A visit last month to the inspirational Frank Wise special school in Banbury, highlighted the hurdles schools face in establishing good practice for ICT. Wonderful children, staff and school culture make this a special place indeed. Even the Ofsted inspectors were impressed. Watching a six-year-old effortlessly visit a website, solve a puzzle and print the results on the school’s networked colour laser printer for an immediate reward (and for mum and dad) showed what can be achieved where there is vision.
That the school had the confidence to stand against boring orthodoxy and insist on its technology of preference, Apple Mac, has relevance. For now pupils and staff can use digital video for curriculum projects and to highlight and reward achievement. Imagine how the parents of a child with severe disabilities must feel when they watch a Frank Wise video record of achievement on their TV. They can watch their child in class, or in the school swimming pool developing new skills with dedicated teachers and support staff.
So it was with some disappointment that I learned that their ISDN Internet service stopped at 6pm, therefore cutting parents off from evening activities at school. For some naive reason I had thought that when publications like ours raised these issues years ago something would be done. Poor misguided fool. For schools with these miserly connections lifelong learning ends at 6pm.
What this underlines is the need for Government action at the highest level to solve connection and bandwidth problems. The latest Besa survey of schools (p4) shows that this is a major issue. The average number of children in school who can now simultaneously access interactive material in class is six. This is not good. And it’s one reason why children on the PC side of the digital divide have a better ICT experience at home than at school (pp10-17), and why those on the wrong side don’t yet see school as a partial solution.
Wales is a good example with its pound;18.4 million broadband initiative. As far as the home front is concerned, however, the connected learning comunity is still some way off. In the meantime we look forward to the Government’s new research.
Some Government initiatives are already showing enormous promise, like the GridClub (p12). A service for children that deals with them on their own terms and gives them their own, adult-free space with lashings of fun and creativity. The creators, the DFES, Channel 4, Oracle and Intuitive Media should be proud. This is what public partnership ought to be about, not some slavish adherence to ideology and spin. If there is any justice the GridClub will shoot the BBC-led digital curriculum out of the water. Schools don’t need network materials from some cartel of convenience, led by one self-seeking organisation merely because it has stumped up some cash in a back-room deal.
Merlin John, TES Online editor
