EDUCATION
Shaftesbury School Leading The World With Its Future Classroom The HundreED forum is an international website highlighting innovation by educators around the globe.
Shaftesbury School is literally leading the world with its use of the Future classroom – first reported in the Blackmore Vale in December, the school has now created two projects which have become HundrED forum spotlight projects. Alex More, Lead Teacher of Innovation in Teaching & Learning Shaftesbury School explained that since the first Future Classroom project went live he has had enquiries and contacts from teachers all over the world. And with this second project, the WISE: Parent Engagement project has opened an exciting opportunity with a school in Ghana. The WISE ‘social emotional learning‘ software uses Virtual
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Reality headsets, and encourages both parents and pupils to take part collaboratively. “A trial has been running in school already, and the feedback has been terrific. So far eleven staff and forty children have completed ‘journeys’ of mindfulness, and every single one reports that at the end they feel calmer and more positive. It’s especially effective with our more challenged students, who really engage with the process and benefit so much from it.”
this project to really work” At first glance it’s not a cheap investment – Alex has managed to gain funding to cover the initial cost of the school’s own VR Headsets (they’ve had five headsets provided on a short term rental, but to be really effective the school needed their own), but still needs more. “when you consider 400 kids will go through WISE, with 5-9 lessons each, it works out between £5 and £10 a head, which is great value” says Alex.
Alex continued “one effect we have noticed through the pandemic and the enforced home schooling is that parents are more engaged than they’ve ever been with their child’s learning. We’ve discovered they’ve been sitting in (and enjoying!) their child’s Zoom lessons, and actively trying to understand what and how their child is learning, rather than simply leaving it to the school. So it felt like the perfect time for
Shaftesbury School is the first in Europe to demo the new programme; interest has been instant and global. One school leader in Ghana has been so impressed with the future classroom potential that he and Alex have set up a collaboration, where local students will start working with their African counterparts on STEM projects live via Zoom after Easter, whilst Alex gets to work with the Ghanaian teaching staff too.
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