Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Case Study of using PbyP at The Five Islands School
PbyP is used at The Five Islands School as a method of storing, recording and peer assessing evidence of skills developed through their weekly enrichment afternoon.
The Five Islands School is a federation of four primaries and one secondary school on the Isles of Scilly, twenty eight miles south west of the Cornish mainland at Penzance. The school caters for around 260 children aged 3-16 on five sites spread across four islands. Results are now significantly above national average and The Five Islands School was judged as Outstanding in its 2007 OFSTED Report.
Who?
Headteacher Andrew Penman introduced a weekly ‘enrichment afternoon’ to deliver skills-based learning through a range of multi – age opportunities. He decided to use PbyP as the framework around which to build these activities. Surveying staff and students to see what activities people would be able to offer uncovered a whole range of hidden talents and interests as well as bringing in local expertise from the community.
How?
Teacher Liz Turner presented PbyP to the school staff and provided a six week structure of how the activities would run. Each activity offered was linked to a specific PbyP skill ladder.
The school then launched PbyP with all pupils aged 7-16, registering them as users and asking them to choose their first activity for the first enrichment afternoon cycle. The older children were asked to train the younger children in PbyP.
The lists were then circulated to the staff in time for the first activities to start following the summer holidays. At the start of each six week activity, teachers shared the skill ladder statements with children so they could set themselves personal targets.
Success.
We were surprised at how much the children understood the need to develop skills and enjoyed peer assessment. One pointed out that “You don’t feel pressured because you are being taught and marked by someone who is about your own age and they may be smarter than you but they aren’t exactly better than you so they can keep you in line but they can’t tell you exactly what to do.” Another explained why peer assessment was better because “If it’s your friend then they will just say ‘yes’ but if it is someone from the other side of the world they don’t know anything about you so all they know is your work and if your work is good they will say ‘yes’.”
The children said:
"I think you just learn a lot more." (Year 8)
"You have to work as a team and I think that will help people in later life." (Year 7)
"It is giving children trust and freedom." (Year 6)
"It’s just a really good idea." (Year 9)
"Some people said “Do you want to be my mentor?” and one of them was my cousin up at Secondary School so it’s pretty good." (Year 5)
Next Year.
Children have begun offering activities to their peers and Andrew Penman is already planning to build on these successes, reporting that, “The more I see of the programme as it unfolds the more excited I am by it. I am delighted, for example, that so many secondary pupils have expressed an interest in working on the primary federated activities and the prospect that in the near future we will have primary children working in the secondary activities. The federated / cross phase dream has become a reality!”
Click here to download a copy of the case study