All posts by badminton

Young entrepreneur saves young people from exam stress

New technologies, software, youth and community, ,

Schools are like conveyor belts. Children go in at the age of 3 or 4 and come out at 16 or 18 having been weighed, measured and processed. As they get near the end of the line, many start to panic and thrash about as they worry what to do when they fall off the end.

Every year the examination season seems to start earlier and YoungMinds Parents’ Helpline receive calls from thousands of parents distressed by the exam pressures facing their children. National Revision Week started today – 20th April and already stress levels are mounting.

Gojimo, producers of a free exam app, surveyed over 500 students found that nearly a third (31.5 per cent) were already at level 5 which is ‘Terrified and freaking out.’ Despite exam terrors, many do not start their revision until the last minute. They know they should start 8 weeks before the due date but many leave it till just 5 weeks before. Even worse, 71.3 per cent of students claimed they get little or no support from their schools, although many teachers would claim that they provide advice and guidance but that the students do not listen.

George Burgess3Now there is a handy FREE revision app created by George Burgess who founded Gojima in 2009 in his last year of school. ‘Back then, I was a 17-year-old student working from my bedroom. I had one very basic app, helping students revise for their Geography GCSE exam.’

George was caught working on his new business in class and expected to be in trouble but ‘Instead Mr. Williams was fascinated by the whole project and asked how he might help or get involved. It struck me immediately that having a teacher write content would make it more reliable, and a lot more credible. I asked if he would be willing to write a bunch of Geography GCSE quizzes. He agreed. I had my first author.’

Obviously, George was just the sort of pupil who would have stayed calm under exam pressure and these days all candidates can benefit from his skills because Gojimo is now the UK’s leading exam preparation app with free assessment content for GCSEs and A-Levels.

Award winning software from Sonocent proves to be a great conference tool

awards, New technologies, software,

Naace is the association for everyone who cares about ICT, whether they are teachers, researchers or technology companies so it was entirely appropriate to see Sonocent Audio Notetaker being used in the audience.

merlin's notes with ano2

I sat next to journalist Merlin John whose site is essential reading for anyone with a passion for technology and how it is used in our schools and colleges.  He was taking notes on a talk called ‘You have Mobile Devices- Now What?’- given by Darryl LaGace, Executive Vice President of Global Business Development at Lightspeed Systems and as I glanced across I couldn’t help noticing that Merlin was using Audio Notetaker.

merlin‘The microphone on my laptop is good enough to pick up the sound in a conference setting like this,’ said Merlin. ‘I like to make rough notes and then get the exact quote from Audio Notetaker. It is so easy to home in and find the part you want.’

Merlin recently published my article about Audio Notetaker’s success at the BETT awards and their tie-in with Dragon Naturally Speaking. It is so nice to know that he is now using it as a tool to help him in his daily work. He commented on Twitter: ‘AudioNotetaker use it a lot. My favourite for transcription’.

Will fat kids cycle to school?

Politics,

Shock, horror: nearly half of parents in the UK claim their children do less than 40minutes activities per day. Teachers on the other hand would just love children to sit still.

Tablets, mobile phones, computers and videogames have taken over from the television as the culprits. They are blamed from all manner of ills from sleeplessness (children texting after lights out) poor literacy, lack of concentration and, of course, obesity.

1According to Sustrans, a charity whose mission it is to encourage people to travel by foot, bike or public transport, teenage girls  were the least active, with 66% of parents of 16 year old girls saying they are getting 40 minutes of exercise or less in a typical weekday. Of course parents don’t always know what their children are doing and it may well be that young people are closet fitness fanatics.

• 38 per cent of parents surveyed said that they were chiefly concerned about their child putting on excess weight, as a result of being physically inactive.
• A further 30 per cent said their main concern would be their child developing health problems such as cancer, heart disease or diabetes.
• 12 per cent of parents were most concerned about childhood health problems,
• 18 per cent were most concerned about health problems in later life.

There are so many potential solutions to their fears such as healthier diet, fewer takeaways, less alcohol, encouraging children to cook for themselves, introducing children to a wide range of different sporting activities, more active holidays or even spending a bit of time on the Wii.

Yet apparently, when asked how they could increase the amount of exercise that their child took, just under half of parents (44 per cent) thought that walking, cycling, scooting and skating could be incorporated into their routines as part of the journey to school.

Rush hour, pollution, the danger to cyclists and the frantic early morning rush to get everyone out of the house on time make this the least likely option for many families. but if you fancy finding out more have a look at The Big Pedal 2015 go to: www.bigpedal.org.uk

 

Neither mad nor bad, just dyslexic

disability, New technologies

IMG_0656.1This time of year when Christmas cards come though the letter box seems to me to be the one occasion when handwriting matters. While e-cards are in vogue and a great money saver, there is something special about digging out the best pen, or even a half decent biro, and doing Real Writing.

According to an article in the Guardian,  research  commissioned by online stationer Docmail earlier this year revealed that the average time since an adult last scribbled was 41 days. But it also found that one in three of us has not had cause to write anything “properly” for more than six months.

