Learning Review Spring 2019

EDITION 10 SPRING 2019

ST GEORGE’S BRITISH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL | WWW.STGEORGE.SCHOOL.IT

The Learning Review

Challenge & Inspire • The Power of Pupil Voice • Reverberation Collaborative learning goes to Mars • WomenEd Italia And More

In This Issue

Challenge & Inspire.............................................................................4 Staff Coaching Programme.................................................................9 Countdown to Well-being: Making a Difference..............................10 Welcome to WomenEd Italia.............................................................12 Academic Book Club.........................................................................14 Collaborative learning goes to Mars.................................................16 The Power of Pupil Voice..................................................................18 Maths is like Spinach... .....................................................................20 Assessing the soft skills.....................................................................23 21st Century Digital Learning...........................................................26 A Beginners Guide to Twitter............................................................30 Reverberation: A Collaborative International Sound Sculpture Project...................................................................33 A day in the life of... The St George’s Bus Manager..........................36 ResearchED........................................................................................39

EDITION 10 CONTENT COORDINATOR | JOHN TALBOT PRODUCTION | BRETT KERSHAW

Welcome

The IB turned 50 this year, so the Vienna Global Conference had something of a birthday feel.

Lighting the candles as the plenary speaker was David Puttnam, director of Chariots of Fire et al. He pointed out that 1968, when the IB was founded, was also the year of MLK and RFK being assassinated, which got the celebrations off to an optimistic start.

Actually, he was a great speaker and quite inspiring. Not content with 10 Oscars and 10 Baftas, he also runs his own education company too. Check out Atticus Education. This particular link takes you to some film-making work he has done about the Arctic, which has a strong eco content: www.davidputtnam.com/arctic30 Siva Kumari, the Director General, referred in her annual speech to a recent McKinsey Report, which estimates that rather than the average student today having at least 7 jobs, they will now have at least 7 careers, which must push us as educators to teach adaptable skills such as creativity and critical thinking more than ever. She stressed, correctly I think, a comment made by the Head of PWC that workers now must never stop learning – doing so will be fatal for their careers. Perhaps that why she was delighted to announce that the IB is entering into partnership with ‘University of the People’ to offer free Master’;s degrees for interested teachers. Check it out – but note there are some costs hidden in there…

As always, thanks to all contributors to The Learning Review, and to John Talbot for bringing it all together.

Adam Oliver Vice Principal and Head of Senior School

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Challenge Inspire During the past term we have used the carousel INSET sessions to identify areas of weakness in the curriculum and to collaborate in our planning across departments. Having representatives from most departments allows us to celebrate and share good practice, to appraise key areas of the curriculum with a discerning eye and to inspire each other with ideas for resources that encourage the growth of all students.

We have decided to enhance the Key Stage 3 Curriculum first and work from the bottom up towards the IB schemes of work. Some teachers are finding that they are able to take inspiration from challenging tasks in the IB (such as the Internal Assessments) and transpose them into a form that is digestible for younger students. This will help us prepare pupils for the student-led, independent approach to the IB, especially with regard to assessments such as the Extended Essay and the Theory of Knowledge tasks.

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Bianca Battoraro, Teacher of Science:

Science is delivered as a holistic subject encompassing all three disciplines (Biology, Chemistry & Physics) at Key Stage 3 for Years 7 and 8. School-based decisions to modify the structure of Key Stage 3 for Year 9 in 2019 has seen the divergence of the subject into the three separate strands taught by subject specialists. This change aims to introduce pupils to the demands of managing individual Science subjects; a reality which becomes apparent within iGCSE studies as well as within the IB when many students may opt to take on multiple sciences at either a Standard or Higher level of study.

Within the IB Science subjects schools are permitted to internally assess once. The piece is a purposeful research question which leads to the creation of a self-directed and conducted scientific investigation (20% of the pupil’s grade). The assessment will be rigorous and it will need to meet the highest standards dictated by the IB, however it does allow for teacher intervention.

As a consequence, for Science, we have developed scaled back assessments in Years 7 to 9 that mirror the expectations of the IB. The level of scaffolding and independence required by the tasks varies throughout the year levels and ultimately aims to instill in pupils the confidence and skills to tackle a self-directed IB standard investigation. With the support of Ella Fox Johnson and the C&I programme, further extension tasks allowing for self-direction investigations are being created to allow all pupils to challenge themselves and in particular for the Significantly Able students to further challenge themselves.

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Challenge & Inspire

(Above) Key Stage 3 Challenge tasks based on IB Internal Assessments (created by Bianca Battoraro).

Other departments have taken the time to use Firefly and enhance tasks that were already in place in order to embed challenges even further and hone the skills of the pupils:

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Since the Carousel session, I have created a new Firefly page for each project run with Key Stage 3 groups. I have created a new page called “Extension and Challenge” under the main page for each project. Each page has 2-3 optional tasks that are open ended and designed to extend the learning and skills taught in class.

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I chose the tasks set to give a range of options that play to individuals’ interests. For example, instead of more sketching tasks that draw upon what is completed in class, options for 3D modelling the same objects are given.

Emma Harvey, Head of Design & Technology Design and Technology Firefly (left).

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Challenge & Inspire

Resilience Tasks: The Newspaper Challenge One of the most beneficial aspects of the sessions is that this has enhanced our understanding of the need to continue to embed challenges into our in-class curriculum, not only the extra-curricular provisions. This was evident in the most recent session, when the teachers were given a paired challenge. Participants were asked to cut into a single sheet of newspaper so that it created a hole that was large enough to walk through, without breaking the border of the paper. This seemed perplexing at first but the teachers persevered, showing resilience and conceptual thinking.

Helen Wilford (below) tackles the Newspaper Challenge, December 2018.

Katie Horn and Katie-Rose Somerville (above) succeed at the newspaper challenge in a Challenge and Inspire carousel meeting, December 2018.

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Challenge & Inspire

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Katie-Rose Somerville, English Teacher

This was a very positive experience. It enabled us to think about learning with a cross-curricular approach and with specific children in mind. It has encouraged me to consider other strategies to engage pupils and enable them to move from broader concepts to specific areas when analysing texts.

I have embedded the idea of ‘Big Questions’ into lessons and encouraged pupils to look at topical issues from different perspectives. I have also given pupils research homework to enable them to become experts and share their knowledge with others. This has definitely motivated them to find out new interesting facts and allowed them to present this publicly in class.

With Years 7 and 8, I have used an approach called ‘Philosophy 4 Children’ and presented scenarios to encourage students to empathise with a range of people and circumstances.

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Year 7 explored the concept of corporal punishment, whilst studying Roald Dahl’s ‘Boy’ and they were given the task of researching the topics and arguments before taking part in a group discussion. After sharing practice with the Drama department, I decided to structure this in a Socratic circle format, allowing pupils to develop their observation skills alongside their oracy skills.

Over the course of the year, we will continue to consider how we are building skills like resilience and risk-taking (foundation skills of the IB) into the entire curriculum and how particular group activities and individual reflection tasks can help pupils to use metacognition to recognise their own strengths and weaknesses. Rather than pupils losing confidence from this, we will aim to help them to build on their weaknesses, to recognise which skills they might need to build upon, whilst also, of course, reinforcing their strengths and positive assets.

