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SETT DAY 1 AND 2

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Angus MacRury

Friday 23 September 2005

The ministerial address that never was: Due to illness Peter Peacock was unable to make his ministerial address to SETT. However Phil Ryecroft stepped into the breach and did his best not to be too controversial. The big issue is the number of children leaving school with no qualifications and not continuing in education. The question I asked myself on leaving the address was: Are we delivering a good enough learning experience in our schools to equip children for life outside school? I got my answer very quickly. This in part was due to listening to Marc Prensky, CEO of Games 2train, New York. He convinced me that our learning environments and ways of pupil engagement are outdated. He used the phrase (referring to PPP and school rebuild projects) “ We are currently building new “old” schools. I think he is right on this one. I think that Marc may have answered Peter Peacock. Are we engaging all pupils in our schools? Are we engaging them as much as a video game? A great deal of food for thought.

I then went to a Literacy seminar from LTS. A great deal of potential once the site is fully up and running, especially the Edwin Morgan material that they are going to publish. It was then on to Masterclass AGM and a pile of Statistics about Masterclass from George Street Research. Is it me? Does the Scottish Executive spend more money on data gathering than the projects themselves?

We then crossed to New York where Alan November gave us more food for thought on the way we approach education.

After the AGM we went on to dinner at the Moat House. Very nice. (I am prone to exaggeration.) But if you are feeding 800 delegates what do you expect?

 

Thursday Morning. I attended the SSDN launch. Very Interesting…. No seriously it was, maybe it was the way it was presented, or maybe I am getting more cynical but the dreaded NOF nightmare kept jumping into my head. Who is going to train every teacher to use this potentially brilliant and groundbreaking resource? Me? You?

And will the technology we have in school be able to cope with it? The majority of computers at Innerwick are over 4 years old. I will wait and see. I discuss this with my ELC Masterclass colleagues once they have woken up from the presentation and attended counselling.

I spend the morning going round the exhibition Zone ad talking to Ex-colleagues from Western Isles and Edinburgh.

At 11:30am I attend another Keynote by Professor Guy Claxton who talks to us on Learning to Learn and whether we are training our children to be all round, real-life learners ready for the 21st century. Well are we?

More time spent around the exhibition in the afternoon then a brief meeting with ELC master classers over coffee. I think it is time to go home. A great couple of thought provoking days.

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