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Justine Lister

Together is better: teachers, students and parents

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Edited by Justine Lister, Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019, 14:21

InfoPoster showing results, outcomes and plans for the future

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Justine Lister

Changing Education for the future

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Edited by Justine Lister, Friday, 12 Jul 2019, 15:59

Trialing a project with Erasmus+UK and Form the Future. A collaborative trial working with schools across Europe.


Year 7 bring 21st Century Skills into their Library Lessons

 

This year SWCHS have been working alongside Erasmus+ and local company Form the Future to ensure that students are aware of the key skills that will be required, alongside their academic grades, to enable them to become the work force of tomorrow-ready to face the challenges that lie ahead.

It is a shocking statistic but it should be known that 60% of the jobs that our current Year 7 will have when they are older have not even been thought of yet. Furthermore, it is expected that the students currently within the education system will have at least 17 jobs within their employment lifetime. Employers from the UK and Europe are concerned that the education systems are only providing academic qualifications and not the personality traits and skills that will allow our students to flourish against an uncertain future.

Citizenship-Collaboration-Creativity-Communication-Character building-Critical thinking

Known as the 6Cs, the skills above are also known as global competencies because they are the skills that the world needs our young people to have and use efficiently, in order to be ready for the work and jobs of tomorrow.

Using their fortnightly Library Lessons, 7EnSB planned, organised and ran a fundraising event that allowed them to focus their use of the 6Cs. Linking was made to their Library Lessons by using any monies raised to purchase cushions and bean bags to promote independent, reading for pleasure in the Library. The students were aware that they were fundraising for a whole school initiative and not just for their own gains or needs.

In small groups, the students explored different ways they could raise money. This project really enabled the students to draw upon the skills of Creativity, Collaboration and Communication.

Creativity was shown as the students came up with a range of different ideas to persuade others to donate their money. In the end there were many different stalls that included: bake sales, a beauty bar with tattoos and nail art, a lucky dip, a donut eating competition, homemade business cards and a ‘guess the weight’ of the sweets competition. Students also had to be Creative in the face of adversity, when at the last minute events could not go ahead as the venue had been double booked. The students had to make quick decisions about what they could do to still contribute towards the event.

Without the skills of collaboration, each group could not have contributed so successfully to the event. Not only did the group have to work together efficiently and cohesively, they also had to collaborate with other members of staff in order to organise everything. Additionally, rather than just having one teacher deliver the lead up lessons, instead they had a range of internal and external experts working with them in lessons. Firstly, they had a visit from Tariq Sadiq, whose job is as a charity fundraiser, with local charity Form the Future. Then we had Viki Kennedy, a Business Teacher at SWCHS, who used to work in advertising and finally Traci Woods, the schools’ Marketing and Social Media manager came into the lessons to talk about the best ways to approach advertising the events.

Communication was key throughout the project. Students had to ensure that they were able to communicate clearly and appropriately with a range of students, staff, parents, visitors and customers. Students written, verbal and listening skills were needed to make sure that things ran smoothly throughout the lessons and on the day itself.

The fundraising event was an amazing success. In just 40 minutes £130. I hope the students realise what an achievement this was and how they used their 21st Century Skills alongside their classroom knowledge to create something so positive.

How these lessons differed from a ‘regular classroom’ lesson:

Student led

Increased student discussion time

Use of external experts to share knowledge (not just the class teacher)

Outcome of lessons was experience and an event (not data/levels/grades)

Classroom teacher was a facilitator/guider/mentor and not an instructor or leader

Responsibility was placed with the students and not the teachers


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