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Ronnie Ebanks, Head of Mathematics

“It offered the opportunity to think in a manner unusual to the classroom; that is the use of logic for a logic problem, as well as challenging conceptual boundaries - how can I change the limits of a small object to make it into a larger object? These types of activities challenge pupils to be more creative in problem solving, to be risk takers (as no progress is made without trying something), and to be highly reflective (as each attempt must be reviewed and built upon in order to reach the correct solutions).

The excellent aspect of these activities is that, whilst directly benefitting Significantly Able pupils, they are open enough, and practical enough that they can be given to the whole class to consider and it will benefit them in the same ways as it does the Significantly Able students. So what is the take-away here?

Open, off curriculum, practical, logical activities can benefit all learners and have a special impact on those most capable of completing them as they learn to think as if “there were no box.”

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Challenge & Inspire

Academic partnerships Another area that has shown promise is the pairing of pupils who have like-minded interests. Similar to the mentoring scheme in Year 7, which is already in place, we have piloted a pairing of Year 7 students and IB students with similar interests to allow them to share their ideas about the subjects they love and develop skills in communication.

Leo Taalas in Year 12 and Nicholas Dunn in Year 7 were paired because of their love of computing.

Their reflections on their experience allow us in insight into how the academic partnership is flourishing.

Nicholas Dunn, Year 7: In my mentoring sessions with Leo, we have been discussing an array of topics such as Real world issues, the Innovative Process and topics on the global stage and we often go off on many tangents in our discussions… Elon Musk, for example!

The main skills that we have been working on are communication skills and how to cope with making errors. The partnership has improved my skills in organisation and my life skills. If I were to spend more time with Leo, I think that we could go into more ‘in depth’ conversations about the topics that we discuss.

Nicholas Dunn and Leo Taalas

I think that both of us have gotten to know each other quite well and we have both taken in the other person as a friend, and from this I have benefited greatly. I think that many people in my year group would benefit from this opportunity since they could speak to their mentor and ask them for a specific discussion on subjects in which they are passionate or curious.

Leo Taalas, Year 12: During our meetings, Nicholas and I often discuss current events in order to increase our global awareness. Moreover, often our weekly sessions include fruitful conversation over highly debated topics such as climate change.

However, each session is not always serious and our conversations about Tesla are common. This new partnership has taught me organisation and planning skills and I have improved my communication skills as each session revolves around one on one discussions. I also improved my speaking skills and my articulation as we often were involved in very compelling conversation.

Spending more time each week with my partner would benefit both parties involved in the mentoring scheme. Improved connection and

friendship are just a few examples of benefits that occur. This experience in my opinion has been very valuable as it has provided me with a forum to learn better communication skills and has made me a better listener.

Other pupils in my year group might thoroughly benefit from this programme, as it provides a great opportunity in terms of helping others and is a very helpful CAS experience. Moreover, it enables the participants to learn essential life skills when it comes to interacting with likeminded people.

Article by Ella Fox Johnson, Challenge & Inspire Coordinator, Key Stage Coordinator in English.

Special thanks to Ronnie Ebanks, Katie-Rose Somerville, Bianca Battoraro and Emma Harvey for their detailed reflections and contributions. Also to Leo Taalas and Nicholas Dunn for taking time to share their experiences.

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Staff Coaching Programme St George’s are the first British international school in Italy to introduce a staff Coaching Programme alongside leading educational coaching specialists, Graydin. Coaching is defined as “unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance” and is already used in up to 40% of Fortune 500 companies.

St George’s hopes to be one of the first international schools to use Coaching to help both staff and pupils in an ever-changing professional environment.

Graydin specialises in delivering momentum building and sustainable coaching services and programmes to leading educational institutions in a number of countries around the world. A fantastic 18 staff members completed the first foundation course back in September 2018, with a further 12 staff completing the advanced course in January 2019. These staff are helping to determine bespoke areas to utilise Coaching techniques with pupils this year including through our mentoring and SEN support programmes, universities support and guidance, tutorial and pastoral systems and wellbeing and extra-curricular programmes.

We are excited to offer this opportunity as a unique point of difference to our continued professional development programme for staff, and as an extra toolkit for pupils. At the end of 2019, four members of staff will be trained to deliver the programme in-house, enabling St George’s to become a Coaching School to train staff and pupils in Coaching techniques for the future.

Article by Laura Megaw, Assistant Headteacher and Head of Sixth Form

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Countdown to Well-being: Making a Difference

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One of the greatest gifts we can give children and young people is the ability to manage their own emotions and mental health.

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Ayres and Vivyan 2018

At St George’s one of the purposes of the Key Stage 3 Well-being programme is to support the pupils in building a toolkit of techniques that they can use to promote their social and emotional health.

The ability for all of us - whether students, teachers or parents - to develop the skills to look after and manage our own mental health has become increasingly important in the world today. In the UK and across the globe, mental health problems amongst young people are increasing, as they are faced with the challenges of building their own identity and finding meaning and connection in their life journey ahead.

In the UK the government announced in July 2018 that, by 2020, compulsory lessons would be introduced for children as young as four, to help them recognise and act on anxiety and depression. This highlights some of the concern today about young people’s emotional futures.

Many employers value evidence of social and emotional intelligence in their employees, giving this factor equal importance, and in some cases, more importance, than academic qualifications.

In a marketplace where everyone is asked to exercise flexibility, manage uncertainty and be able to bounce back whatever challenges they face, the art of handling your emotions and impulsivity is essential.

Last year Giulia Schembri, the School Counsellor, worked with the Well-being team to promote and teach The Decider Life Skills, teaching twelve skills to all of Year 9. These skills help pupils to manage their emotional health and keep in balance and energised.

The Decider Life Skills are twelve useful, ‘common sense’, down to earth and practical skills that support learning how to manage emotions and control impulsivity and reactive responses to tense situations and challenges. Michelle Ayres and Carol Vivyan, who developed The Decider Life Skills programme, say that these skills have been found to be useful to everyone.

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Countdown to Well-being: Making a Difference

These skills are based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy techniques. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) states that thoughts, feelings and behaviours are all linked. Thoughts lead to feelings, which lead to certain behaviours, which can be helpful or unhelpful. Acting when we feel emotional can often have devastating results in certain situations. In CBT people are encouraged and supported to take responsibility for their own actions and link actions to consequences. These Life Decider Skills are informed by both CBT approaches and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy approaches (DBT).

One Skill to learn that is central to the bank of 12 skills is ‘The Fizz’. The concept of ‘The Fizz’ is that if we can recognise when we are ‘feeling the Fizz’ (when emotion is running high) we can choose what to do rather than act compulsively without thinking. The positive results of that chosen action will secure a better outcome. If we act impulsively when we feel ‘The Fizz’ the result will usually be unhelpful. Our actions affect not just us, but our family, friends, our school community, those around us and our world. They also affect how we relate to ourselves.

A team of our Year 10 pupils, having undergone further training with Giulia, are now teaching those skills to pupils in Year 5 in the La Storta Junior School and giving presentations to both Junior School and Senior School parents. These pupils are making a difference to others and some parents have commented that they need the pupils to train them!

