Tag Archives: Scottish Education

Jim McColl, Newlands Junior College, and Scotland’s Education Conundrum⤴

from

Introduction
Jim McColl OBE, a prominent Scottish businessman and CEO of Clyde Blowers, is not only known for his industrial achievements but also for his passionate interest in education. This passion led him to establish Newlands Junior College (NJC) in 2014, an innovative attempt to address the issue of disengaged students in Scotland. While NJC demonstrated significant success, its story also highlights the challenges of educational reform and the entrenched resistance to change.

"Allowing children to leave school at 14 isn’t writing them off...it’s giving them the chance to reach for the stars"

McColl’s Background and Motivation
McColl’s own experience shaped his perspective on education. He readily admits that school wasn’t his forte, expressing that an old car engine was of more interest than his schoolwork. His career began with an engineering apprenticeship, a path he credits as crucial to his success. This background likely fueled his desire to create an educational alternative that focused on vocational skills and provided a more engaging learning environment for students who were struggling in the traditional system.

Newlands Junior College: Innovation and Impact
Newlands Junior College was McColl’s solution to address the problem of students disengaging with secondary school. NJC offered vocational classes alongside traditional subjects, creating a unique educational space. The results were impressive. The college achieved significant improvements in student outcomes, including increased attendance, achievement, and positive destinations for students. Testimonials from students highlighted a transformative change in their attitude towards learning and a newfound sense of belonging.

The Challenges and Closure of NJC
Despite its success, NJC faced significant challenges. Opposition from the "educational establishment," or "the blob" as it’s called in the reference text, and funding issues ultimately led to its closure in 2019. The document argues that the college’s demise reveals a systemic resistance to change within the Scottish education system.

McColl’s Continued Advocacy
McColl’s involvement in education reform didn’t end with the closure of NJC. He has publicly supported proposals to lower the school leaving age, sparking debate and controversy. This highlights his continued commitment to challenging the status quo and advocating for reforms that better serve students.

Lessons Learned and the Path Forward
The story of Jim McColl and Newlands Junior College offers valuable lessons for anyone interested in education reform in Scotland. It underscores the difficulties in overcoming systemic resistance and the importance of confronting the "blob" head-on. The need for systemic change is evident. McColl’s efforts, though met with setbacks, serve as a reminder that innovation and a willingness to challenge the norm are essential for creating a fairer and more effective education system in Scotland.

ScotEduBlogs Revival?⤴

from @ wwwd – John's World Wide Wall Display

A very interesting read: How a return to blogs and wikis could benefit teachers | Tes

Unlike social media, these older content-creation tools did not restrict the length of contributions or steal your attention every waking moment with incessant dopamine-releasing notifications. Instead, they allowed developing thoughts to be published, ideas shared and shaped, links made to like-minded thinkers, and documents to be written collaboratively – the very values cherished by both luminaries of the Scottish Enlightenment and the creator of the web.

And

What was missing in 2010 was any sort of directory: a working record 1 of the many flowering blogs, themes and ideas. A “ScotsEdu” wiki would quickly establish this, editable by all, allowing for information to be updated quickly and providing a map for educators, linking ideas, papers and research.

In short, it would provide a one-stop shop to support an ongoing national discussion about Scottish education.

I saw this article via twitter after a link was tweeted by Ollie Bray. Ironically Ollie was once a very prolific Scottish educational blogger.

A working record

A working record is not missing, but perhaps un-noticed. ScotEduBlogs has a record of posts going back to 2006!

ScotEduBlogs goes back to a Wiki started by Ewan McIntosh on Wikispaces. When the list of blogs became a bit to long to follow by clicking links, we 2 created ScotEduBlogs . At first it consisted of a aggregation of posts from across Scotland and a supporting Wiki. Over the years it has shrunk to an aggregation site now maintained, in a fairly lax fashion, by myself.

The site started aggregating class & teacher blogs. After the move to WordPress I reduced it to ‘professional’ blogs. It had gained some higher education blogs, but the frequency of posts has dropped.

