Day 1:
My first day at Goole High School was a staff development day. During their staff day, Danuta Tomasz and Dave Flowitt (the co-headteachers) led the staff through a Prezi with video clips from Rocky V and Chambawamba. The videos were meant to inspire the staff to be resilient as they prepare for an Ofsted visit. The atmosphere was uplifting. In our table groups, we read about, discussed and demonstrated eight Teach Like a Champion strategies, like 'Cold Call', 'Exit Slips', 'Pepper', etc. Everyone was asked to incorporate the strategies in their lessons.
After a few hours of the whole staff meeting, I met with Louise Clamp, the inspiring geography teacher I'll be designing and co-teaching a project with. We talked about the two HTHMA interns coming next week and the project we will be launching together in four weeks - Goole Docks: Part I.
Day 2:
On Monday, I arrived for my second day at Goole High School coated in snow and with a new ID badge - bar code and all. I met with Louise and with Nate and Sara (two of High Tech High Media Arts' fabulous interns). First, I sat in one of Louise's lessons and watched as she sang, taught and inspired her kids. I was invited by a welcoming student to complete partner work in an interactive geography lesson. I have been so impressed by how friendly and inclusive Goole High students are.
After the first lesson, I rejoined Nate and Sara to hear all about their plans for an 'Intro to PBL' lesson (which they would be delivering to all of the year 9s). We also began working together on nine hours of lessons they would be delivering to the spirited group of Year 9s that I will be co-teaching with Louise once we launch the Goole Docks project in a few weeks. Nate and Sara had great ideas and were willing to take on introducing interviewing skills and critique to the Year 9s as they set out on a partner interviewing project.
After lunch, a photographer from the Goole Times came to take a picture for an article they are writing about the Goole High School, High Tech High and Innovation Unit connection.
After a glimpse at Goole High School's detention duty, I met with Stuart Boothman - the director of Goole Studio School to open next year. Stuart and I talked and asked each other questions about Studio Schools, High Tech High and education in general, for about an hour. I learned a lot from our conversation, and became really excited about the vision for Studio Schools. Stuart spoke passionately about his belief in project-based learning and the real-world connection to real problems and jobs in the community that Studio Schools would offer. The school has been working hard to make connections with local businesses to build projects with tangible effects. Stuart also shared some of the history and context of the British education system. At the end of the day, Stuart generously spared me the walk to the Goole train station in the snow and drove me forty minutes to a train station closer to my home.
ATHERTON COMMUNITY SCHOOL
Day 1
This morning, frozen fog cloaked the streets in mystery on my first day going to Atherton Community School. The trains held down their horns through blind turns, and I arrived three hours after I left Leeds at Chapel St. Atherton, due to snow delays and two extra train changes.
I arrived to classroom observations at a free school in a temporary building with a student population of forty-one year 7s. The school is serving the local community so that parents don't have to send their kids out of Atherton to get an education. I saw a lively chemistry lesson (with students interacting and competing to find elements on the periodic table) before sitting down with Monica, who has started to help plan project-based learning for half-day Wednesdays. She had a project planned that would have students creating pamphlets about hygiene in groups of four. The lesson started with engaging (and gruesome) videos about personal hygiene that hooked the students. Then, they moved into groups of four to choose topics and a team leader/editor. They went through a research challenge, finding online research, library sources, re-watching videos and asking experts in different rooms throughout the school. I was most impressed by how engaged the students were as they were asking questions about hygiene to "teacher experts" posing as nurses, dentists, podiatrists, etc. In the end, students gathered their research and created their first drafts of pamphlet pages.
It was a tough topic to get kids excited about, but the videos hooked the students in. It was a great first day meeting the students and teachers at Atherton Community School. They have a lot of energy - especially some of the lads I met. It is inspiring to see that energy applied to projects and creating beautiful work. They have future projects planned with meaningful work for a real-world audience. They are currently having students design signage for their new building (currently a construction site) that will open next year.