Everyone has the ability to make a positive difference to themselves and others.

For more information about The Decider Life Skills visit www.thedecider.org.uk

“The decider life skills are very necessary to educate about mental health and help people of all ages deal with negative emotions, which is something the world needs.”

- Leila Mu’ammar “I honestly think that the Life Decider Skills should be taught in every school to every student simply because they’re so helpful and applicable to anyone. I use them pretty much every day when the stress gets to me or I need to focus. Spreading a positive message to the year fives has been an amazing experience and I hope to spread it even more.”

- Nico Arroyo

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Article by Claire Angeletti, Head of Drama and Well-being Thank you to Giulia Schembri and to Nicholas Hall, Nico Arroyo, Elly Campo, Caterina Casini, Rosa Enginoli, Leila Mu’ammar, Lucio Haoyu and Sofia Garzelli.

Welcome to

WomenEd Italia In late October, St George’s hosted the launch event of the WomenEd Italia network. We are very excited to bring the network to Italy following its enormous success in the UK and beyond and were very grateful to have the opportunity to share our ethos and ideas with such supportive colleagues in Rome. The interest and input of all who attended gave us the best possible start to our Italian journey. As ever, the essential ingredients of tea, cake and enthusiasm led to some wonderful conversations and thoughts for the future.

What is WomenEd? WomenEd is a network focussed on connecting existing and aspiring women leaders. This is achieved by providing free, volunteer-based peer support, guidance and advice to women in education who are considering their current role in the profession or their future career path, wherever that will take them. It also aims to build an understanding of the challenges that can be faced by women in their careers in education, so that they can collaborate with their workplaces and colleagues of any gender to find mutually beneficial solutions to these issues.

The WomenEd key aims are centered around eight strands:

What do WomenEd networks do?

WomenEd provides platforms and opportunities to share our stories, practice, successes, challenges, barriers and solutions in a supportive, collaborative network. These take place online, via social media, blogs and newsletters, regional LeadMeets and conferences, coaching partnerships, the annual WomenEd Unconference and more. Since starting as a grassroots organisation in England in 2014, the network has grown and achieved many key milestones. These include international networks in the USA, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Scotland, Wales and Czechia; over 60 regional leaders and champions; events attended by over 5000 people; nearly 22,000 followers on Twitter; a book being published in Spring 2019 and inputs at many education events and conferences.

Successful collaborations take place with other organisations and networks on a national scale and this is beginning to be replicated in the international networks. WomenEd is regularly asked to join Department for Education exploratory panels in England to discuss views in areas such as flexible working and the national Women into Leadership in Education initiative, for example. Its work was highlighted as excellent practice in the area of women leaders in the DfE 2016 Education White Paper.

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WomenEd also has strong representation and partnership with the Chartered College of Teaching, including one of the founders recently being voted as its Vice President.

How will WomenEd Italia develop?

WomenEd Italia is the latest international regional network to be established. Our aim is to create a flourishing network for teachers and leaders in Italy. The network will seek to provide online communication and information, access to free coaching, mentoring and international WomenEd events, alongside Italy-based LeadMeets, ‘pop ups’ and other network events as we grow. We recognise that the network will initially be more accessible to English-speaking colleagues in international schools, but are absolutely committed to using our partnerships and connections to develop as bilingual and highly inclusive of our Italian peers and schools. We know that there is an enormous amount to learn and share together and look forward to watching the network grow through those who engage with it.

At the launch event, we learned more about the ethos of WomenEd and shared some personal journeys through varied career paths. Alongside the contributions of those attending, it became clear that our profession is a very individual experience that allows us to grow and support others in many different ways. For some, leadership is a move through traditionally recognised roles, for others stepping back from them gives the freedom to be happier, more creative and energised professionals. For others still, leadership becomes a way of ‘giving back’ to the system, or the ways in which they lead through their craft as teachers who inspire and motivate their peers.

Discussions led to some vital feedback that will begin to shape some key areas that WomenEd Italia will seek to pursue. These were to: • • • •

explore and support how to be ‘10% braver’ both as individuals and as organisations, so that we might do things differently and think outside the ‘norms’ we operate within embrace every type of leadership, in classrooms and beyond, so that we can exchange the stories and practice that will inspire and open up thinking enable each other to do things ‘our way’, in our career paths and choices empower women of all ages to have a voice, regardless of where they are in their education or career and where that has led them

How can you get involved?

We look forward to growing the regional team and network with all interested parties who support our aims and feel that they can both benefit and contribute from what we are aiming to achieve. We also hope to establish a blog for the network and will be keen to capture many voices and thoughts by those means, so please follow the WomenEd mantra of being ‘10% braver’ and be ready to share and learn!

The Regional Leaders for WomenEd Italia are Rosanna Raimato and the St George’s based Freya Odell and Anna Masterson. Please get in touch with any of us to discuss WomenEd and connect with us and the wider network online and on social media: @WomenEdItalia

@RRaimato

@fod3

@masterson_anna

Email: womeneditaly@gmail.com For more about WomenEd: Twitter: @WomenEd #WomenEd Blog: womenedblog.wordpress.com Website: womened.org E-mail: womenedleaders@gmail.com facebook.com/womened Article by Rosanna Raimato with Freya Odell

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Academic Book Club This year our Academic Book Club (ABC) has been running approximately once per half term as part of the carousel of Monday after-school meetings. The main aim of the club is to promote academic reading amongst staff, be it articles, journals or educational books, and provide a forum where evidence–based practices can be discussed and analysed. It has been really pleasing to see both junior and senior school colleagues attending these meetings and actively contributing to the sharing of ideas and practices.

I have been particularly inspired by a recent book by Craig Barton, ‘How I wish I’d taught maths’, and I thoroughly recommend it to all of you, whether you teach maths or not.

Craig is the TES Maths Adviser; he also created of the popular websites mrbartonmaths.com and diagnosticquestions.com, and is the host of the Mr Barton Maths Podcast. He writes compellingly about how his own extended academic reading has prompted radical changes in his own practice – which had been considered very good until then, not only by himself, but also by external validators such as Ofsted inspectors. After I started reading this book I, too, have made changes to my own practice here at school – not sure if this will lead me to writing my own book though…

What you find below is the summary of the chapter on motivation I shared at ABC, together with suggestions for teachers which I hope you’ll find useful.

Motivation and decision-making Maths is perceived by many secondary school students (and many adults) as a difficult, boring subject – a 2016 UK survey found that 48% of Year 9 pupils said they did not like maths (compared to only 17% of Year 5 pupils).

This can lead teachers to misguided attempts to extrinsically motivate students – sweets, rewards, etc. Yet intrinsic motivation leads to increased time on task, persistence in the face of failure, greater creativity and risk-taking.

Three determinants of motivation have been identified: autonomy, purpose and mastery. Autonomy and a student’s perception of self-determination are hindered by external rewards and setting of deadlines. The amount of effort student invest in an activity is affected by their expectation of being able to successfully complete it and the value they place in on the rewards associated with the completion of the task (purpose). And students’ willingness to persist when tackling challenging tasks is associated with a mastery approach, rather than a performance approach.

