Physics is simply magic!

I started my teaching career as a physics teacher and I am still passionate about the subject and how it is taught... 

 

Physics is the branch of science concerned with the properties of matter and energy and the relationships between them. It is based on mathematics and traditionally includes mechanics, optics, electricity and magnetism, acoustics, and heat. Modern physics, based on quantum theory, includes atomic, nuclear, particle, and solid-state studies. It can also embrace applications such as geophysics and meteorology. Physics is no harder than any other subject on the curriculum but we have been persuaded that subjects like mathematics and physics are harder to learn about, harder to teach and harder when it came to tests and examinations. It's all nonsense of course and in the hands of  a great teacher like Richard Feynman physics is simply magic. Our job as educators is to make the subject come alive and to inspire young people to love the subject and want to become physicists, mathematicians and engineers.

Chris 

What can we learn from the Manchester Challenge?

'Schools learning together' was the name of a project that started in York and the ideas have been further developed in Manchester and Leeds...

"The knowledge and skills were here in local schools in abundance," says Professor Mel Ainscow  "But they weren't sufficiently moving around. The challenge was especially with 'hard-to-reach' urban pupils. That's where the difference had to be made."

This month's publication of the 2010 GCSE's shows an increase of 6% on average scores in 2009, and 11% since the Manchester City Challenge began in 2007. In Leeds the figures are even more impressive! Mel Ainscow's diagnosis is that we must encourage schools by "moving knowledge around" – creating "families of schools"; not families in the traditional, feeder/pyramid sense but schools from Oldham to Wigan grouped together in comparable groups. Mel Ainscow says: "We were looking at schools whose intake, size and other features had much in common, and seeing how one was doing well and another not. We were looking for the good things, naturally, and through this system, they were clear. It was a game-changer." The next step was what Ainscow calls "carefully brokered" school partnerships; collaborative, co-operative partnerships where schools share their best practice and strengths. Nothing new in the world!
Chris

The School I'd Like!

It doesn't seem ten years since the Guardian produced that wonderful publication...


Ten years ago the Guardian ran a  called 'the school I'd like'. Primary children and secondary students were asked to design the school of their dreams. They got over 15000 responses which makes it one of the largest informal surveys of children's attitudes towards schooling ever conducted in this country. The result was The Children's Manifesto of 2001 which was a wonderful collection of dreams and a challenge to all of us to build brilliant!


Now the Guardian is doing it again and want to ask young people some questions... 

• Is your school just as you'd like it to be? 
• Or are there things you would change? 
• Is the building right? 
• Should you sit exams? 
• Are you allowed to express yourself? 
• Are your lessons interesting? 

They want to listen to all young people's comments and hope schools and parents and carers and young people themselves will email them to school.i'd.like@guardian.co.uk, giving the child's full name, age, year, school, and a contact phone number. The deadline is 18 February. 

The Guardian will publish some of the comments and use all of them to inform and guide the new manifesto. Some young people who send in the most imaginative and exciting ideas will be asked to join the Guardian's special Children's Manifesto panel, helping to sift through the submissions to turn them into the new manifesto.
Chris

Happiness!

The BBC are doing some interesting things about happiness reflecting on the fact that we are less happy now than we were and getting even more unhappy... 

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. 

If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." 

Albert Schweitzer

Psychologists have apparently now come up with a formula for happiness:

'Pleasure + engagement + meaning = happiness'.

Happiness appears to be connected to relationships, contentment, security and money, health, transcendence and fulfilment. One key ingredient to happiness is social relationships, and another key ingredient appears to be having important goals that derive from things like children and family that are important to us, and to make progress toward those goals. Perhaps that why colleagues working in the Education Leeds team were so happy and engaged especially as is important to feel a sense of belonging to something larger than oneself.  Three exercises have been proved to produce lasting reductions in depression and lasting increases in happiness. You can try the three that work which were "three blessings" - writing down three things that went well today and why; "the gratitude visit" - writing a gratitude testimonial and delivering it personally; and "using your signature strength in a new way" - taking the signature strength test and using your highest strength in a new way.  

Despite everything research suggests that we are no happier now than we were 50 years ago. In his book 'Authentic Happiness' Martin Seligman argues that happiness is not the result of good genes or good luck and that we can teach people to be happy by cultivating and using many of the strengths and traits colleagues possess including kindness, originality, humour, optimism and generosity. By identifying the very best in ourselves Seligman argues that we can improve the world around us and achieve new and sustainable levels of commitment, contentment and meaning.

Lord Richard Layard, Director of the Well-being Programme in the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, argues that the key to success is to give higher priority to promoting better human relationships. He believes that the revolution to build character should be a major aim in every school with expert teachers of PSHE for whom that is their full-time mission and passion. Richard argues that PSHE is an extraordinarily difficult subject to teach but that we increasingly know what works and what does not. PSHE teaching must be based increasingly on evidence based research about what changes children and young people and what does not!