The article made me visit the backend of SEB for the first time in a while. Much to my embarrassment I found a request to join by the TES article’s author Andrew McLaughlin. I’ve now added his blog. The form on the site has failed to send me an email. I added a link to email me requests, which should do as a stopgap.

I took a moment to improve the menus on mobile.  I also set up a mastodon account for SEB so that people can get the link to new activity in their mastodon account in the same way as they could follow the twitter account. Given the current twitter woes, I hope the mastodon account will be useful.

It might be time for a revival of ScotEduBlogs. I would be delighted to add more sites. I’d also be interested in any ideas for improving the site

Personally I rarely visit the SEB site, I subscribe to its RSS Feed in my feed reader. This gives me all the news from all the blogs in SEB without having to subscribe to them all individually.

  1. My emphasis ↩
  2. The original site was created by Robert Jones along with Pete Liddle, I just made suggestions. ↩

Scottish Parent Teacher Council 2016-08-08 15:51:00⤴

from @ Scottish Parent Teacher Council

Some of you may be familiar with Upstart, to others it may sound like something you do to your car to get it going again. Thankfully this blog isn’t about to do a U-turn and become about motoring.

So – to be clear - Upstart is the title of the campaign to introduce a kindergarten stage for children aged three to seven in Scotland.

What do we mean by kindergarten stage? Basically instead of the formal schooling that we are all familiar with from age five, children aged three to seven will have more opportunities to learn through play (especially outdoors); to develop their spoken language and social skills; and to build sound foundations for academic achievement.

Evidence from around the world shows that children under the age of seven benefit from an approach to education that is about experiences, that supports their all-round physical, emotional, social and cognitive development, rather than pushing them towards early academic achievement. 

You may remember an article we shared on Twitter and Facebook a few weeks ago about schools in Finland: http://bit.ly/29hebN2

In fact, in the most recent review by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the three most successful nations in terms of academic results were Finland, Estonia and Switzerland. One thing all three have in common? They all have a play-based kindergarten stage for three to seven year-old children.

Such a radical change in how children are educated may seem intimidating, especially if at first glance it seems to postpone academic development. In actuality, the evidence seems to indicate that there is no educational advantage to an early start. Many studies have shown that children who are taught literacy skills from the age of five don’t do any better in the long run than those who start at seven – performance evens out by the time they reach age ten.
Additionally, some research studies have actually linked an early start in formal education and early pressure for academic achievement to social, emotional and mental health problems as children develop into their teens and adulthood.

People often think of play and work or school as being completely different things, but they are really one and the same. Play combines physical and active learning and if it is properly guided, it can help children develop all the skills they will need to be lifelong learners. Music, art, drama, stories, songs and rhymes develop young children’s listening, language, memory and thinking skills, all needed for good literacy.  


Active, creative play develops the problem-solving skills and understanding of concepts and 
ideas needed for maths and science.

Our next Parent’s Voice survey is going to be about Upstart – we want to know what our members know about Upstart and how they feel about its ideas. In the meantime while the survey is being developed, here is some more in depth information about Upstart and the arguments around it:

National Foundation for Educational Research – Compulsoryage of starting school in European Countries 

Upstart Scotland 

New Scientist: Should schooling start at age 7? 

University of Cambridge – School starting age: the evidence 

Hard Evidence: at what age are children ready for school? 

Scottish Parent Teacher Council 2016-08-08 15:51:00⤴

from @ Scottish Parent Teacher Council

Some of you may be familiar with Upstart, to others it may sound like something you do to your car to get it going again. Thankfully this blog isn’t about to do a U-turn and become about motoring.

So – to be clear - Upstart is the title of the campaign to introduce a kindergarten stage for children aged three to seven in Scotland.

What do we mean by kindergarten stage? Basically instead of the formal schooling that we are all familiar with from age five, children aged three to seven will have more opportunities to learn through play (especially outdoors); to develop their spoken language and social skills; and to build sound foundations for academic achievement.