Self-efficacy (the belief in one’s ability to succeed in a specific situation) is considered to be the key to motivation.

However, when given the choice over which task/activity to tackle, often students make less than optimal choices: they may struggle to consider their own learning needs in relation to the demands of the task, they may choose what they are already good at, or they may simply just struggle to make a choice. How can teachers foster motivation yet guide students towards better-informed decision-making?

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Academic Book Club

Suggestions for teachers: • •

carefully design a sequence of example and practice questions (differentiation by time rather than by task) use low-stake quizzes to inform students of their current level of understanding before allowing them to choose from a limited list of options.

Teacher Influence A teacher can have a great influence on their students’ feelings and motivation about maths, both positive and negative (incl. long-lasting damage).

Suggestions for teachers: • • •

Avoid pointless, confusing and dangerous ‘real-life’ contexts.

Carefully consider the use of videos as they are potentially distracting. Students may perceive them as less difficult and decide to invest less effort in the task: ‘students remember what they think about’ (Willingham 2003).

Ensure the classroom is a space where students can make mistakes without being criticised or humiliated.

Rewards and Sanctions Praise should be sincere, immediate and unexpected. Praise and rewards have to be earned to be meaningful.

Sanctions can be more effective than rewards or praise (‘loss aversion’ theory) and lead to short-term gains – however, both rewards and sanctions can have a negative effect on motivation.

Suggestions for teachers: • •

Focus praise on the product of the process, rather than on effort alone, or on ability: ‘this is a brilliant solution’ rather than ‘you tried really hard’ Be careful when using external rewards and sanctions

Achievement and Motivation Whilst you may think that motivation in maths leads to achievement, and it may well be the case that they reinforce each other in a virtuous circle of motivation – achievement – motivation – achievement and so on, evidence suggests that it is achievement which predicts intrinsic motivation: ‘skill’ leads to ‘will’. As students develop increasing competence, their knowledge and skills enable them to successfully tackle more complex tasks, which become more enjoyable (intrinsic motivation).

Suggestions for teachers: • • •

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Plan for achievement, not for motivation Teach explicitly (direct instruction) to maximise students’ chances of success Plan activities which give students early success yet provide sufficient challenge to keep them thinking hard

Article by Marco Gemelli, Assistant Head

Collaborative learning goes to Mars How do you get 70 17 year-olds to work together on an interdisciplinary science education project that will teach them team-working skills, perseverance, and self-reflection all in ten hours? Welcome to the IBDP Group 4 Project – a compulsory component of every IBDP student’s path to their IB diploma and an interesting puzzle for their teachers!

After a few years of arranging lab time for investigations and venues for subsequent science fairs, it was time for a change. The carrot of grades for the project counting towards final diploma scores had been removed, pupils were now engaged with in-depth science projects as part of their normal science courses and the old model just did not fit. Inspiration was needed, and it arrived in the form of the book, and then the film….”The Martian”.

Andy Weir’s self-published (via instalments on his website) first novel, “The Martian” tells the gripping tale of survival and resourcefulness in the most inhospitable of environments – the surface of Mars. The subsequent film brought this wonderful science fiction (almost fact) story of human ingenuity in the face of incredible odds to worldwide attention. The tension between Ground Control with its vast resources and experts, and the lone Martian with only his wits pitted against the arid, airless and freezing Mars was just the hook we needed!

Our teachers and students worked on the idea of emulating the response of the Martian and the NASA 16

Collaborative learning goes to Mars

teams to the host of problems they encounter in the attempt to “bring him home”! Imaginative scenarios were dreamt up and then wrestled with in an editing and rationalising period. Eventually we hatched a planned sequence of problems to be solved by our own mini NASA teams with their own Martian to rescue.

Next, resource-making, a date, a venue, and we were ready for launch.

Are you receiving me?

Help my hydrazine thermostat is broken

First up is the communication problem – the Martian is about 200 million kilometres away, thought to be dead, with no direct means of alerting the world to his survival of the accident. We translated his ingenious use of an old Mars lander into a “communication via flashlight” problem for our teams. After the initial briefings, the student teams set about devising they own morse codes in order to transmit the secret message between our school buildings and inform Mission Control of the Martian’s survival! Who will successfully transmit the message?

Next the hydrazine thermostat problem.

Communication is very slow – letter by letter. The Martian must communicate the problem. Ground Control must transmit the solution. How to describe with minimal text the construction of a complex component of the Martian’s water-creating system?

The student teams split, each half receiving the “component” to be described in minimal text.

Messages are exchanged via runners between labs, and the team must now reconstruct from scratch the described component! The teams rejoin for the exchange of constructions: whose will match the original?

Store Energy for the Martian

Bring him home The final problem set concerns the 20 day trip across Mars to the rescue point: the teams must split to “solve” 3 problems – plan the route, plan the nutrition needed, and plan the psychological support. Maps, satellite photos, craters, space food information sheets and transcripts of the broken conversations between Mission Control and the Martian are provided. There are craterobstacles to avoid, fuel to conserve, diet to stick to. The psychologists get involved when the communications start revealing the disturbing traits in the Martian’s thinking after the months of isolation….

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Now we move on to serious engineering – and energy storage: the teams need to devise a way to store energy from the solar cells for use in the Martian night. They are provided with construction resources (paper, tape, plastic bowls, water source) to make gravity stores (water up high). A competitive edge is brought in with measurements to judge the maximum energy storage capability of the teams water towers, and the inevitable hilarious moments when towers collapse…

The de-brief Well it was a fun, high-energy day. The sense of urgency, time constraints and wandering NASA assessors (white coats and clipboards) force students to stay switched very much on. They work the problems, do the math, science it out all day long! And for students who are largely engaged with solo missions to gain their own IB diplomas, a compulsory project in which your success relies on your team is a refreshing break into the ways of working with others that may well form the majority of their working lives.

Article by David Clapp, Head of Science

The Power of Pupil Voice Using the School Council to develop pupil voice at La Storta Junior School

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s teachers, our mission to support and develop our pupils’ learning, is multifaceted. Not only must we ensure their knowledge and skills acquisition, but we also need to keep in mind the various other ways that we can guide them towards developing as individuals. Creating a culture where all pupils feel listened to, valued, respected and empowered is key to achieving this. Through giving our pupils a voice, we can nurture their understanding of themselves as people and, for our younger pupils in the Junior School, develop an awareness of the values we live by.

The School Council provides an opportunity for our pupils to use their collective voice at school with a purpose. Held on a weekly basis, the members passionately discuss issues and ideas raised by their class peers via a Suggestion Box in each of the Year groups. We have extended our School Council to Year 1 and Year 2 pupils this year, so that the voice of our youngest pupils can also be heard, following the keen lobbying expressed in a Year 1 pupil’s letter to me below.

