Hello All!
Well, with the inspiration I received from Riverside school and my passion for life skills based learning, I have been invited to pilot a 6 week design thinking programme for Year 7's at a local academy in Brighton.
We had our first teacher training session this week, exploring the draft curriculum that the core skills teachers will follow. I am very lucky in that BACA, the Academy in question has a 4 hour slot each week for core skills (humanities, PSHE, citizenship) and so we have 6 weeks of 4 hours to focus on design thinking - unheard of in most UK schools!
The six week programme introduces the idea that young people can take a design led approach to thinking through any project, problem or challenge and create their own sustainable solutions to it. The programme will take the students through:
Research methods
Identifying your "user" and their needs
Analysing your information
Coming up with a "user spec" for the innovation
Using thinking skills to innovate
Identifying the ideas you wish to pilot
Planning for a pilot
Piloting and refining and then sharing your ideas.
In this case, the young people will be challenged to find ways to make being at their schoola more fulfilling and positive experience for the new Year 7's. This is crucial as the Academy has taken over a school in one of the most deprived areas of the country with high levels of long term unemployment and low aspiration. The Year 7's are the first children who will spend the next 7 years in this environment - and they need to take responsibility for shaping how it feels and operates.
The first workshops for students take place on the 3rd May. I will be introducing the idea of creating a culture and the whole process of design thinking. The whole team is both nervous and excited - this is a pilot for us too!
Please keep an eye out for more information about the pilot. If you'd like us to come to your school and help create a really engaging curriculum, please do get in touch - our specialist areas: personal development, careers, enterprise and life skills.
Showing posts with label alternative education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alternative education. Show all posts
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
At Riverside Today
So I am at Riverside School in Ahmedabad, Kiran Sethi's innovative school has just celebrated its tenth year. The school's emphasis is on practical, real world, interactive education that meets the needs of the whole child.
The day starts at 8am and so far:
Grade 5 are having interviews for local internships - they have written their CV's and covering letters and are being interviewed by an independent visitor
Grade 6 got into a discussion about the value of a President and a Prime Minister in the delivery of legislation in the best interests of the people
Grade 9 are choreographing a routine for their performance at assembley next week to the music of Amelie ( all boys included!)
Grade 3 are embellishing a tale using their understanding of what the components of a good story are and
I am off with Pre - Kindergarten are off to the zoo.
The vibe here is very relaxed and joyful. When kids are asked to get on with something they quite happily do and are even unsupervised in later years, much like Graeme Whiting's Acorn School in the UK.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Indian Adventures
Hi Everyone
Greetings from Ahmedabad, in Gujerat, India!
I have been out in India now for five weeks, having delivered workshops to around 350 students and 400 adults. These have ranged from 21 year old automobile deesign student to ten year olds wanting to find their skill set and direction. Clients on the adult front have included Tata consulting and Synergy Electrics.
It has been fascinating offering interactive soft skills programmes here - the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
People feedback that:
1. They really enjoy interactive ways of learning
2. They love the practical tools as they can immediately make use of them in their lives
3. The informal education style makes learning a lot more fun than the traditional "chalk and talk" or " mug it up and chuck it out" forms of rote learning.
My aim being over here is to explore the market for alternative educational approaches and to offer schools, Universities, NGO"s and businesses an opportunity to try out the tools and seminars I have designed.
For the next week, I will be based at Riverside School, providing workshops and coaching for teachers and presenting at the Design in Education conference on the 12th and 13th. I have met with Kiran Sethi, the very inspiring Head here and will be giving you the full low down on their radicaly, interactive and person centered approach to learning. Kiran is one of the experts sharing their wisdom on our films in preparation for The Soul of Education conference, so keep an eye out for that here!
The key points on Riverside, as described by the students:
1. Segregation of play areas for each year group to meet their needs for safety and freedom
2. Self created student led projects including furniture designed from bottles and bespoke personal training programmes
3. Learning demonstrated by various forms of informal assessment including skits, presentations, projects and other creative methods
4. No school uniform and a school co-designed and built by the children, for the children, that resemble their home environment.
5. Focus not just on knowledge, but understanding from which innovation is encouraged.
In ten years the school has gone from 30 kids to 300.
Oh and I was in the paper today, together with 100 kids at the British Library!
Keep in touch!
Greetings from Ahmedabad, in Gujerat, India!