Many claims are made for the power of handwriting on our psyche and development. Edouard Gentaz, professor of developmental psychology at the University of Geneva who said: ‘Children take several years to master this precise motor exercise: you need to hold the scripting tool firmly while moving it in such a way as to leave a different mark for each letter.’ He believes it helps with reading and learning the alphabet.

Now I have spent a lot of my working life with people with dyslexia who often have dreadful handwriting which they struggle to read and have seen the way that touch typing can transform composition and spelling as people move from thinking in terms of individual letter shapes to writing whole words so I am not excited by such assertions and I do not accept that handwriting helps develop muscle memory whereas computer don’t.

I am also quite shocked by notion put forward in the article  by historian Philippe Artières that doctors and detectives in the late 19th and early 20th century found signs of deviance among lunatics and delinquents, simply by examining the way they formed their letters.  Quite possibly these people were neither mad, nor bad but simply dyslexic.

However, I will admit that handwriting is very individual and personal compared to word processing. I am amazed how many people’s handwriting I can still recgnise at a glance after a gap of many years. I am also saddened when I open a card from an old friend and see how their handwriting has started to break down with age .

Handwriting is our personal mark, it reveals something of our identity and as such is very powerful. We need to be careful how we use it.

Leaping over the Barriers

Literacy

‘It was pretty tricky growing up with dyslexia, because I thought I was clever, and I know that sounds like a silly thing to say, but I didn’t think I was stupid. Yet I obviously was stupid because I couldn’t read or write. I seemed like a bright little girl but all that brightness could never come out because I couldn’t spell anything. So the cat always sat on the mat, it never did anything else, and the day was always sunny, it could be nothing else because I couldn’t spell anything else.’

moonSally Gardner is a talented and successful children’s author. She also has dyslexia. Her article in the Guardian is a reminder of the frustrations that face children and young people who don’t make that easy confident leap from hesitant decoding to reading for pleasure.

Stuck in the foothills of reading, they are sophisticates in a land of Lilliputians. They know that tigers can be camouflaged in dense vegetation but for them, ‘the cat always sat on the mat, it never did anything else.’ They are judged on a skill not on their knowledge.

If teachers do nothing else this Dyslexia Week, respect the innate intelligence of children who struggle with reading. For at least a few hours each week let their imagination and vocabulary soar.

Growing the next generation of readers

awards, disability, Literacy, special needs, ,

What is the role of a library in a special school where many young people are likely to have literacy problems? Liz Millett obviously knows the answer. She has just won a School Librarian of the Year Award.

Winner Liz Millett at school
Liz Millett Winner of a School Librarian of the Year Award

Liz works at WeatherfieldAcademy in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, a special school for students aged 7 to 19 with moderate learning difficulties and additional complex needs. Many of the children come from backgrounds where reading is not a priority. She set up the library in 2009 and her role is to make sure that the 3,000 books will fire up the 112 pupils and turn them into enthusiastic readers.

Nowadays there are so many different forms of entertainment that reading for pleasure is not high on many children’s agendas. Liz finds she gets the best results by tapping into their interests so she spends time talking to children: ‘One of my students, a 13-year old girl, improved her reading levels by 23 months in a year. Once I realised that she loved horses I found her collection of horse and pony books and she just ate them up. At the moment I know that one little boy is obsessed with lorries so I pick books out for him.’

Liz has set up a rewards system to motivate pupils. She had built a relationship with Weatherfield’s local public library and adapted the idea of the Summer Reading Challenge. Children are given a set number of books to read and those who persevere and meet the target are presented with a certificate in assembly. There is also an end of term Library Trophy for the most enthusiastic reader.

She tries to encourage parents to enjoy reading too and this can be hard work as some of them have problems with literacy. Like most special schools, WeatherfieldAcademy takes pupils from a wide area and many live up to 20 miles from the school. Liz builds personal connections very slowly and encourages them to email her as the school is promoting an online facility for children and parents to choose books together at home.

The school’s uses the Creative Curriculum up to Year 9. Last term’s topics were ‘Sport and Life’ and ‘Health and Fitness’.  Liz helps teachers to find appropriate resources and creates displays to reinforce topics. She also ensures that each pupil develops information literacy skills to the best of their ability, with colour-coded shelving alongside the simple Dewey system so that pupils can find their books independently.

The School Librarian of the Year award recognises the fact that Liz has made such great progress since taking over the role in 2009: ‘I’ve been given more and more responsibility over the years and I’m always busy but the difference you make to individuals makes it worthwhile.’

 

 

 

Consign volunteers to the scrap heap

disability, Politics, special needs, training, ,

I hate that phrase ‘volunteer opportunities.’ Of course it is fine to be a volunteer if you want to – many of us have a passion for a cause and are willing to give up our time, run marathons, bake cakes to raise money for a charity. But we do get a touch narky when the charity phones us up and starts pressing us to make a regular commitment aka a direct debit, especially when we know the cold caller is being paid good money to pile on the guilt.