Our School Council is comprised of the Year 6 House Captains and two Class Representatives from each of the other Year groups, so with the addition of Years 1 and 2, it is a substantial forum of 18; not quite a UN Agency in itself, but definitely similar in style when it comes to debating issues! The competition for becoming a Class Representative is fierce and pupils feel deeply disappointed if they are not elected. Dealing with this disappointment is in itself a learning experience and contributes to building resilience and the development of emotional intelligence. It can also lead to some very purposeful writing to express these feelings, as shown below:

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Dear Ms Moore,

I have some suggestions about how people get chosen to be the school representative of their class. My suggestions are, (which will make the voting fair and mean the right person gets the job): the voting is done on the basis of who would be a good school counsellor not who is most popular. The voting could be done on a piece of paper, with points that the voter can rate the speaker out of 10. For example, ‘good at listening to other people’, ‘thinks about the needs of the school’, ‘will represent the class well’. The scores for each speaker get added up at the end and the person with the highest score becomes the class representative. Another way could be if everyone has to choose a girl and a boy so it doesn’t matter if there are more boys (or girls) in a class, it will still be fair.

I hope my suggestions are useful to you, thank you for your time.

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The Power of Pupil Voice

School Council also demonstrates the power that pupil voice can have in making things happen. Last year our School Council worked hard to encourage everyone to use the rubbish bins for their litter, having been particularly aghast at the litter of serviettes and wrappers outside the lunch room, following lunch.

Their posters are still visible on some of the rubbish bins this year, although the present School Council is keen to take up the gauntlet on this issue too, and will replenish any posters that have gone missing.

A particularly delightful suggestion to introduce a Pyjama Day at the end of the Spring term to raise funds for ZOA, was perhaps the most significant and lasting impact of our previous School Council, since it is already on the calendar for this year too!

Active, thoughtful and above all collaborative in their actions, our School Council are a real pleasure to listen to and work with. To date this year, they have carried out surveys to find out what kinds of play equipment would be most popular at playtimes and, having drawn up a list and discussed the various merits and feasibility of each item, they have prepared an order for us to send off in time for the Spring term play times.

Once again they will work on some fund-raising for ZOA, on this occasion, through holding secondhand Toy Sales during their playtimes.

Whilst the regular School Council meetings are run by two members of staff, the support provided by all the Class teachers, cannot be underestimated.

Their willingness to offer class time for feedback and discussion and their positive encouragement for the ideas and activities generated, are essential to the success of this particular pupil voice initiative, and very much appreciated.

Article by Christine Williams, Head of La Storta Junior School

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Maths is like Spinach...

Some might say that: Maths is like spinach… …you love it or hate it, depending on how it was served up to you at school!

And if that is what determines the love hate relationship, then we want it served up with lashings of fun, care and purpose. LSJS has put a great effort this term into understanding ourselves - as Maths teachers and our pupils - as Maths learners. We have identified best practice and we are now building into our general approach and overall skill set the following four strands: A Mastery approach – developing a deep understanding of concepts and being able to relate these concepts to wider maths and the wider world where possible, as opposed to racing through curriculum objectives.

Use of Language – building on the while school literacy focus we are expectating pupils to speak in full sentences about their Maths while using key vocabulary appropriately. We are also incorporating specific vocabulary we would not have introduced before – do you what an ‘addend’ is? The Year 3’s do!

Concrete to Pictorial to Abstract - See below Bar Modelling – See the following pages

Concrete to Pictorial to Abstract CONCRETE

PICTORIAL

ABSTRACT

Learners manipulate hands on, concrete materials.

Learners draw diagrams and visual representations.

Use of mathematical symbols and numbers.

‘BUILDING/DOING THE MATHS PROBLEM’

‘DRAWING THE MATHS PROBLEM’

‘WRITING THE MATHS PROBLEM’

When a new concept is introduced, learners will engage with a variety of learning tools, which they will use to carry out the process of the concept in question. The time spent on this depends on the children’s understanding; some may progress to representing their understanding pictorially whilst others will continue to construct the maths using concrete learning tools. Eventually, once the children have achieved a deep conceptual understanding, they will be able to complete abstract number problems involving mathematical symbols and numbers.

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Maths is like Spinach...

Example using addition as our focus. 14 + 7 = ?

Concrete

Pictorial Step 1

Building the numbers.

Step 2 Partitioning before we begin to add.

Step 3 Adding the ones. Can you spot the problem? There are 11 ones and we can only have a maximum of 9.

Therefore, we must regroup 10 ones for 1 ten.

Step 4 What does 7 + 4 equal? We now have 1 ten and 1 one.

Step 5 Adding the remaining ten.

We know that 14 + 7 = 21.

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Step 1: Drawing the numbers.

Step 2: Adding the ones.

Step 3: Regrouping 10 ones into 1 ten.

Step 4: Adding remaining tens.

Step 5: We know that 14 + 7 = 21.

Abstract

Maths is like Spinach...

Bar Modelling The Bar Method is a graphical representation of numbers where we can see number facts based on the ‘whole’ as being made up of smaller parts.

In this example, we can determine the four ‘Fact Family’ members: 14 + 6 = 20 20 – 6 = 14

6 + 14 = 20 20 – 14 = 6

The bar helps us to visualise these number facts, being especially relevant in the context of word problems.

Feeling ready for a challenge?

Use a bar method to help solve this problem: Mr Hales has £1240 and Mr Oliver has £4730.

Mr Oliver gives some money to Mr Hales.

In the end, Mr Hales has twice as much money as Mr Oliver. a. b.

How much money does Mr Oliver have in the end?

How much money does Mr Oliver give to Mr Hales?

(Hint: the total amount of money does not change.)

A similar method applies to multiplication and division problems:

Ben has 6 ice creams, Jerry has three times as many ice creams as Ben. How many ice creams does Jerry have ?

How many Ice creams do Ben and Jerry have altogether ?

It is possible, and often helpful, for these bars to be used in helping to solve quite complex problems.

We do stress though, that the bar does not solve the calculation, but is a tool for assisting to find and check the answer.

Mastery. Language. CPA. Bar Modelling.

Love Maths.

Article Joe Masterson, Deputy Head of La Storta Junior School and Andrew Johnson, Year 3 Class Teacher

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Assessing the

Key stats for St George’s British International School year ending 2018: • ‘Confidence’ among Year 10s rose 4% compared to that same cohort last year when they were in Year 9. Well done to all staff involved.

• The value added for ‘Resilience’ was up 14 points on the international bell curve - measuring the period from the end of Key Stage 1 to the end of Key Stage 2. This is a fantastic achievement - Junior Schools should be very proud.

• Unfortunately, ‘Resolving Personal Conflict’ dipped below last year’s alltime low. The exception to this is the City Centre campus where figures remain steady.

• ‘Collaboration’ in the Senior School continues to improve with more pupils demonstrating positive collaboration than the UK national average.

Figures remain consistent across the rest of the school.

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Assessing the soft skills

Summary of Key Stats year ending 2018 Actually, all of the above is complete nonsense. I thought it would be fun to make the above read like actual statistics; the ones we are used to reading for academic results summaries. Nonacademic skills or ‘soft skills’ are important. In fact, they may be a better predictor of success in life than academic results1 . This short piece aims to draw your attention to ‘soft skills’, how you can value them and how we can assess them. You only really value them, if you assess them.