YEWLANDS TECHNOLOGY COLLEGE (Sheffield)
Day 1 - A Site Visit to Hartsholme Academy
Today was my first day at Yewlands Technology College in Sheffield. I set out on the frozen streets of Leeds at 6:20am. I took a train from Leeds arriving in Sheffield at 8am, followed by a 20 minute cab ride to Yewlands. When I arrived at Yewlands, I got on a mini-bus with 11 others (including two HTHMA interns) for an hour and a half drive to Lincoln. Lucie had some fun minibus games planned that helped us get to know each other. Everyone on the bus was friendly and excited about the visit.
Hartsholme Academy was a really inspiring primary school. It is truly centered around children and full of experiential, immersive learning. I was lucky enough to be involved in an online project tuning with Chris Wakefield, HTe teachers and some of the amazing Hartsholme Academy staff. I got to see the product of that project tuning - a project called Parachutery - in action. What really struck me (and I want to take it back to my own classroom) was the way the teachers really transformed the learning space to become an alien crash landing site, or the country of France, or Nelson Mandela's prison cell...every classroom had been transformed into an immersive learning environment. I wanted to linger and learn in every classroom. And you should have seen how engaged EVERY student was! They all wanted to tell me all about what they were doing and share what they were creating on their iPads. Such a beautiful learning environment!
After our tour (full of great student interactions) and an inspiring talk from teachers and school leaders, I got to meet with the team of teachers I will be working with at Yewlands, who have been given the charge to transform the Year 7 (6th grade) experience at Yewlands. They are a group of teachers (originally trained for primary school) who have been given the freedom and trust to truly transform the Year 7 experience (which is not something that typically happens in England). They have been asked to dream big and "be brave" about making radical changes, if necessary, to best serve their students and help them grow. The group talked about dreams of simplifying the schedule, mixing ability groups in classes, teaching in teams to build stronger relationships, etc. They are an amazing group of teachers willing to make change and take risks, and they have the full support of their administration. I can't wait to be a part of their team at Yewlands!
DIXONS ALLERTON (Bradford)
Day 1
Friday was the most energizing work day I have had with a school, so far. At Dixons Allerton in Bradford, three teachers (Angela (science), Andrew (humanities) and Holly (English)) have been given the full day on Fridays with twenty-five Year 8 students to trial project-based learning. Rachel Taylor brought our team together in the morning to meet each other and begin a full day of project development. I presented briefly on what project-based learning looks like at High Tech High and howour school is based on three integrations: integrating diverse students, integrating hands and minds, and integrating the school and community (connecting school with the outside world). Project-based learning is one of the tools we use to achieve these integrations and to help students become collaborative, problem solvers ready to change the world for the better and feel prepared for further education and their chosen careers. While High Tech High's design principles are personalization, real-world connection, teacher as designer and common intellectual mission, Dixons Allerton's design principles are all about celebrating diversity, aspiration and achievement. High Tech High and Dixons Allerton share very similar goals for our students, and both profess to focus on personalization to push all of our students to grow and achieve their dreams. The challenge for us as teachers and schools, in general, is really sticking to these design principles and pushing ourselves every day to do what is best for our students. The teachers and school leaders at Dixons Allerton definitely seem dedicated to the school's vision to support every student and push them to be their very best.
Half-way through the day, our project-based learning team steered away from just looking at the big picture and grand goals of project-based learning and we jumped into the specific project planning for the group of 25 students we will be kicking the project off with, next Friday. The three teachers, who had not worked closely together before, jumped into collaborating and decision-making with ease and efficiency. After exploring countless HTH project cards and examples of projects, they decided on creating their own variation of Chris Wakefield's and Diana Sanchez's Comic Super-Heroes project - incorporating the history of heroes and comics, the art of plot structure and character development, and the science and physics behind super-powers. They felt confident that the project would inspire and excite their students. We worked on developing the project plan using the project planning form from Innovation Unit's Teacher's Guide to Project Based Learning and then we jumped into our six-hour plan for the first Friday of the project. One of the key tools for measuring student growth, goal setting and progress will be an interactive, reflection journal (inspired by the reflective journal students keep at Hartsholme Academy). I can't wait for next Friday! I am really excited to get to know the students we'll be working with and see how our first day plan unfolds. You can view the plan here.
* I didn't take the photo included with this last section, but it's my favorite photo from the Dixons Allerton web page. It includes Rachel Kidd, a really inspiring, energetic and dedicated school leader, along with students and the school chickens that roam the enclosed quad.
