ICTeachers  - Interesting Stuff for Teachers

ICTeachers Magazine - September 2002 - Probably the best and least monthly educational newsletter in the world!
Circulation 8000+  including Educational Organisations World-wide!

To Subscribe to the ICTeachers Newsletter - Go to the website http://icteachers.co.uk/ and sign up!
If you know colleagues who would appreciate the independent minded thinking behind this magazine then please pass it on.

What is ICTeachers?

ICTeachers is that huge sigh of relief when you leave school at the end of the day.

Message from the Editor

The rumour is that we're having OFSTED next term.  It will have been four years since my current school had the last one and we're on the old four year cycle.  I can feel that faint panic rising and the stirring sense of unease in my soul with the recollection of two other vastly difference experiences of OFSTED I endured some 5 years ago.

The first was a living nightmare where all the good work we had done regarding ethos and raising children's achievement from zilch in a newly constituted school but three years old seemed to be lost among so much hot hair.  

Failing.  

I remember the Associate Reggie telling the NQT who had only been in the school for 6 weeks that he should resign as he did not have the class under his belt.  I try to tell him that it took me a term to get control of my Y2 class and I had already taught some tough classes.  No good.  He resigns that day and leaves in tears.  I cry too.

Such a small word but it's surprising how heavy it feels when it is put on your back.  Failure.  I moved schools, I was going to anyway before the OFSTED surprise party, honest.  

New school, OFSTED just five months apart.  Suddenly I'm a success and deemed a "Good" teacher, a vastly different team, professional, helpful even.  Yet the weight of the word failure followed me for over three years, haunting my dreams, my self confidence shattered.  It took me three years to get it back again and to finally conclude that I did know what I was doing after all and it was OFSTED, not me.

My advice?

Remember who you are, what you do, and why you do it.

The "new" OFSTED regime looks for the best, they say.  Looking for that link between teaching and learning, progress, accountability.  Many of the things we hear we may agree with but has the agenda changed?  Is there a loosening of what constitutes "good" teaching and learning or is it still predominantly what those above perceive the need to be in terms of results in English and Maths.  Do you have any thoughts about this one?

Roll on 2006.

The Editor
md@icteachers.co.uk

The comments of the Editor in no way reflect the views of ICTeachers Ltd and do not claim to be either well researched or even vaguely coherent.

Back to Contents

What's New on the Website

Back to Contents

Interactive Whiteboards

Ann W iawillacy@lineone.net

First Steps

Do I really need one ?

Is it going to be used OR will staff see it as a worthy object of desire that might stimulate use.

Where will it be housed ?

Will the screen and/or projector be permanent or fixed.

How ‘clever’ does it need to be.

Am I going to buy or lease ?

What Can They Do ?

Projectors vary in quality but boards have a wide range of functions from simply being a large projection screen used to demonstrate the use of software to being able to save and replay sequences created by the teacher including in some cases the  recording of sound. The boards focus children's attention and their interactivity is a highly useful teacher resource. The balance to this is the cost.

Considerations

Screen location – HEIGHT – (plea from a small person) Check that the height of the board isn’t too high when fixed to the wall. If staff cant touch the top right hand corner they wont be able to use many of the elements of the board. Make sure that the board/projector quality matches the light levels in the chosen position – cheap set-ups will be great in dark rooms but struggle in bright light.

Don’t forget that these really do project and the position of the projector must be worked out before hand or the teachers shadow will be in the way of the light beam. Permanent ceiling mounted ones are best for this.

Light Levels

Many companies will tell you that 800 lumens is sufficient brightness for an average classroom but the groups experience is that the higher level of 1000 lumens is better. All guidelines for prolonging the life of the bulbs should be followed closely as the replacement cost is horrific. Portable projectors are especially vulnerable. Be aware that there are different levels of resolution – the higher the resolution the more detail can be seen on the screen. Usual resolution is SVGA (800 x 600) and the higher XGA  (1024 x 768).