Firstly, what are ‘soft skills’? Google Dictionary says they are ‘personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people’. However, there is no consensus on what all of these skills are, and some of them may be better defined as values or attributes. Check any school website and you will find various soft skills looking back at you from the text. In fact, Wiliam, Didau, Clarke and a few other prominent educational figures could not easily agree if there is even such a thing as a ‘skill’ as opposed to ‘procedural knowledge’2. For now however, let us just say - there are skills, there are ‘soft skills’, they are important, and that there are lots of them.

How do you measure soft skills? You cannot. At least, you cannot measure in the same way as you can for academic subjects. Measuring attainment in academic subjects is in itself fraught with limitations and unreliability so there is faint hope you can grade ‘soft skills’ and be taken seriously.

You do however assess soft skills on a daily basis without being particularly cognisant of it.

Remember, assessment is not the recording of test results but rather the investigation of how well something has been remembered, understood, or applied. Of course, it is easier to understand the outcome of the investigation if you have measurable figures, but one is not concomitant with the other. Indeed, we observe soft skills such as empathy, confidence or optimism in action almost every day. This observation, followed by our thought processes or any follow up action is an assessment of those soft skills. Perhaps, this individual and partly invisible assessment is not enough. At least, it is not enough for you to say you really value these soft skills. To say that, you may need to do a little more.

I am not suggesting we should try to measure the progress of these skills or begin to report on them like the fictional statistics posted at the top of this article. Instead, I am merely suggesting you ask yourself the questions below to promote the existence of these skills in your highly developed teacher toolkit. They will make their way from mere existence into a greater and richer assessment toolkit.

How many soft skills can I think of?

Which skills can I link to which of my pupils in a positive way?

Which skills can I link to which of my pupils in a negative way?

What have I done this term to improve any of these skills with any of my pupils?

What I have done, to achieve this, today?

During my last PTE, how well did I balance discussing a child’s soft skills development with their academic grades?

How much time have I spent talking to my team about pupils’ soft skills? (pupils as individuals, as a collective) How much time have I spent talking to my line manager about my pupils’ soft skills?

Do I disproportionately wrap soft skills in discussions regarding poor behaviour, rather than pupils’ personal development?

How do these skills link to mental and emotional well being for my pupils?

Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w18121.pdf, accessed 4th December 2018 Twitter exchange, see Didau, Wiliam, Clarke, Sealy exchange 6th December 2018

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Assessing the soft skills

To help you answer, and more crucially, think about the questions above, here is a proposed list of soft skills: Interpersonal Soft Skills/Social Skills

Character Development • Volunteerism • Work ethic • Personal resolve over peer pressure • Morals (right from wrong) • Caring for others • Self discipline • Coping emotionally/self regulation • Taking pride in work • Being responsible • Being resilient • Honesty

• • • • • • • • • •

Collaboration Mannerisms Developing Relationships Communications Skills Handling Criticism Being assertive but not aggressive Problem Solving/Critical Thinking Taking direction/listening to instructions Accepting different opinions Managing Personal Conflict

Functioning Life skills • • • •

Being organised Punctuality Public speaking Presentation Skills

If you are school leader, you can ask yourself these questions: How much time do I spend discussing pupils’ soft skills?

How many times has it appeared on the team meeting agenda?

Have we a strategic approach to reporting soft skill development and achievement, in line with reports on academic development and achievement?

How much do we report examples or summaries of soft skill achievement in our communications to staff and the outside community?

Is our narrative on soft skills, in terms of VMV and other marketing literature, rhetoric or real?

This article is not intended to demand your immediate attention regarding pupils’ development of ‘handling criticism’, ‘being collaborative’ or ‘having good manners’. Rather, it is much softer.

It’s intention is to spur you gently into realising (or remembering) that these skills are important and that by assessing them more, you are valuing them more - even we can’t easily measure or quantify. If you value them more, there is an opportunity to ask more questions which may ultimately lead to a positive impact on our pupils.

Article by Joe Masterson

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21st Century Digital Learning When I received an email last year from the JDO Foundation offering me a scholarship to attend the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Conference in Chicago at the end of the Summer Term, I thought Christmas had come early. And it had.

The conference was far more than an IT Exhibition Hall; it provided up to date technological training from all the key IT players in education: Google Education, Microsoft, Apple and may more. The conference ran from Saturday to Wednesday and there were up to 50 talks, lectures and sessions to choose from daily. Having dipped in and out of Google Education last year, I chose to make it all more manageable and focus on their workshops and events, as well as attending TED talks and keynote speakers. Here’s a flavour of what I experienced that week with a few key messages to share with you all.

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KEYNOTE SPEAKERS AND THEIR MESSAGES Online Platforms are powerful Richard Culatta (CEO of ISTE) introduced the overriding theme about how technology can be used for good when we use it well.

How can we compel students to community action rather than pointless webtime?

Jenny Mageira interviewed three secondary school students on how they initiated student action through digital platforms. The students were inspirational and if we can instill their beliefs into those we teach, the world will be a better place. Their key messages from the students were: 1. There’s more to life than enjoying it; recognise what’s not OK and take action.

2. Children need to recognise that they can create change.

3. Use technology to find opportunities to accomplish your dreams.

Look up the students’ names if you want to know more: Ian Brock, Kiara Reed, Rose Rezac.

Brain Changes David Eagleman (neuroscientist, Stanford University) spoke powerfully about how the younger generation’s brains are wired and develop differently from ours.

1. This generation has a richer diet than previous generations. Most people get their news online. This has led to changes in the ways brains develop. As we know, the brain changes every time we learn and has its structure altered. Some pathways are increased through technology. Digital learners’ brains are developing differently from previous generations; their eyes move differently to scan texts (just like they read a webpage) This leads to previous generations having the mentality of “just in case”, whilst the current generation thinks “just in time”, which can be advantageous since their learning can lead to the relevant answer more quickly than previously. Therefore, educators need to meet their learners half way. Is Googling answers cheating? To avoid copy and paste answers, educators need to rephrase questions so that learners need to “dig deeper”. How do video games keep people focussed for so long? Because they are frustrating, but achievable. Our teaching needs to be the same. Jobs for the next generation will be in a creative economy because they will be required to do what computers can’t do. Here is a suggested teaching model: Bending (transform and twist ideas and thoughts) Breaking (Break and take apart ideas and thoughts) Blending (combine ideas) 2. Educators need to challenge the brain. How? a. Encourage children to get off the path of least resistance by trying and retrying problems to find several answers to them. b. Establish a culture of mistakes. Recognise the benefits of a wrong answer and build on it. Cultivate fearlessness and have a “high risk” tolerance. c. The environment matters. Build creative spaces and ensure emotional engagement.

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Technology helps all reach their full potential.

Nadia Lopez was the closing keynote speaker. She set up a school in Brooklyn and spoke powerfully about all students having great potential. Early exposure to technology develops the groundwork for higher learners.

The following was recommended: 1. Encourage exposure.

2. Provide early exposure to technology.

3. Challenge the status quo.

GOOGLE EDUCATION Is there such a thing as a Googleite? Well, if there is, I’m one of those! Unlike other major players, their resources are written by teachers and for teachers, and more significantly, are free! Last year, Year 5 at St George’s used the GSuite to set up Team Drives with the staff and children. This was beneficial to staff and children alike, who could share ideas and resources with each other, as well as with their JDO partners abroad. Within Google Education, there is so much more to explore: Google Classroom, Google Earth for Education, ways of adapting Google Docs and Slides to make delivery of lessons more accessible to students. This year, I will be familiarising myself with these resources by using them in class. Any of you interested in finding out more are more than welcome to join me.