Evidence from around the world shows that children under the age of seven benefit from an approach to education that is about experiences, that supports their all-round physical, emotional, social and cognitive development, rather than pushing them towards early academic achievement. 

You may remember an article we shared on Twitter and Facebook a few weeks ago about schools in Finland: http://bit.ly/29hebN2

In fact, in the most recent review by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the three most successful nations in terms of academic results were Finland, Estonia and Switzerland. One thing all three have in common? They all have a play-based kindergarten stage for three to seven year-old children.

Such a radical change in how children are educated may seem intimidating, especially if at first glance it seems to postpone academic development. In actuality, the evidence seems to indicate that there is no educational advantage to an early start. Many studies have shown that children who are taught literacy skills from the age of five don’t do any better in the long run than those who start at seven – performance evens out by the time they reach age ten.
Additionally, some research studies have actually linked an early start in formal education and early pressure for academic achievement to social, emotional and mental health problems as children develop into their teens and adulthood.

People often think of play and work or school as being completely different things, but they are really one and the same. Play combines physical and active learning and if it is properly guided, it can help children develop all the skills they will need to be lifelong learners. Music, art, drama, stories, songs and rhymes develop young children’s listening, language, memory and thinking skills, all needed for good literacy.  


Active, creative play develops the problem-solving skills and understanding of concepts and 
ideas needed for maths and science.

Our next Parent’s Voice survey is going to be about Upstart – we want to know what our members know about Upstart and how they feel about its ideas. In the meantime while the survey is being developed, here is some more in depth information about Upstart and the arguments around it:

National Foundation for Educational Research – Compulsoryage of starting school in European Countries 

Upstart Scotland 

New Scientist: Should schooling start at age 7? 

University of Cambridge – School starting age: the evidence 

Hard Evidence: at what age are children ready for school? 

The Lochgelly Tawse⤴

from @ through the windae

Mrs Tullock had a Lochgelly tawse in her desk drawer. The tawse was the Scottish education system’s corporal punishment weapon of choice. The Lochgelly tawse is a leather belt with a twin fringed end. I thought it looked like an intimidating oversized bookmark. Lochgelly is the town in Fife where it was made.  And Mrs Tullock had one in her drawer.

New Image New Device⤴

from @ Islay ICT

I have been remiss with blog posts. I suspect I am addicted to twitter.My new school year resolution is make my Blog writing more regular.

We have been identifying a new device for the incoming S1. The reason this is required is that Samsung are no longer making the Q1 UMPC.

We tried several devices and types of device before settling on the Dell 2100 Netbook.

The reason we went for this was the robustness of this device as its specifically designed for the education market. We also went for the optional touch screen to keep the maximum usability for what we have already developed.

So the next question was which apps should we install in the image.

Here this list:

PS Heading Text indicates a folder setup in the Start Menu

 

File Viewers:

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Notepad ++

AbiWord

FTP Software:

Filezilla

Core FTP - glow

Google Software:

Google Earth

Google Sketch-Up with tutorials.

Picasa 3 with templates

Microsoft Software:

Office 2007 & OneNote

Auto Collage 2008

Multimedia Software:

CeltX

Clickview Player-win7 version downloaded.

DivX 7

Labtec Webcam - Driver we have works, but you must manually tell windows to install the driver from the:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Labtec\WebCamWebInstall\Drivers\x32 Folder.

Comic Life

Real Player Alternative

QuickTime - glow

Java - glow

Media Player Classic

Stop Motion Animator

VLC Media Player

Audacity incl. MP3 & ffmpeg.

Photo Story 3

Windows Movie Maker - Live movie maker.

Timershot-needed when we have SMA?

Kinovea

PhotoFiltre

Jet Audio Basic- version 8 and above ONLY

Digital Viewer for Digital Microscopes

Free Natural Reader/ Scottish Heather Voice - new version downloaded.