ALL portable devices may need calibrating each time you use them whether mimio or traditional projector if you want to use them interactively. Otherwise as you are writing the text may be appearing somewhere else on the screen. Mobile boards are also available on wheels.

Pointing Devices

Some boards use fingers some have special pens. Some have coloured pens which are automatically recognised by the board. Whilst pens can be more precise if the pen is dedicated and is locked away or lost the board cannot be used interactively.

Software/hardware

Many boards are just used to enlarge the screen for class demo – BUT their potential is much greater – drawn pictures or handwriting can all be saved back on to computer. More and more dedicated software is being written which takes advantage of the interactive nature – RM have some great primary stuff. Colleagues report some problems when trying to use excel because it wasn’t written with the boards in mind. It should be remembered that the system is actually a 3 part process and the third item is the computer which operates the projector. This will need to have enough memory and storage to make the interactivity worthwhile. It should be linked to the network to enable access to the internet. Wireless connection is possible but will incur extra cost.

Future proofing

This is new and rapidly moving technology. There are several different forms of board being produced and things change rapidly. It will not be possible to predict the life of these devices and it may be that leasing may be the most cost effective way to keep equipment up to standard.

The groups advice is that Head teachers must be sure that the board will be positioned for its optimum take-up by the most enthusiastic staff and that those initially involved receive the best training available. There will be sceptics in school and the boards deployment must be ensured a success if the technology is to be taken up by other staff. For many schools this will mean locating the board in a suite or close to the IT co-ordinators classroom.

The latest improvement to the technology is the use of  DMD – Digital Micromirror Device. We have little information about this at this time.

Back to Contents

Bullying Online - www.bullying.co.uk

Bullying in UK schools has reached epidemic proportions with more and more desperate parents and children seeking help.

The charity Bullying Online’s website www.bullying.co.uk has been visited by more than 175,000 people in three years and more than 11,300 of those have emailed for personal advice. Many of those children have been suicidal, depressed, afraid to go to school or in fear in the community and their parents have been in despair after trying every avenue to get the issue addressed.

If you think that classroom problems are confined to one bully and one victim then think again. The reality is that there are likely to be several bullies involved in name calling and making someone’s life a misery. Some pupils say that the whole class seems to be involved.

Many schools are good at dealing with bullying. They have policies where their school is a ‘listening school’ so that even if the victim is too afraid to speak out, all the bystanders know that it is not only acceptable, it is their duty to do so. Other schools have peer counsellors so that the younger pupils have someone to go to with their worries, and quiet rooms where pupils who have no friends can go to do their homework or chat to others in the same situation – taking a whole raft of pupils out of a possible bullying situation.

But what of the other schools? 

• Is it acceptable for a parent to be told she is making too many complaints and if she doesn’t like the way the school is being run she can find another one?
  
• Is it acceptable for a mother to be told illegally that she can’t have a copy of her child’s school record because the head has never provided one before “and doesn’t intend to start now”?
  
• Is it acceptable for a mother who has complained that her son has been attacked to be told that she should feel sorry for the bully?

While there are schools that are good at resolving bullying it’s clear that many are not and LEAs need to take action.

Bullying Online would particularly like to know why so many parents complain to LEAs who then ‘clear’ the school and say they have done all they can -  while the bullying continues – often to the stage where the child has to be removed from school.

It might be helpful if instead of schools calling in educational psychologists to ‘help’ the victim  who wants nothing more than for the physical abuse and name calling to stop, they used this expensive resource to reprogramme the bully.

Parents are more likely than ever to complain and LEAs with an eye on their insurance liability premiums might want to consider introducing a county wide policy for schools to follow when dealing with parental complaints. If parents also got a copy everyone would know where they stood. The North Yorkshire County Council bullying guidelines would be a good reference for other LEAs.

Unfortunately, schools are missing a real chance to help pupils at source. Every day pupils are using their school system to email Bullying Online about their distress. 

