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Using time as a flexible resource at Leasowes Community College

At Leasowes Community College we regard time as a flexible resource, which is deployed like any other resource to best meet the needs of students. We have no doubt that immersive, deep models of learning are crucial to success and that, increasingly, students require uninterrupted blocks of time in which to really connect with the learning and gain maximum benefit from the carefully crafted and engaging experiences they are offered.

It is probably true to say that schools operating a relentless five-lessons-per-day regime will find it more difficult to offer an experience, which incorporates access to ICT, input from professionals/experts, visits and experiences outside of school and out of hours learning, than a school that deliberately organises longer blocks of time as an essential part of the school year. In this new, time-rich environment, how long does it really take to complete a task/project/course? Double General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in one year is a reality. Can we deliver a full course in a week, freeing up time for personalisation?

We believe that learner autonomy is encouraged by sustained, deep learning blocks and that, in an immersive environment, it is essential for the learner to adopt strategies for time-management, problem-solving, decision making and group work, in order to meet the set deadlines. In a longer block, student autonomy becomes integral to the achievement of successful outcomes and, as such, becomes a dynamic way of replicating work-related practice.

We have run a five-hour learning block for all students every Friday for 14 years, opening up the curriculum and promoting a deep, immersive and personalised model for learning. In addition to this, our Fast Track programme for all year 10 students offers five day learning blocks for students in two options, who eventually take these GCSEs at the end of year 10. Early examination success opens up the timetable in year 11 with students able to personalise and customise their own curriculum further.

In addition to the Flexible Day and Fast Track programmes, we now offer students in all years three longer blocks of learning at strategic times in the year, comprising two-day or three-day blocks in a number of subjects that run consecutively. This approach is helping us to offer a two-year key stage 3, with all the opportunities this brings, opening up new pathways at an earlier stage. The Department of Education and Skills (DfES) Innovations Unit is currently supporting us to develop this initiative through its Next Practice in Personalising Learning project.

Leasowes has a strong track record of using time creatively and radically. This expansion of the concept of longer blocks to include up to whole weeks in single subjects, represents a fundamental and radical re-think of how schools are organised to offer learning. As long as schools are constrained and trapped in a five lessons per day model and fail to realise the potential of deep learning blocks, the longer students will be condemned to a curriculum model that suits timetablers and teachers better than it meets student needs. This is a truly innovative model that could revolutionise the ways in which schools deliver learning and engage young people.

• Students experience deep learning and benefit from a new staff / student dynamic that encourages engagement and achievement.
• Students can complete work / projects and publish outcomes for a wide variety of audiences.
• Processes, such as assessment for learning, have a real impact on improvement with quality staff / student time at the centre of the process.
• Multiple intelligence approaches can be employed to enhance student outcomes over longer, more involved learning experiences.
• Staff can craft and realise ambitious ideas without the disruptive, artificial imposition of lesson slots.
• The use of professionals and other adults can become integral to the authenticity and contextualisation of the learning process.
• Longer blocks allow students to develop digital ICT outcomes, given realistic, uninterrupted time-frames.
• The education system can benefit by breaking the increasingly inappropriate 19th century model of short lessons.

What types of experiences, lessons or extended tasks do we need to provide for the deep learner? What can be achieved in a day?

We estimate that a single-subject day offers students much more than five hours of individual lessons. There is no travel time or settling time to waste and students make faster progress when teacher feedback is sustained and readily available. In a task-based culture, which requires the task to be completed, not put aside and picked up at a later date, ‘learning to learn’ skills are developed naturally and autonomy is nurtured.

At Leasowes, we talk about crafting experiences, not planning lessons. The challenge for teachers lies in pacing the longer block appropriately and maintaining a ‘learning momentum’. The dynamics of a group of learners must be considered in the planning, with learners able to express outcomes in a wide variety of ways. Longer blocks really open up multiple intelligences in a realistic way, offering students a more personalised learning pathway and the time to follow it. Assessment for learning is also a reality and not an add-on, with teachers able to intervene and supervise the task from start to finish.

Implicit in this model is an emphasis on authenticity and publication for a real audience. A longer block gives students access to external support from professionals, other adults, learning platforms and materials that would otherwise be difficult to bring to a single lesson. A high degree of planning is vital here and co-construction can help to make the experience more profound. Visits and visitors are a huge resource in this model because students can be exposed to the real world and are required to engage with authentic problems. The scope of these projects is as diverse and meaningful as the minds of those planning them … there are few boundaries.

How can new technologies be harnessed to provide meaningful learning experiences for students?

Using longer blocks of time, the end products can be radically different, with multimedia presentations, short movies, podcasts, websites, Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) learning packages and displays existing alongside more traditional essays and written outcomes. As the outcomes change and become more digital in nature, then storage becomes an issue and e-portfolios become an essential part of the process. E-portfolio is a crucial development here and increasingly students need virtual warehousing to store complex outcomes.

As assessment develops to meet student needs, then a virtual space will be the portfolio of evidence required by every student to validate work.

In a world where youngsters routinely utilise My Space, MSN Messenger, YouTube, iPods, mobile phones and web-based resources, it is no surprise that a curriculum that still relies heavily on paper, manilla folders and worksheets is viewed by youngsters as stultifying and boring. New technologies provide new ways of showing and sharing learning with new audiences and the sooner teachers take this on board the more likely they are to re-engage their students and re-ignite their love of learning.

At Leasowes, we employ a non-teaching VLE Manager and technicians who are on a year’s work placement as part of their ICT degree courses at the University of Wolverhampton, to make this aspect of college development a reality.

Access to ICT resources is a problem in every school but planning longer blocks of learning can help to free resources.  The ability to take students out of school for arranged visits, or even experiences based around the school environs, allows subjects to use facilities that would otherwise be tied up. Digital equipment can more easily be shared and those students left in school can gain access, not just for one lesson but for up to five days, depending on what other subjects have planned to do.

The emergence of web-based ‘virtual learning environments’ adds a new dimension to the use of ICT with the creation and publication of web-based materials offering something unique. For example, the purpose of a longer block may be to research and create learning materials covering an aspect of a subject’s curriculum that can be utilised by other students in the future. This reconstruction of knowledge into new digital formats (animation, digital video, podcasts, and so on) can give students the opportunity to see a subject from the educator’s perspective and can be the spark that fires a learner’s imagination. Editing film or a piece of animation requires sustained work and concentration. In the digital age, will short blocks be enough to achieve the required end-products?

Time is a precious commodity in the educational world and, at Leasowes, we understand the power of deep learning blocks to engage and inspire students and staff alike. The only thing we can say with certainty about education in the future is that nothing is certain! We must respond flexibly to change and meet the challenges ahead with structures that can adapt quickly to meet changing needs.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mr Neil Shaw is Vice Principal of Leasowes Community College, a specialist business and enterprise college in Halesowen, West Midlands, UK, where he has responsibility for the varied and exciting curriculum experience offered to the 1,200 learners who attend. Neil has worked on projects with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the BBC, BECTA, the Innovations Unit and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) in recent years and is currently delivering workshops for the SSAT on curriculum re-design.

 

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