Royal Society of Arts Authors of the ‘Opening Minds Curriculum’www.rsa.org.uk/newcurriculum/

SRF The Self Review FrameworkCreated by Becta, this is a model which schools can use to evaluate their use of IT to support teaching and learning, and plan for future improvements.http://matrix.ncsl.org.uk/

SSAT Specialist Schools and Academy TrustThis organisation provides support for schools who have a specific specialism under the Government’s Specialist Schools Programme – for example technology, arts, languages etc.www.ssat.org.uk

Scenario An outline of key processes in a possible future business or education environment. A scenario is not a prediction – It is a ‘straw man’ extreme case, designed to challenge existing situations.

Teacher An individual who is designated to carry out the duties and responsibilities of the educational and instructional process in the school and holds qualifications, experience and professional accreditation appropriate to the area of assignment.

VLE Virtual Learning Environment, also commonly referred to as a Learning Platform or Managed Learning Environment.

http://www.rsa.org.uk/newcurriculum/

http://matrix.ncsl.org.uk/

http://matrix.ncsl.org.uk/

http://www.ssat.org.uk

For More Information Contact:Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way,Redmond,WA 98052, U.S.A. www.microsoft.com/innovativeschools

© 2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This summary is provided for information purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft and the Microsoft logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Registered Office: Microsoft Limited, Microsoft Campus, Thames Valley Park, Reading, RG6 1WG. Registered in England no 1624297 VAT no GB 7245946 15

http://www.microsoft.com/unfoldingfutures

the microsoft education envisioning guide · 6 the microsoft education envisioning guide objectives...

Documents