Schools have software to stop children sending out messages containing profanities and I don’t see why this couldn’t be modified to pick up words like ‘upset’ ‘fed-up’ ‘suicidal’ and ‘bullied’. These pupils could then be helped by the people who know them best.

Their parents will accept that anything they send on a company email system is likely to be read by their bosses but when I’ve raised this in internet newsgroups as a good way of pinpointing children needing help, I’ve been shouted down and told that it’s an invasion of privacy and against pupils rights.

Sooner or later there will be evidence on a school email system that a pupil who has killed themselves has left evidence of their distress. That will be a hard  lesson for a school to learn.

Back to Contents

"Bob gives wonderful follow up service and uploads the stuff I send him without fail. He gives me tips and advice and I really feel that I am an honoured customer. Nothing is too much trouble and he never makes me feel dumb or ICT illiterate." Headteacher

Back to Contents

The Rise and Fall of Administrators - USA

Part 1 the Problems

This will be a series because it took a while to get rid of this guy.  First of all, everyone should know that after 2 years, even without tenure, it is almost impossible to get rid of an administrator or teacher.  The unions here are too powerful.  It would cost the districts a lot of money to even try and then don't have much of a chance.  In the wisdom of all teachers who have protected our jobs from awful administration, we have also protected them.

The rise and fall of administrators, (in my unnamed school district to protect myself from my bad luck),  is the name of my article.  Normally no one in this town would venture out and snatch any newsletter from the UK but if I put in 1 small but interesting article on the rise and fall of the _______   administrator, someone would find it.  Not that they could do anything but some member of my union would have to approach me and tell me
that we don't want to ruin relations with the board of education with a contract year coming up in 2004.  Our contract is up in 2005 but we start early.  (Get on with it! - Ed)

My school district has been unique.  At best we have had lousy administrators in the past.  Our administration definition of awful means bad for children, bad for moving up with changing times and bad for test results.

They usually leave us alone.  We actually had a principal who never, ever had any faculty meetings - not even on the first day of school.  It was great.  Everything was done with the memo in the mail box (before e-mail).   If there was a problem, a secretary handled it or told you that you shouldn't have done something.  There were no observations, but we did sign a paper that we were observed and we filled out how we did.  One time, I marked myself low and the principal asked me to change the rating.  The principal would lock his office door, leave on the lights and leave the building.  Of course many teachers liked this approach.  It was the next best thing to not having a principal.   And this principal was made superintendent .   Unless we went to a board meeting, we never saw the man ever again.  This man was one of many awful, leaderless people who came and went.  We usually left them in place because they left us alone,  The schools ran ok and we got paid.   We didn't have meetings, or the useless committees......... life was good. .... 

Enter the new breed of principals. 

They come in 2 catagories:  

Type 1.  They want to change the world and inflict pain and suffering on us 
or
Type  2.  they know nothing and annoy us. 

We had 2 principals who were a bad combination of both.  These people all had to go.    

Principal 1 was a female who wanted to save the world and change everything.   Principal 1 was determined to do things her way.  There were no flexible schedules, no coming in later, no reasoning (we did our homework and contacted the school district that she came from).   This one actually called a faculty meeting (1ONLY) and  had it last until after 4:30 pm.  She was informed that we leave at 3:30 and there will be no more meetings after school ever.  We saw problems in the near future.  Remember that the superintendent used to be the principal here and this lady wanted to change everything he did for that last 15 years.    

We did get rid of this one just in time only to have the replacement  an absolute awful, stubborn, and strange person with no experience.  We ate him for dinner. He was sort of fun at first but later it became "old" and very annoying.  There were 80-90 of us and him.  He did not have a chance.  I still don't know why anyone would want the job.   Everyone wanted the assistant principal to get the job.  The superintendent didn't want to change principals again because they would not look good. Yes we were going through principals faster that you can change your socks -5 in 2.5  years.   We knew we had a real problem with the "new principal" and he started to pick on me as well as others. That was his major mistake.   He declared war on teachers.   I must have filled out 25 complaints on him (and I didn't even have to make up a thing).  