Microsoft Digital Literacy IT Course- most current.

Pencil

InkArt- replaced with art rage 2 starter edition - use "Loading" brush setting to adjust when the brush runs out of ink. (100% = takes ages to run out).

Utilities:

7-Zip

Auslogics Disk Defrag

Spybot S&D

Ccleaner Slim

Maths Software:

Officemath

Student Graphing Calculator

 

Music Software:

Listen Hear v4.0-cd rom

LMMS new version 4.6

MuseScore

Tablet PC Music Composition Tool - replaced by songsmith.

SongSmith

 

Simulation Software:

Phun-beta 5.28 downloaded.

Physics Illustrator for Tablet PC - use 2010 compiled version.

West Point Bridge Designer 2007 -downloaded.

 

Language Software:

Power Language French

 

Maths Software:

Tarsia 2.0

Geonext

Uncategorized Programs

(Not a start menu category name):

XMind

Hot Potatoes

Mozilla Firefox ( and extensions).

Flash Player - glow

Shockwave - glow

Image Resizer (Microsoft)

Taskbar Magnifier (Microsoft)-works and installs in 7.

Sophos Antivirus -if it cant be used on win7 we have an open source alternative ready to go.

Learning Essentials - still version 2 for office 2007.

Stitched Up -cd rom.

http://jmol.sourceforge.net/

 

What have we missed? What should we have added?

Vision of Education in the year 2020?⤴

from @ Islay ICT

Last June we held an open day on the use of ICT in the school. This was successful in terms of what we got across if not in terms of actual numbers who visited the school. It was definitely quality over quantity.

We have been thinking about what we could do for next year. Add into that mix the desire to run an Islay TeachMeet. The TeachMeet idea was met with very loud enthusiasm when I suggested it at TeachMeet SLF08. Though I suspect that was more to do with the drink than it was an actual commitment to coming to Islay.

I have spent some personal reflection and lots of time chatting to Andy Wallis. We decided that if people were going to make the effort to come to Islay then we need to develop the TeachMeet model to something more.

We are both passionate about education. Education being delivered and accessed using the best and most appropriate tools that are available and not about the next , shiny new technology. I feel that sometimes we all get caught up in the ‘ooo look at the new toy, what can we do with it’ syndrome(I have to be particularly careful that I don’t do this.)

So the idea we had was an unconference to look at where we all like to see education going. In particular where we see it when this year intake formal education (Age 5 in Scotland) are able to choose to leave school (Age 16 in Scotland) in the year 2020.

We wanted the dialogue to be as wide spread as possible. So we have a wiki put in place. This wiki is not about the unconference. Its about education. The unconference is part of the discussion on education.

So what do you think education should look like in the year 2020? What do you see as the stepping stones to allow this vision to be realised? What do you think are the threats?

Don’t put these answers/visions/solution/arguments/proposals/anything else here. Put them onto the wiki at education2020.wikispaces.com.

Also, please talk to your colleagues, pupils, parents, cleaners,etc about this. Get their ideas. Start the conversation. Most teachers haven’t considered this

Blog/twitter about it. I want it to be a place where everyone can make a voice heard.

Pro/Engineer Wildfire 4 Training⤴

from @ Islay ICT

On Monday Myself and my colleague, Sandy Smith, will be starting 2 days training on PTC’s Pro/Engineer Wildfire 4 CAD Application. We will be the first school in Scotland to trained to use this.

More example images here

The training is being delivered by the wonderfully enthusiastic John Forth.

This an incredibly powerful, professional level package. Its probably used most famously on the Discovery Channel TV Programme, ‘American Chopper’. This is where custom chopper manufacturer, OCC use it to visualise the custom chopper designs and produce the working drawings.

This is being delivered in an extremely interesting way. The software is free but only if the teacher goes through the training and achieves a good level of use. The effect of this is that the use of professional level applications is supported  in school and a base of good skills is supported.