SUNDAY+Stream+3b

basic academic skills. Do primary schools need to play a new role, other than ensuring students acquire basic academic skills such as reading, writing and computation?  - organising the curriculum around themes that draw from different subjects;  - re-organising the school day or adjusting the school year to allocate longer blocks of time to activities;  - introducing a number of pathways through the key stages (ages 10 & 11) in order to meet the needs of learners of all abilities and interests;  - developing personal and social skills, as well as special needs, and developing children’s understanding of how the brain works, of learning styles, and of multiple intelligences;  - teaching children the value of collaborative work. || // · **Dr Charlotte Cole**, Senior Vice President for Global Education, Sesame Workshop, USA // · **//Tineke van der Steen,//** //Teacher of the Year 2009, Netherlands// · **//Dan Lea//**//, Gearies Infant School, Ilford, (Winner, Teaching Awards 2009), UK// · **//Greg Royce//**//, Rector, St Peter’s Preparatory Schools & College, South Africa// ||
 * || 14:15 – 15:45 || = STREAM 3b: SUCCESSFUL PRIMARY SCHOOL CURRICULUM INNOVATION = ||
 * ||  || Developing pupils’ learning skills: Introducing new skills alongside the acquisition of
 * ||  || //Speaker panel:// ||
 * ||  || · **//Zenna Atkins,//** //CEO UK, Europe and Africa, GEMS, UK (moderator)//

ZENNA ATKINS' COMMENTS

CHARLOTTE COLE'S COMMENTS

TINEKE VAN DER STEEN'S COMMENTS

DAN LEA'S COMMENTS ** [|danlea] **

I thought I might start my contributions to this discussion with a quick introduction.

I have had the pleasure of working at Gearies Infants School in Redbridge, for the past eleven years. In which time I have experienced being a member of the LIFT Teacher Forum, Redbridge Active Learning Community, Foundation Stage Networks and The Borough’s AST team. The projects I have developed over this time have all shared a common theme, using technology in a simple, innovative and creative way to empower child voice and document learner journeys. Recent projects that I have been pioneering have explored the use of blogging as a way in which children can document their learning and share their autonomous projects instantly with family, friends and peers. The arts and visual media feature heavily in my developing provision. Current projects explore ways of finding an innovative voice for our young learners. One Mile Radius, is a new project I am developing that intends to record and celebrate the voices, stories, music, songs and cultures of our local community, through a child created digital form. I hold dear to the concepts of making the complicated simple, subtracting the obvious and replacing it with new, innovative and meaningful learning experiences. But this in no way implies a restriction on what our younger learners engage with. In truth, when adopting this “mantle” and facilitating child autonomy over learning, completely the opposite occurs and it has been my great pleasure and privilege to witnesses the projects and pieces of learning that the children at Gearies so generously share with us adults. For me the child is the expert of their own lives, therefore their own learning. Technology and innovation allow us as adult learning facilitators the opportunity to enhance and document in a meaningful way these learner journeys.

GREG ROYCE'S COMMENTS