We have mailboxes in the main office.  Good things like paychecks, messages etc. are put there along with junk mail and notes from the principal.  I am not real good at going there everyday and removing items.  One day I was standing in front of the mail boxes and the principal asked me to clean out my box.  He took everything out and handed it to me and I threw it the garbage.  He said that I could not do that.  There was message from him and how could I throw out everything without reading his message?  He actually went into the garbage and retrieved his memo. I couldn't help it, I told him that I guess I'll have to find another garbage can to throw out his memo.  And so it happened.  This guy was so incompetent that he had no clue what to say to me next.   The memo wanted me to write a report on a 1st grade student.   I did 2 paragraphs and put it in his mailbox.  

A few weeks later, I got the report back demanding more information and something that looked like a college term paper.  It was to let me know that he wanted a 10 page report.  A few weeks later he asked me for the larger report.  I told him I didn't have it.  He asked why and I told him that he didn't like the first report and he probably wouldn't like the second report either so I didn't bother.   He was shocked and wanted to know what priority his report was.  I told him that it wasn't a priority and he went away.  

We use to have an expensive machine that punched name plates.  He threw it out along with other equipment because he didn't know what it was.  This is not allowed.  NY State law requires all equipment to be removed after the board of education's approval.  He was called on this matter and told not to discard any school property.  He continued to toss out equipment.   And they didn't fire him yet!  He was a problem.   

Our union was bent on getting rid of this boy.  He could not make a decision to save his life.  No one would talk to him alone.  We would take along union reps. because he hated it.   He would make commitments to parents without running it by teachers.  This meant, students were failed.  The parent complained.  

Over the summer, the principal passed the kid and told him that the reading teacher (me) would take the kid and he would be reading on grade level. But he never told me this.  I found this out by accident and filled up my schedule fast (without these kids) as I saw this coming.   Then the parent complained in Nov..  [Yep, that's how time passed when the parent discovered that I wasn't taking their kid].   Yes, that was the failing Nov. report card.  Now he wanted me to take his mistake.  He told me to take the kid.  So I snatched up  a building rep and informed Mr. incompetent principal that I could not take the kid as I already have too many students and it's against union policy.   

This was fun now.  I actually was enjoying this.   He wanted me to remove 1 kid to make room for the new student.   I told him, that all my students need help and I would not make that decision.  That was what a principal had to do.  Mr., didn't get up in the morning before me, selected a third grader who was the only child of a single parent.  I called the mother in and instructed her that her son was very much in need of extra help and she should seek contact with her lawyer, the board of education etc.  The very next day, the principal was called over to the administration building to be yelled at.  The passed on child was put in special ed. to solve the problem and no one was removed from my classes.   

By contract we needed a faculty work room.   Mr. Principal was told to find one quickly.   At first, he refused.  Then the grievance process started and he started cleaning out some tiny closet.  We let him.  Then we informed him that it wasn't big enough.  He refused to find a bigger room and  we went to the superintendent.  Within 2 weeks, he was cleaning out a bigger room.   We always waited until after he completed a task.  Then we had it corrected. ........

Stay tuned for the next exciting adventures of the doomed principal or if you are incompetent, don't come here and mess with us.  Watch for the field day disaster, what grade am I in?  .... the mindless room change and angry parents.....To Be Continued!

The Adventures continue: More of the Principal from Planet X.

Part 2 the Field Day

Mr. Principal came in Feb. We hardly ever saw him as he learned to hide from his teachers (he had good reasoned to hide) because we were looking for him. We have this "field day" thing at the end of year that the Parent organization runs.  This cost them a lot of money.  This day was in June.  There were different activities all day for the children to see and do.  There were 600 students in the Multi purpose room watching a magic show and 600 students in the gym watching clowns.   The shows ended and the principal left the building and no one made any announcements for the next activity.  Everyone had to stay put for 45 min. until this not very popular person arrived back in town to let us know where to go.  That's how organized he was.