Google also provides online training via their Teacher Centre: g.co/teachercenter Here are some useful links from the numerous talks I attended: URL Tips for Google Docs: https://learninginhand. Tips for using chromebooks and much more: com/blog/google-document-url-tricks https://sites.google.com/edutechserve.com/ welcome/training?authuser=0 Adapting Google Docs and Slides: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/ Technological articles: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/ Make your Google slides interactive: https://www.peardeck.com/ Discovery Education free resources: http://www.discover yeducation.co.uk/freeTips and Tricks for using Google Earth: resources https://sites.google.com/edtechteam.com/ben/ unpacking-the-new-google-earth

THE EXPO HALL The Expo Hall had over 200 stalls and we began to wish we had someone with the budget there with us!

Many of the stalls had workshops running too, which one could join, and the staff were extremely helpful in solving queries we had from sessions we’d previously attended and software we’d tried out.

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TO SUMMARISE… The overriding message from the conference was that this generation learns differently from us and, as educators, it is our responsibility to keep up with these physiological changes and adapt our teaching styles to the ways pupils now think and process information. Are we up for the challenge?

BOOKLISTS • • • •

Learner-Centered Innovation: Spark Curiosity, Ignite Passion and Unleash Genius by Katie Martin The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch The bridge to brilliance by Nadia Lopez Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Standing at the Precipice by Armand Doucet, Dr Nadia Lopez, Jelmer Evers, Koen Timmers, and Michael Soskil

WHAT ELSE? I was one of ten that had been offered the JDO scholarship ( https://www.jdofoundation.org/) from schools in the USA, Spain, Croatia and the UK (which included two UK Year 6 students who had never flown or travelled abroad before attending). Kathy Kida from CCJS joined me. Meeting up with other enthusiastic members of the project was a great experience; learning about how the education systems work in different parts of the world was fascinating. Did you know that Croatia has a two-shift system? Some children and teachers attend school in the mornings; others in the afternoons. Plus, every state school has a full time Educational Psychologist on their staff, who also acts as the Deputy Head and administrator - that’s one heavy workload! Of course, we also managed to fit in a bit of sightseeing in the evenings - the Willis Tower and a trip on Lake Michigan. As I said, Christmas came early thanks to JDO!

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By Rachel Johnson Year 5 Class Teacher

A Beginners Guide to

Twitter is an instrumental platform for improving practice within classrooms. This is for three main reasons: 1. Twitter enables you to connect with a variety of people in the education world. As a main-scale teacher, I have access to other English teachers, teachers in different subject areas, head-teachers, Ofsted inspectors, different schools etc. All of these people enrich my understanding of what is going on in education in England and across the world and challenge my thinking to help me constantly improve what I do.

2. Networks – the English network on Twitter is phenomenal. There is a regular chat on a Monday night to take an aspect of practice and discuss. There is now an annual English conference bringing together a wide range of English specialists. And, finally, there is the Litdrive – a shared platform for free resource sharing. All of these things work together to make teachers’ lives just that bit easier.

3. The opportunities that Twitter presents you with are endless. In making connections, many people have visited other schools, which is the best form of CPD. They have spoken at conferences, written for publications such as TES and the Guardian, have been citied in books and have even written books. The power of Twitter is that it is self-directed CPD.

How do I get on to Twitter?

1. Twitter.com 2. On the home page, click sign up. You will then be taken through a process to create a username and a profile.

3. Add followers. Many St George’s staff are already on Twitter: Paul Ryan

Marco Gemelli

Adam Oliver

John Talbot

David Brookes

Geraldine Farrell

Katie Horn

Freya Odell

Joe Masterton

Anna Masterton

4. To find subject specific people, type in ‘English teacher’ (or your subject, as appropriate) and recommended people to follow should appear.

5. Start tweeting and sharing what you do in the classroom!

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PEOPLE TO FOLLOW

A Beginners Guide to twitter

Dylan Wiliam @dylanwiliam

Becky Allen @profbeckyallen

Doug Lemov @Doug_Lemov

Daniel Willingham @DTWillingham

Daisy Christodoulou @daisychristo

Shirley Clarke @shirleyclarke_

Garry Jones @GarryAtFullSail

Professor Deborah Eyre @eyre_deborah

Craig Barton @mrbartonmaths

Alistair Bryce-Clegg @ABCDoes

Chartered College @CharteredColl

Robert Coe @ProfCoe

Mary Myatt @MaryMyatt

Alison Peacock @AlisonMPeacock

Tom Sherrington @teacherhead

Tom Bennett @tombennett71

Graham Brown-Martin @GrahamBM

Christine Counsell @Counsell_C

Clare Sealy @ClareSealy

Professor Alma Harris @AlmaHarris1

“Who are your heroes of education? Who inspires you? Who do you learn from?” These were the questions that were posed to about twenty school leaders on a leadership course not so many years ago. Our collective response? Tumbleweed. Silence. Eventually someone piped up, “I quite like Ken Robinson. I’ve just watched his TED about creativity.” Said TED was, at this point, several years old. Informed and up to date we were not. It would be fair to say that we were trying to lead a school whilst living in an educational vacuum.

Fast forward to today and life is very different. Thanks to an inspiring and social media savvy colleague, considering heroes of education, inspirational figures and those whom I learn from is a challenge of plenty rather than a search for a single name. Twitter has changed the professional learning paradigm for educators. However, who to follow? Here are some Georgian perspectives on their own top 10 Tweeters. @dylanwilliam – Keeping us up to date with current educational research @TeachWithMissD – Maths working walls to aspire to and text based Literacy planning ideas @ClareSealy – Primary Headteacher with a lot to say about deliberate instruction and memory. Her blogs on memory and teaching Maths really resonated. @MrBoothY6 – Lots of book recommendations and retweets of good practice @CharteredCollege – Interesting research. Raising the profile of our profession. @MaryMyatt – Lots to say on curriculum @Knoworganisers – An introduction to knowledge organisers @AlisonMPeacock – Head of Chartered College and always offers an interesting perspective on educational debates @TeacherGlitter – Glitter in your twitter handle is always worth a look! Lots of good practice idea and an advocate of whole class reading.

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Article by Freya Odell, Teacher of English & Anna Masterson, Year 6 Class Teacher

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Reverberation:

A Collaborative International Sound Sculpture Project In my early career, I worked extensively with the Cheshire Art Advisory team on numerous collaborative projects involving secondary and junior schools from across the county. This sort of mutually beneficial interaction is not always easy to replicate in the mildly cut-throat world of competing international schools.

However, over my years at St George’s I have coordinated a number of small scale, Romebased collaborative creative projects involving other schools from Italy, Malta, France and The Netherlands.

at St George’s might collaborate creatively with many of these interesting people for some time.

Following initial discussions with Adam Oliver and the Heads of Art & English at Wellington College (UK), I began to formulate an idea for a new international initiative entitled Reverberation.