It is loathsome that so many commercial companies are now routinely using volunteers to do essential work. This boosts their profits and takes a job away from someone else. In fact it is what we used to call exploitation. We also have a modern day Slavery Bill. I am just waiting for the moment when some company – possibly a pound shop or a highly profitable supermarket- says that a person who has no choice other than to work for their company for no wages is not a ‘slave’ but a ‘volunteer’ who gives of their time freely.

This week I watched Mary’s Silver Service on Channel 4 where that shameless self-publicist and entertaining red head launched a pop-up employment agency for out of work pensioners. I love the idea of helping people find jobs and it is such an antidote to the age of volunteering we are now in.

Charity Hft offers paid work to adults with learning disabilities
Ethical car cleaning offers opportunities for adults with learning disabilities

So I was delighted to receive a press release from a charity I have worked with in the past telling me about their latest employment venture.

Future Clean is a social franchise purchased by Hft which specialises in helping adults with learning disabilities. They have opened a car cleaning service in Gloucester giving people with learning disabilities the chance to learn new skills in paid employment. New employees typically stay with Future Clean for about a year, building the skills and confidence to move onto further employment, creating spaces for new learners.

If it is possible to develop businesses which employ people beyond retirement age and those with physical disabilities and learning difficulties AND TO PAY THEM, there is no excuse for those companies that exploit people into working for no money with the excuse that it makes them more employable.

Being ‘work ready’ does not mean surrendering your basic employment rights.

Hate crimes, mate crimes

disability, Politics, special needs
Brent Martin
Brent Martin murdered and stripped (BBC photograph)

It was one of the saddest articles I have ever written. Sometimes you just cannot believe what savages human beings are. Humiliation, abuse – physical and verbal - violence, mutilation and murder and all because people are perceived to be different.

Access magazine has just published my article which they have called Healing the Hate . The piece looks at some of the crimes and the steps that the police and housing associations are taking to keep people with disabilities safe from harm.

‘Mate crime’ is a relatively new term. It is sometimes known as ‘cuckooing’, because the ‘mate’ in question will often move in to a disabled person’s home with the intention of taking their money, food, clothes, and in some cases, stealing prescribed drugs from them to sell on.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission produced a report on disability-related harassment titled Hidden in Plain Sight, they define hate crime as disability-related harassment as unwanted, exploitative or abusive conduct against disabled people that has the purpose or effect of either::
– violating the dignity, safety, security or autonomy of the person experiencing it, or
– creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading or offensive environment.

We don’t really know how many people are affected. In our ‘inclusive world’ they disappear. Schools don’t know how many disabled pupils are bullied; local authorities and registered social landlords don’t know how many antisocial behaviour victims are disabled; health services don’t know how many assault victims are disabled; police don’t know how many victims of crime are disabled.

Why does it happen? Because we let it. We turn a blind eye. We like to raise money for ‘disabled kids’ but when they grow up, the politicians stoke the fires by referring to them as ‘benefits scroungers’. They are the same people with the same disabilities but are on the other side of the divide.

An article can’t do that much. It won’t change the world. But if people read it, at least they can never again say that they didn’t know it was happening here in Britain today.

Deaf awareness at the education Show

disability
Stephen Briggs from Get Deaf Aware
Stephen Briggs from Get Deaf Aware

Signature is the new name for Council for the Advancement of Communication with Deaf People (CACDP). I got my BSL stage 1 qualification with them many years ago. Then that was their main function. They accredited courses on Deaf awareness and British Sign Language. Mostly these were for individuals like me who needed to communicate with deaf people as part of their work

At the Education Show in Birmingham last week I met Stephen Briggs from Get Deaf Aware. The whole world of deaf awareness has grown and developed beyond recognition. Now they have a full range of e – learning courses from as little as £10 a course.

They run courses for retail, transport, health and public sector but are now doing so much more for schools too. With more deaf children in mainstream than ever before it makes sense to accommodate their needs and what could be  better than  letting Deaf children study their native language at GCSE level and give BSL the status it deserves ?

Make use of e-learning and get your staff to do a Get Aware course It can be completed in an hour, is simple and fun and there are no time limits or deadlines.

Business was brisk at the Education Show as more schools signed up to make their staff deaf aware. P’raps it  would be a good thing to so in your school as well?

Tablets transform lives for deaf people

disability, New technologies, ,

Ian Noon, Head of Policy and Research at the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS), showed me some of the advances in technology for deaf people when I was writing my article for Access magazine.  See the full article here ian noon

iPads and similar tablet technology has revolutionised life for deaf people and let them use services in a less ‘special’ way.

Ian uses an app to call a taxi, and now uses Twitter to receive live updates on train services and send queries to his local operator in the event of a delay;. He uses it on a plane to watch films with subtitles instead of just getting half the story.

Many films are available with subtitles, but cinemas are, however, still commercial businesses that want to keep regular audiences on side. They tend not to schedule subtitled screenings at weekends or on ‘Orange Wednesdays’, which is when Ian’s hearing friends usually want to go. He can therefore see some of the latest films at a nearby cinema, but only if he is content to go on a Monday or other less busy time, and then probably on his own.

He is hoping the Google Glass headset will make a difference to his life. Their ‘subtitling specs’ should soon be available. Wearing them he will be able to see subtitles which are invisible to others.