I have been out in India now for five weeks, having delivered workshops to around 350 students and 400 adults. These have ranged from 21 year old automobile deesign student to ten year olds wanting to find their skill set and direction. Clients on the adult front have included Tata consulting and Synergy Electrics.
It has been fascinating offering interactive soft skills programmes here - the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
People feedback that:
1. They really enjoy interactive ways of learning
2. They love the practical tools as they can immediately make use of them in their lives
3. The informal education style makes learning a lot more fun than the traditional "chalk and talk" or " mug it up and chuck it out" forms of rote learning.
My aim being over here is to explore the market for alternative educational approaches and to offer schools, Universities, NGO"s and businesses an opportunity to try out the tools and seminars I have designed.
For the next week, I will be based at Riverside School, providing workshops and coaching for teachers and presenting at the Design in Education conference on the 12th and 13th. I have met with Kiran Sethi, the very inspiring Head here and will be giving you the full low down on their radicaly, interactive and person centered approach to learning. Kiran is one of the experts sharing their wisdom on our films in preparation for The Soul of Education conference, so keep an eye out for that here!
The key points on Riverside, as described by the students:
1. Segregation of play areas for each year group to meet their needs for safety and freedom
2. Self created student led projects including furniture designed from bottles and bespoke personal training programmes
3. Learning demonstrated by various forms of informal assessment including skits, presentations, projects and other creative methods
4. No school uniform and a school co-designed and built by the children, for the children, that resemble their home environment.
5. Focus not just on knowledge, but understanding from which innovation is encouraged.
In ten years the school has gone from 30 kids to 300.
Oh and I was in the paper today, together with 100 kids at the British Library!
Keep in touch!
Saturday, 20 November 2010
another busy week!
Goodness gracious - i have been slack in writing to you all! Apologies!
Here are the highlights:
The Good Deals conference:http://www.socialenterpriselive.com/section/news/money/20101116/good-deals-10-club-together-get-investment-say-experts
A conference to discuss investment in social enterprise. I said there was a "language barrier" between the investors and the entrepreneurs. We need to find ways to meet and understand, one another's value system and ways of communicating. Look, social enterprises ARE less likely to be highly profitable than hedge funds. Both are done for different reasons, in different ways. We are primarily motivated by instigating a social change and social impact, the hedge funders and investors are interested in tactical bets on the market to facilitate the highest return possible. Different sphere, different aims, different words.
Wednesday I ran a Find Your Purpose workshop at Sussex University as part of their Global Entrepreneurship Week. As a female social entrepreneur I feel passionately that it is possible to combine people, purpose, planet and profit. The workshop generated a lot of interesting career possibilities for the participants - many that they hadn't of. Perhaps they will invite me back to run a workshop on how to get your idea from concept to business plan? If you are at Sussex, I am running two workshops this Wednesday via CDEC: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/careers/newsandevents/events, these are free to Sussex students! One is on Presentation Skills and the other Innovation Tools.If you'd like me to run a workshop at your careers service, do let me know.
Stay in touch - need to know you are out there!
Here are the highlights:
The Good Deals conference:http://www.socialenterpriselive.com/section/news/money/20101116/good-deals-10-club-together-get-investment-say-experts
A conference to discuss investment in social enterprise. I said there was a "language barrier" between the investors and the entrepreneurs. We need to find ways to meet and understand, one another's value system and ways of communicating. Look, social enterprises ARE less likely to be highly profitable than hedge funds. Both are done for different reasons, in different ways. We are primarily motivated by instigating a social change and social impact, the hedge funders and investors are interested in tactical bets on the market to facilitate the highest return possible. Different sphere, different aims, different words.
Wednesday I ran a Find Your Purpose workshop at Sussex University as part of their Global Entrepreneurship Week. As a female social entrepreneur I feel passionately that it is possible to combine people, purpose, planet and profit. The workshop generated a lot of interesting career possibilities for the participants - many that they hadn't of. Perhaps they will invite me back to run a workshop on how to get your idea from concept to business plan? If you are at Sussex, I am running two workshops this Wednesday via CDEC: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/careers/newsandevents/events, these are free to Sussex students! One is on Presentation Skills and the other Innovation Tools.If you'd like me to run a workshop at your careers service, do let me know.
Stay in touch - need to know you are out there!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
