Merlin John Online

RM takes £1.5m BSF hit at 'end of big ICT schemes'

The scrapping of the £55 billion Building Schools for the Future programme has prompted education services supplier RM to restructure and sustain £1.5 million “exceptional costs”. An Interim Management Statement from the company explains the issue.

However the company remains upbeat about ICT services to schools despite the halving of the £200 million Harnessing Technology funding. RM chief executive Terry Sweeney said that the "the era of big ICT schemes and centralised transformational policies" had clearly ended but that schools would continue to invest in ICT.

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Hannah's winning muffins recipe - by GOSH

Maureen McTaggart visits the Children's Hospital School at Great Ormond Street
Under the watchful eye of Jenny, the classroom assistant, Hannah mixes together the ingredients for muffins – sugar, flour, eggs, milk and lemon rind. Soon the mixture is ready for the oven and the mess is cleared up. So what’s the big deal you might ask?

The five-year-old learner, clad in chef’s hat and apron, is sitting up in bed and iChat on her Apple MacBook is connecting her to 17 other similarly-clad students doing the same thing in a classroom five floors below. Intersperse with a few feeding tubes, the odd dialysis machine, wheelchair and crutches and the picture becomes clear – we’re in hospital.

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Fresh Inspiration: update of a classroom favourite

Chris Drage finds much to celebrate in 'Inspiration 9'
The Inspiration program has been around for a considerable time and has undergone evolution to the point where the professionally tuned Version 9 has a huge amount to offer all key stage 3-4 and special needs students – and teachers too.

Inspiration 9 is software for visual mapping, outlining, writing and making presentations. It is an exceptionally good thinking and learning tool for visual communication. With it you can brainstorm ideas, structure thoughts and, using both the Diagram and Map views, visually communicate concepts to strengthen understanding.

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Leeds learners celebrate ICT evolution in BSF

By Bob Harrison and Andy Black
Leeds learners, teachers and education services supplier RM showcased some of the solid school achievements of the Building Schools for the Future programme at a special celebratory event focused on learning with ICT.

At a desperate time for ICT in schools, which has seen £200 million Harnessing Technology funding halved, and BSF, which had a 10 per cent ring-fenced budget for ICT (almost £5 billion over the full BSF term) scrapped, it was a welcome opportunity to peer behind the widescale disappointment and the intense party politics that have eclipsed successful transformation of learning.

Rigour or rigor mortis? Tanya's Gove challenge

The SWGfL conference tackled ICT cuts head on, with Tanya Byron giving a lead

Professor Tanya Byron is perhaps best known for working with recalcitrant children in the BBC's The House of Tiny Tearaways. Her next target, she revealed in a sparkling keynote presentation to the annual SWGfL (South West Grid for Learning) conference in Bristol, is a more difficult subject – beleaguered education secretary Michael Gove MP.

Professor Byron, author of the respected Safer Children in a  Digital World report on e-safety, has been invited to give a three-hour presentation on ICT and learning to Michael Gove. And she asked SWGfL delegates to provide her with classroom feedback for her meeting via a dedicated email address (here).

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Blood diamonds 'not worth fighting or dying for'

Learners across 123 countries discover from victims how some everyday luxuries are paid for in blood
When Jimiyke was 10 he was kidnapped by his sister's boyfriend, dragged into the bush, drugged and forced to fight in the Sierra Leone civil war. His salvation was education, and now he is a key contributor to Rafi.ki's Blood Diamonds Project to share his insights with learners across 123 countries.

Jimiyke's experiences are familiar to children in scores of armed struggles fuelled by "conflict minerals". More than five million lives have already been lost in the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and there are worries that Afghanistan will be the next region to be “cursed” by the discovery of precious minerals.

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An 'open source manifesto' to counter the ICT cuts

Open Source Schools' Miles Berry offers a radical response to the ICT funding cuts
So far, things have not gone particularly well for ICT in schools under the new government. We've seen Becta's funding withdrawn, the Rose curriculum thrown away, £100 million removed from the "low priority" Harnessing Technology grants and now BSF "frozen". Mike Baker's article for the BBC provided a good summary of the story so far.

The worst, I fear, is yet to come with 25 per cent cuts overall in public sector spending. The need to save money wherever possible suggests that open source may be the solution that has been waiting for this particular problem.

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The Innovators - 19 Sean O'Sullivan

By Sally McKeown
“Hi Sean, do you know how to change the background colour on this?” A pupil, Brian, and Jamie, a new member of support staff at  Frank Wise School, wander into the office of headteacher Sean O’Sullivan (above) to get some help and on-the-spot training. Once they have learned how to put a new layer into Pages and change the colour they go off to develop the title page for the class magazine.

The school achieved Beacon status in 2004 and was designated a Specialist School (SEN) in Cognition and Learning in 2007. It has won several awards including International School and Becta ICT Excellence (runner-up) and obtained an Outstanding Ofsted report in 2007 and 2010. While there are many reasons for a school to do so well, part of the magic of Frank Wise is that technology is threaded through all the school activities in a very natural and intuitive way.

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Wigan peerless – Abraham Guest sets a benchmark

Sally McKeown goes on an unforgettable school visit
The new Abraham Guest High School in Wigan only opened a few weeks ago and pupils are now enjoying premises which are stuffed with brilliant technology, from the latest biometric lockers (pictured) to Nintendo Wiis for physical education (PE).

The day starts any time after 7.15am. Pupils enter through the atrium which serves as a social and performance area at the heart of the school. They might then decide to have breakfast in one of the canteens but, instead of raking through their pockets to find loose change, they just press their left thumbs on a small blue light by the till to put payments through and then carry their trays over to a table.

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The Innovators - 18 Dan Buckley

By John Galloway
"The time has never been more right for innovators to act, because the system is broken and needs major change." That's the belief shared by Dan Buckley (right), research and development director of consultancy firm Cambridge Education, when he's talking about education in the 21st century.

He gained his reputation for a systemic approach to innovation, along with several awards for his creative use of ICT to transform the curriculum when he was teaching. But being singled out for recognition does not fit easily with his approach to innovation. "We are defining innovation wrongly," he explains. We've got a hero innovation model."

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