Reverberation is a collaborative, international, sound sculpture based creative project. 12 International schools are already committed to the initiative. They are spread across China, Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Malta, Greece, Norway, Over the last few years my Switzerland and the UK. Our involvement as a Senior Examiner ZOA partners in Zambia and for the IBO and associated work Switzerland have also recently for them on Curriculum Design, joined the project. Additional has brought me into contact with schools in the UK, India and Italy an array of teachers, examiners have also expressed their strong and academics from around the interest. Several other centres are world. I have been considering in the pipeline. ways in which staff and pupils 33

Reverberation: A Collaborative International, Sound Sculpture Project

Key fields and elements currently being explored by participating schools include Visual Art, Dance, Music, Performance, Science, Sport, Creative Writing & Poetry .

index.php/schools/sgbis-y12/ I am also seeking to involve several groups and organisations that SGBIS has previously worked with on other collaborative projects. These include MAXXI, TEDX Transmedia, Some participants are planning COBIS and DragoLabs. Our partner cross-curricular projects involving school in Athens also has extensive several subject areas and year groups. creative links with CERN that we are In other cases, it may be just a single hoping to explore further within this student within a school that will be project. Their students have recently involved. Whilst the project is centred undertaken a field visit there to gather on sound sculptures as vehicles for ideas and sounds to be included in communication, conventional visual the Reverberation network. arts experience and expertise are not required for participation.

All SGBIS Y9 students and the Y12 IB Visual Artists are working on the I have set up this basic Google site to project during the autumn term. explain the project in greater detail.

Students in other year groups are invited to participate through https://sites.google.com/stgeorge. extracurricular Art clubs. Year 9 school.it/reverberation/home students have also begun exploring the creation of the audio elements Our collaborator in Nanjing has set of the project in their Music lessons. up this blog based hub in order to Colleagues in other departments avoid censorship and access issues are already involved in exploring the in countries including China. theme within their own fields: http://reverberation.ib-art.space/ https://reverberation.ib-art.space/ index.php/2018/09/23/somereverberation-sub-projects-from-stAll participating schools and georges-school-in-rome/ organisations will soon have their own page, as well as being able Roberta Pazardjiklian and I will be to post within the main message interviewed by the Corriere della stream. Here is the page that I have Sera newspaper about Reverberation created featuring work from the Y12 later this term.

IB class: Article by Greg Morgan http://reverberation.ib-art.space/ Head of Art and Design & Technology

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Reverberation: A Collaborative International, Sound Sculpture Project

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A day in the life of...

The St George’s Bus Manager

F

our years ago, I was recruited by St George’s to coordinate the Bus and General Services Department. With a background in the aviation industry, it has proved to be a challenging task given the chaotic nature of ground transportation in Rome. It is my main goal to get all pupils to and from school safely and timely.

In August of each year, I dedicate my time to organizing the routes for all the buses that serve the La Storta and City Centre

campuses. While Roman streets are empty, traffic is only a faint memory and parking is so easy to find, our bus companies, some who have been working with St George’s for over 30 years, are testing the new routes and finding the best possible solutions for our students.

On New Pupil’s day in early September, the beginning of the academic year, the real test of the bus routes starts; with the bussing of new students that come from afar and traffic that wakes the streets of Rome.

My typical day begins: 5:30am: Early morning monitoring I wake up and pick-up the dedicated Bus Service phone, the bus companies are already in action starting up the service. This is a critical moment, if there are any problems with the startup of the service, immediate action must be taken. I continue to monitor the situation from home, receiving and sending text messages, WhatsApp messages and emails from parents regarding absences and any lastminute changes to the bus service.

7:30am: Arriving to the office I make my way to the office and continue monitoring the various bus situations that include traffic, accidents, road closures, etc.

I am fortunate to have the bus app that we created specifically for St. George’s. I am able to monitor the GPS locations of all buses with current attendance on board and in real time, for both school sights. On average we have 20 buses traveling to and from La Storta and 5 buses traveling to and from the City Centre. We are currently transporting approximately 300 students from places as far as Ostia, Castelli and Guidonia.

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A day in the life of... The St George’s Bus Manager

8:30am: Bus monitoring I observe the traffic situation in the area and advise security regarding the arrivals of the buses at La Storta. At this time, I am able to identify if any bus is running excessively later than scheduled and therefore send out updates to staff to include names of students boarded on the buses that will arrive late.

10:30am: Meetings Around break time, I go to C-Floor to brief with my line manager and other support colleagues.

This provides me the opportunity to become aware of any issues in my area of responsibility that need urgent attention.

9:00am: Office time After all buses have arrived at both school sites, I am able to catch up on any emails and voice mails received. My time is then divided between bus issues, fleet management, staff welfare and insurance issues. The time dedicated to the bus issues also includes speaking with potential families that have questions regarding our bus service, daily changes and finding solutions to any complaints.

Throughout the day I dedicate my time to ensuring that all buses for trips are booked and confirmed. I follow up on the “crazy” bureaucracy connected to the staff welfare processes of codici fiscali, residenza and ASL doctor selection. Yes, I also try to keep track of all the inconsistencies of the Italian public offices! I am keen to maintain tight control over all insurance claims that have been opened on behalf of students/staff.

3:00pm: End of the day Buses

5:00pm: Late Buses This is the time when I focus on the late bus service. I double check any emails or changes to the service and help board and register students on the three buses that currently travel from La Storta throughout Rome. A primary aspect of the late buses is to ensure that they are able to depart punctually at 5:15pm. Some routes have to travel quite a distance.

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This is a very crucial time. I ensure that all end of the day changes are clearly communicated to the offices in charge of registers (junior schools) and that all drivers are also informed.

I wait until departure and continue to monitor that all students have managed to reach their bus and resolve any confusion that may arise.

I always like to board a selection of buses to remind students of the importance of seat belts for their safety. It is amusing when students see me and immediately remember to fasten their seatbelts. Sometimes they refer to me as the “seat-belt lady”.

A day in the life of... The St George’s Bus Manager

5:30pm: Time to head home While on my way home, I continue to monitor buses that are still on their journeys.

Sometimes it is a quiet evening and all is calm.

Unfortunately, at times due to weather and/ or traffic conditions, I must relay information to parents regarding late arrivals. Other times, there are emergency situations such as missing parents at the various stops. Safeguarding our pupils is priority in resolution of any mishap.

Later in the evening, I usually have a quick look at My job is fast paced, exciting and very challenging. any messages or emails that might need urgent It makes me feel proud to know that I am the first attention and prepare for the next day. woman to hold this position in the history of the School.

I have had some amusing moments throughout my experience here at St George’s, such as the time I was Making continuous improvements to the able to find a missing tooth on a bus! There have transportation services offered to our students is been times when students enquire about my accent priority, keeps me focused on the future and is most and where I’m from and others that remember to rewarding at the end of each very long day. say “Happy Thanksgiving!” I feel fortunate in my position as it allows me to interact not only with my Travel safely and please use your seatbelts!

St George’s colleagues, but also with the student Article by Chiara Kachenko body and parents. I enjoy being part of this diverse Bus and General Services Coordinator international environment.

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St George’s British International School • Rome • Italy www.stgeorge.school.it