Thursday, September 13, 2007
A snapshot of how PbyP is being used in schools.
Each month we aim to share some of the creativity and innovation that is placing schools using PbyP at the cutting edge of competency based learning. This month some amazing figures from the holidays and early signs of diversity.
The online community of children mentoring each other and assessing each other’s work is currently well over 2000. Most schools have started small with a group of 15 or 30 children. But there are some trail blazers who are set to implement across whole secondary year groups and even one in a whole primary school.
This is very exciting but in the schools that are already using the web tool is peer-to-peer assessment really happening? After an initial period of disbelief on the part of pupils and staff the work submitted by primary age children is now assessed by another child in 90% of cases and in secondary settings 60%.
A child in an inner city school in Coventry recently received assessment and comment from another child on the Isles of Scilly and the community now stretches from Jersey to the Lake District!
A recent Ofsted report of the first school to trail the approach said: ‘Pupils from the secondary base support the learning of much younger pupils and the Year 6 ICT leaders take seriously their coaching responsibilities.’ Pupils at this 3 to 19 all-through school had undertaken a Personalisation by Pieces team challenge to provide training in ICT and manage the school’s equipment. The school was rated as outstanding.
A primary school in the Midlands has reported that their HMI was ‘very impressed’ with a pond project that they set up using the Personalisation by Pieces Framework.
PbyP is being used to enable personalisation and self-direction of learning in schools across the UK. As a flexible tool it offers a range of choices and opportunities and there are both common patterns in how it is used and unique ideas from individual schools.
The most popular type of work submitted is a document file. This obviously encompasses a range of types of written work and as such is likely to be the largest type. However, plenty of users are thinking ‘outside the document’, and using other forms of presentation.
- Video is being used in 90% of schools as a type of work submitted to PbyP.
- Sound files have been submitted as a work–type for the first time. (Primary School, July 07)
- For one school, 20% of all work submitted is animation.
- 11 different subjects use PbyP as a learning tool with English, Maths and Technology being the most popular.
- The most popular hour to submit work in PbyP is 2-3 p.m. – nearly 40% of all work, across all schools is submitted at this time.
The Award for holiday working goes to ……..Five Islands school, Isles of Scilly. 246 pieces of work were submitted by 200 hundred users over the August holidays.
Well done especially to Leanne Williams (year 6/7) for submitting a record 22 pieces of work. A certificate is on its way..
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