Thursday 22 January 2015

Digital Safety/ Citizenship


Year 12 and 13 Performing Arts and Media have been working with the PSE department to create resources and workshops that will be used with KS3 pupils. 

Year 12 Media have been given a brief where they have been asked to create a film educating parents on some of the potential pitfalls of using the Internet.
I used some of the videos that we looked at on the course to stimulate discussion and to get them to explore the possibilities of using video as a powerful tool to get a message across.

 
They had to incorporate a key question into their work
and look at the topic not only from their own perspective but through analysis of secondary data.  They also had to evaluate their sources.
 
They all engaged with the topic and have produced work to a varying standard (as you would expect in a mixed-ability group) and we hope to use this with our parents in the future.  Some students have focused on the benefits of using the internet whilst others have stuck to the assignment brief and are focusing more on educating parents.
 
Year 12 Performing Arts and Year 13 Performing Arts are currently preparing a compulsory unit of work, Theatre Workshop.  They have been working in conjunction with the PSE department to produce a performance piece and follow-up workshop for targeted KS3 classes.  There are four performances that have been devised and the students are in the process of refining and polishing their work.  The theme that they were given was Cyber-safety - anyone would think that I had planned it - it was on the PSE scheme of work for the Spring term, honestly.  Again, they researched the topic, took student surveys and have looked at ways that they can make the topic engaging and challenging whilst simultaneously educating their audiences.
 
We have discussed the potential of a younger student disclosing personal information to them during a workshop activity, or of the students requiring additional assistance following the workshop.  They understand about disclosure, confidentiality and the support systems in and out of school.
 
Some students take both Performing Arts and Media and, in this case, they have been lucky enough to create a video and a performance.  The nice thing is those students who study both subjects were the experts in their groups and taught their peers - they already came with knowledge from one subject and brought it to the other.


Sharing a Message with our Parents


In common with most schools, we need to think about how we convey information with the parents of our children.  There is always a debate about whether the tried and trusted methods of communication are most effective.  Whilst generating vast amounts of paper-work does make you feel that you have given out the necessary information, how sure are we that it reaches its destination and, even if it makes it out of a pupil's bag intact, do parents read it? 

Should we be developing a hybrid approach to engaging parents?  Are texts effective?  Is Twitter suitable for all communications?  Do people still use Facebook and if they do, would they resent school-life and social media mixing? 

In an attempt to tackle this, we have started to develop our Internet provision for parents and students. 

Mrs Southern and Mr Szura (Heads of Years 12 and 13) use Twitter to get important information to students .  This has proved to be effective if we have to get a quick message to students - especially when they are studying on multiple sites.  They currently have over a hundred followers (a higher number than our current Sixth Form), but not all of these are current students.  This suggests that we are not getting a message directly to all of our students via Twitter.  What is happening is a sort of Chinese Whisper campaign.  One person sees a message and then they text it or put the information onto Facebook etc.  This can sometimes skew the message and doesn't guarantee that everybody has received the information.  At the moment, this form of communication hasn't been extended beyond the KS5 pupils (although technically younger students could access it).  Should we roll out this provision to all students?  Are the younger students sufficiently tuned in enough to Twitter for it to be an effective method of communication?

Lewis Girls' School was recently closed for the day with little forward notice.  This type of unavoidable emergency causes major problems for some families.  In this particular case, the situation was made more complicated because there were external exams taking place on the day of closure.  We had to make sure that a message reached the majority of staff, pupils and parents and the obligatory text messages were sent out.  It would be foolish to think that all pupils, parents and even staff received the message.  Mobile phone numbers change and, unfortunately, admin records aren't always current.  This results in a 'majority did, but some didn't receive the message' situation.  Some blank messages were generated and there were a number of hurried phone calls from members of staff checking if they needed to get out of bed or not.

The messaging system has proved really effective as a prompt - alerting parents to future events, such as parents' evenings - but is too costly and laborious to use as a method of individual communication.  It doesn't lend itself to providing a parent with detailed information about an individual situation.  It is better used as an initial point of contact that leads to a face-to-face meeting, asks a parent to contact the school or alerts them to something that has been put onto the web site that gives them more information.

How do you think we should effectively get the message out there?         

PHONES IN THE CLASSROOM SURVEY

We have recently carried out a survey of pupils trying to gather data about how they are currently using mobile phones and how they would like to use them in the future.  Some of the results were surprising.
Results of pupil survey

I love the honesty of some of the students!

Where does this information lead us?  Should we be allowing the students more flexibility with regard to mobile technology?

We did a similar survey with the parents of YR 9 pupils.  The sample in this was small (and therefore probably not significant) but the range of their responses was dramatic.  Some parents thought that it was ridiculous that we aren't allowing their daughters to use their phones.  One parent mentioned the missed opportunity for acquiring skills.  Some parents didn't like the idea of the students using their own equipment, but were happy for them to be using mobile technology.  At the other extreme, there were parents who thought that no mobile technology should be used in school at all and that personal equipment shouldn't be brought to school, let alone used.

How do we square this circle?