parkroadict.co.uk

Merlin John Online - Innovators

Thu, 8 Jul 2010 20:25:04 +0100

I was privileged to represent the school (Frank Wise) for an article published on Merlin John’s website this week.
Interviewed by Sally McKeown, it illustrates a little of the history of our use of ICT in the school and gives a flavour of how much the children are achieving with it. Also a glimpse into where we’re going next in exploring a wealth of ideas once we get hold of a few iPads!

Rosan Bosch

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:10:53 +0100

Dutch architect/interior space designer Rosan Bosch is a partner in the Danish company, Bosch and Fjord.
She gave the closing keynote at the BSF conference which took place in Hammersmith yesterday and today. With a lively presentation she emphasised the importance of people and ideas over buildings, echoing Stephen Heppell’s message opening the conference the day before.

Professor Stephen Heppell

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 21:46:24 +0100

The opening keynote speech at a BSF conference in London yesterday and today was given by Stephen Heppell.
As entertaining, thought-provoking and insightful as ever, at this point pictured above Stephen was making a passing reference to the impact of new technology such as the iPad. In the photo taken on my iPhone here it has a bit of an odd, ghostly presence, but I’m pretty sure in the near future tools like this will be as widely recognised as a laptop is today.
There are already websites springing up with a focus on iPads and education - take a look at iPads in Education and Padilicious.

Becta Judges’ visit

Wed, 9 Jun 2010 19:16:23 +0100

Welcome to Frank Wise School (Thursday 10th June) to the Becta judges visiting for the ICT Excellence Awards.
Staff and pupils at the school have got an exciting day lined up for you, and I thought it might just be useful to post an entry here to guide you into this site where you can find some further examples of work from the school, research we have undertaken, and a background document of Awards the school has gained over many years.

Queen’s Speech

Tue, 25 May 2010 23:23:04 +0100

What is it with the media and the place of special schools in the educational continuum?

I had to complain to the TES a few weeks ago about lack of coverage on special schools and proposed plans re academy status (who were very positive and even published the letter, so many thanks guys), and now it’s the BBC and the Guardian.
The Queen’s Speech has announced the very high profile plan for any Outstanding school to be pre-approved for Academy status. Our school hasn’t even had the discussion as to whether we want to go in this direction or not, but why or earth can’t we find out via these major media routes if we’re even entitled to consider it??

Here’s what the actual speech says, reported on DirectGov:
• Provide for secondary, primary and special schools to become academies.
And here it is on the BBC website:
Primary and secondary schools graded outstanding by inspectors could be fast-tracked into free-standing academies by this autumn.
And here on the Guardian’s website:
Gove wants the academies bill to be passed by the summer to allow hundreds of secondary schools and primaries to be allowed to apply for academy freedoms by the September term.
It will be the first time primary schools have been given the chance to seek academy status on a large scale.
The Guardian there, have deliberately highlighted that for Primary schools this is the first time they’ve been given this chance, despite the key source on DirectGov saying:
• Primary and special schools would be able to apply to become an Academy in their own right for the first time and will benefit from the increased freedoms and flexibilities that this will offer.

What exactly do we all have to do to get some of these people in various branches of the media to recognise our existence? Is it any wonder that an average parent tends to have a hesitancy, if not a prejudice, towards the idea that their own child might benefit from being in a special school?