Project Approval

I found out today that the university has accepted my proposal. This means that I am now officially started! Good news!

I am minded of the informal findings of Vernon Trafford, who ran the Anglia PhD training programme. There seemed to be little correlation between titles of approved projects and the final theses resulting from them. Oh well… we’ll see!

QCA review of the National Curriculum

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) have published the draft of the new National Curriculum (NC) for secondary schools in England. This contains slimmed down programmes of study for all subjects (although ICT was always fairly slim). It also contains a section on the way in which ICT as a functional skill across the curriculum might be specified – and maps this to the subject ICT. This seems an odd mapping in many ways, as both sides of the reationship could be interchanged.

Also of note is the section on assessment strategies. These include some clear guidance on not just relying  the test at the end. I wonder how this will actually pan out at Key Stage 4 (14-16 year olds). Will schools stop entering all and sundry for a full blown level 2 qualification in ICT? Will the functional skills and some assesement of ICT use against KS4 criteria be enough? Or is this too obscure to be bothered with. What will the reporting requirements be for ICT at KS4? It is one of few subjects left in the NC at this level.

There is abother aspect of assesment that caught my eye on first read (and how much harder is a website than a set of printed documents to read!?!) . This was to do with taking a range of evidence…

It does mean that more of what learners ordinarily do and know in the classroom is taken into account when teachers come to make a periodic assessment of learners’ progress at the end of term or half-year. For example, all teachers are continually making small-scale judgements about learners’ progress, achievements or the support they require when, over a number of lessons, they are reading or writing a lengthy text, planning and revising a design brief, or researching a historical figure in books or online. Such knowledge tends to be overlooked when only the final outcome, artefact or test is assessed, but it can make a vital contribution to periodic assessment.

What about what learners “ordinarily do” outside the classroom?