What Grade am I???

This new student came from Pakistan and no one really wanted to teach the child (before 9/11).  The first teacher complained and the principal moved him to another grade 4.  That teacher complained and he moved him to a grade 3.  That teacher complained and he moved him back to another grade 4.  That teacher did not complain and the child got to stay in a room for the rest of the year.  What's wrong with that story????

Room Changes

We have a school that the teachers pretty much get what they want if in reason.  There is a building committee run by the teachers to decide changes and living conditions.  The principal must attend to implement changes or give us a great reason why not.   2 teachers wanted to trade rooms for medical reasons.  This was not a difficult decision but Mr. Principal (now on everyone's nerves) thinks that he is in charge (but not really) and he will not approve the change.  First of all we have medical reasons, there is no decision here.  The grievance committee approached the principal and he would not change his mind (what mind?).  Again, the superintendent had to get involved and the rooms were changed.

This principal had to go and why would he want to stay.  He did not get tenure but he was here past the 2 years.  The superintendent at the time (Dr. phd or find me, I'm on the golf course) who should have fired him did nothing.  At this point in time, it was a real necessity to get rid of Mr. Principal.  The union had printed up Professional Pads for teachers to write administration problems.   There were a number of awful principals running around the district doing harm to children.  A retired teacher who was grievance chairperson made daily visits to the superintendent's office.  Teachers had contact with board members who listened to waste, lack of leadership and other horror stories.  We even contacted principal friends from other districts to see what we could do to get rid of these guys.  Finally, a board member was convinced but we still can fire these people.  They got lawyers (free lawyers from the administrators' union).   The bad principals were offered deals.   They were removed from the buildings and given other jobs (but for more money).  They were gone but still around.   Then his job was eliminated.  What happened to our Mr. Principal?  This is unbelievable.  It took us 6 years to rid ourselves totally of this person.  Where does he go??   The superintendent at the time also leaves to go to another district and took him along for the ride.   Strange?????  Stupid????  Only in America????   Why????   The other principal was put in charge of curriculum and the 3^rd guy left.  How is it now?

Everyone is happy.  The assistant principal (we wanted because he is normal and knows how we got rid of the others) was made principal.   We were able to teach now.  Before we were covering classes to deal with our administration full time.  Our scores went up to be the best in the area.   But we had to hire a new assistant principal.  Gone are the days of jerks hiring more jerks.  All applicants were screened.  Teachers called other teachers for a background checks.   The check list included – does not want to save the world   - minds own business   _ is quiet and takes directions from teachers  ___ is out of sight most of the time___is low keyed   __ knows when to walk away  The other qualifications really didn't matter.   What did we get?  A woman who so far is so good.  How about our new superintendent?  He was the old assistant superintendent.  We also go through these people often.  He is good ..... out of sight and out of mind.   We see him once in a while and he is pleasant.  He was very popular with teachers in his last district.  He listens and keeps his thoughts to himself.   He is not out to save or change the world.  It's kind of boring around here now.  There are no causes, challenges or excitement.  We actually can teach without something stupid happening.   The mean old principal who was spared from the ax of good bye you are gone now, is still around in a diminished capacity.   He got himself the best of lawyers.

Our great newsletter has many thousands of subscribers and, when you subscribe, you get the change to put your point of view about a number of subjects including OFSTED!  Over the years I have avoided collating all these but I finally thought it may be vaguely interesting to others.  So, for a first in a series of statistics and results from these surveys which may probalby never be revealed again, I give you the things YOU are saying about OFSTED!! The names of the contributors have been changed to get others into trouble.  These are a batch from the 600 who have recently subscribed to the newsletter ; )