This is a story that I picked up on BBC News today. On the outset, it looks like an especially interesting and bold program of a metropolitan city in the county of Merseyside, UK.
BBC NEWS | Education | Council calls time on classrooms:
Knowsley’s seven learning centres will remain open from 7am to 10pm and throughout the traditional holiday period.
And the teachers working in the schools will take on roles as “facilitators” and “coaches”, depending on negotiations with the unions.
The centres will also host courses for adults to upgrade their skills and improve their education alongside pupils.
The whole project will rely heavily on the latest computer technology likely to be provided by RM while Microsoft provides expert advice to the council.
In reading and clicking around, I’ve found a national program for improving teaching and learning, whose scale is boggling. I’ve heard mention of this once before in a conversation, but it just didn’t scan. But the UK is investing 45 billion pound to rebuild (literally) every school in the country by 2020.
According to the official government web site:
BSF aims to change the educational experience for pupils and teachers and to increase opportunities for life-long learning for the wider community. Virtually every family and community in England will be affected by BSF,
I especially like the closing sentence in the story, a quote from Knowsley’s director of transformation within children’s services, Nick Page.
nobody knew what the next generation of technological advances would bring, but Knowsley was trying to ensure it had the flexibility in its learning centres to use it.
Here are a couple of web sites on the project that I found:
Building new schools sounds great. However, taking advice from Microsoft is not the best idea.
Also, medical practice changes all the time, but we still call the practitioners “doctors.” Why is it that we need to find new words for “teacher?” The substitutes for “teacher” always sound so clinical and vocational.
Gary, I agree with you on both counts, though one of the things that impressed me was their aim to build schools that are flexible, that can adapt to new conditions and new technologies.
As for teachers, I agree, though the word teacher has so many connotations that we need to get past. It is critical that we redefine what teachers do — and what students do. I think that the image that we have when we think of teachers needs to change.
I work for Partnerships for Schools, the organsiation set up by the UK govenrment to oversee the Building Schools for the Future programme. Our website at http://www.p4s.org.uk has lots of good info and video clips for those who are interested in seeing how the programme is progressing. The first new schools will open in Bristol in September this year. Just one correction to Dave’s original post – we are only replacing 50% of the schools, the remaining 50% will either be substantiallly remodelled or, if they are relatively recent builds, refurbished. However, EVERY school in the programme gets a huge investment in ICT infrastructure, equipment and online learning environments, to a total value of £4.5 billion.