I have always been interested in happiness and I am more and more convinced that the seven things we all need to do to be happy are:

• exercise regularly;
• get mental stimulation;
• get artistic stimulation;
• do a good turn every day;
• do something with a friend;
• give yourself a treat;
• celebrate and congratulate yourself.

You can watch The Happiness Formula on BBC Two on Wednesday.
Chris

Can I help?

I have some spare time at the moment and as you know I like to be busy...

I am going to be very busy after Easter but does any one want me to run a session for them, their staff or cluster or group over the next few weeks. I'd be happy to discuss how I might help especially if you are a follower of the blog!
Chris

Every Child Counts!

We must also continue to work to ensure that every child can count by the time they are seven...

I know again some people tell me that it's impossible and as you know I hate that word. Anyone who has seen the impact of the National Strategies Every Child Counts programme knows that it is possible and when you consider what it costs us coping with the consequences of failing to teach children to count, failing to use and develop these programmes is stupidity on a grand scale.

Chris

Every Child a Reader!

We must continue to work to ensure that every child can read by the time they are seven...

I know again some people tell me that it's impossible and as you know I hate that word. Anyone who has seen the impact of the National Strategies Every Child A Reader programme knows that it is possible and when you consider what it costs us coping with the consequences of failing to teach children to read, failing to use and develop these programmes is stupidity on a grand scale.
Chris

What is it about schools in Finland?

Students in Finland spend fewer hours in school and do less homework than their peers in most OECD countries...

Children start their nine-year compulsory education at seven and almost all six-year-olds attend free preschool. Finland’s current system doesn't separate students early on into academic or vocational education. The Government sets out the national curriculum, but local schools and teachers are free to determine the best way of delivering it, right down to the choice of textbooks and teaching and learning methods. Teachers also create their own ways to measure student progress, and learning-oriented assessment is an integral part of daily school life. School and teacher autonomy are seen as the factors that positively affect the high quality performance of schools and the entire education system. The National Matriculation Examination, a battery of four to seven subject tests, is taken at the end of upper-secondary school, and most graduates continue on for another three years of general or vocational education, and either path can lead to university-level studies.
Chris

What is it about schools in Finland?

Finland is one the world’s most literate nations in the world with the narrowest gap between those who score the highest and lowest on achievement tests...

The four fundamental building blocks on which Finnish education is built are: all schools must be good schools, schools should constantly review and change to meet changing needs, successful schools should be at the heart of their communities, teachers should be respected and held in high regard. Just proves that there is nothing new, innovative or different about their success. It's also interesting that Finnish schools use the same curriculum for all their students who don’t start school until they are seven and never have a lot of homework. They are not obsessed with testing although diagnostic tests are used early used in a child’s schooling and with students falling behind who need extra help.Teaching is collaborative and co-operative so that teachers visit each other’s classes regularly and receive one afternoon a week of professional and curriculum development. 
Chris

Discipline, focus and hard work!

Michael Gove is of course right about the importance of discipline,focus, hard work and creating a culture of excellence... 


He's wrong however to root this in a curriculum that belongs to the 1800's not the 21st century. We need to see learning as three distinct and critical stages: the early years from birth to seven, the middle years from seven to fourteen and the pathway years from fourteen to nineteen and we need to very clearly describe what these phases of education and learning are expected to achieve. We need particularly to focus on the basics in the early years so that we improve parenting, develop aspiration and ensure that every child reads, can counts and becomes a brilliant little learner before they enter the middle years. In the middle years we need to inspire young people to see themselves as powerful learners who can achieve and be successful. In the pathway years we need to develop pathways for our young learners that lead to academic and vocational success and the world of work.


Interestingly, today the outgoing boss of the Confederation of British Industry has said that the Government has "failed to articulate in big picture terms its vision of what the UK economy might become under its stewardship," and what is becoming increasingly obvious is that they are also failing to clearly articulate a compelling, authentic and modern vision for our schools and the curriculum they should teach.
Chris

What to do!

What do you need to do?

• Love what you do!
• Enjoy the action!
• Finish what you start!
• Thrive on the pressure!
• Learn constantly!
• Have fun!

Please let me know if you need any help with any of this.

Chris

Attitude!

So what is the right attitude all about:

• be passionate!
• be enthusiastic!
• be inspired!
• be curious!
• be responsible!
• be smart!
• be intelligent!

Please let me know if you need any help with any of this.

Chris

It's too hard!

People constantly tell me that things are too hard, too difficult, too complicated and that only very special, very talented and very clever people can do these things...

It's funny that people think physics is hard, that mathematics is hard, that brilliant is hard; excuses, excuses, excuses. Everything I have read and seen and learn't over the last ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five years working in four very local authorities across the country has taught me that nothing is hard if it is taught properly, that nothing is impossible; that all things are possible if you believe. You can deliver brilliant physics or brilliant mathematics or brilliant outcomes wherever you are, all you need is the right attitude and the right toolkit.
Chris