Looking at our website anyone would think we have been in hibernation for about at least the past year. Well, far from it, we have in fact been quite busy - just not in terms of updating this. In April...
Looking at our website anyone would think we have been in hibernation for about at least the past year. Well, far from it, we have in fact been quite busy - just not in terms of updating this.
In April 2011 we alerted you to the fact that Gene Payne was taking an Assistant Principal role at a Harris Academy, with a view to becoming a headteacher. In January this year he took on the role of head at The Causeway School in Eastbourne and is loving the challenge.
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Now any school or group of schools can set up their own student commission drawing on the work of Harris. We have produced this online toolkit which includes guidance, tips and ideas as well as hundreds of resources for schools to adapt. Go to www.studentcommission.org.uk.
Since Christmas we have both been busy supporting the Harris Student Commission develop its final recommendations. And, after two years of enquiry, the commission has published its ‘new design for learning' (Download file). We are hugely proud to have been part of it. So much that’s positive has already happened, for everyone involved, but the best work of the commission is yet to come as the academies set out to fulfil the seventeen entitlements for all learners and teachers.
“The most significant skill I have gained from the commission is the ability to question things rather than accept them at face value.” Matthew Gavin, Year 10, Harris Academy Merton
The commission is launching the new design for learning at the Whole Education ‘Whose Curriculum Is It Anyway?’ event on 16 May 2011.
As some of you will know, things have changed a little for GoddardPayne in the past month or so. For some time Gene has been considering a move back into schools – a chance to put all he’s learnt and experienced in the past seven years into practice – and as of two weeks ago he has taken on the role of Vice Principal at Harris Academy Purley.
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Who'd have thought it was possible for Caireen to get excited about numbers? But working with Julie Temperley and New Philanthropy Capital on an approach to demonstrating value for money in early years settings is proving to be a brilliant piece of work. It involves creating a toolkit and process to help the locality teams involved in the Radical Efficiency in Early Years programme look carefully at the costs of their new service ideas and compare this to the existing service based on unit costs. We're testing it in Bradford, Reading and Knowsley in the next couple of weeks so will see if they're as wowed by it all as we are.
We're really chuffed that the practical guide 'Using social challenge prizes to support people powered innovation' (Download file) has been published by NESTA. It's been a while in the making but Caireen has enjoyed writing and creating it with the fantastic Vicki Purewal and Kerry McCarthy. The prize approach offers a completely new way of funding specific outcomes and supporting community-led innovation so we're looking forward to seeing how others respond.
We've joined forces with Julie Temperley to be the Learning Partner for the NESTA and Innovation Unit Radical Efficiency project. This programme is working with six local providers of early years children's services, front-line staff and communities to transform locality-based services so that they significantly improve outcomes for young families and demonstrate a 30+% reduction in costs within three years. We'll be working with the team and the projects to tell the story of the innovation process and the impacts of the new services.
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Today we're running a session with NEF and NESTA for the co-production practitioners network. We're working with them to consider how they want the network to develop over the coming year, in particular focusing on the specific value they...
Today we're running a session with NEF and NESTA for the co-production practitioners network. We're working with them to consider how they want the network to develop over the coming year, in particular focusing on the specific value they want it to create for members. It's been strange but good to be thinking hard about networks again.
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We have been working with the Harris Student Commission on Learning for over two years now. This new publication brings together what the commission has learned since it published '12 early ideas about learning' in October 2009. Students have designed and undertaken practical enquiry projects with teachers and have visited High Tech High, San Diego, and Charter Schools in New York. We are proud to have worked with them to write this digest of their findings. Download file
Today Gene is in Petersfield running a design and prototyping session with the team behind the fantastic Prescribing Volunteering project, which is part of NESTA's Age Unlimited programme. Portsmouth Diocesan Council for Social Responsibility are developing the service that will 'prescribe' a programme of volunteering to unemployed patients in their 50s and 60s through GP practices.
Today Caireen is working with the radical efficiency team from the Innovation Unit to deliver a horizon scanning workshop @ NESTA as part of their Transforming Early Years programme. We've developed the resources for the event - a set of 25 case studies from UK and around the world which showcase radical innovation.
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Yesterday we had the pleasure of running a workshop on prototyping with the eleven successful Age Unlimited projects being supported by NESTA. It was a tough gig that forced us to think about and work through how you can effectively use prototyping to test the core concepts and assumptions behind a new service, as well as exploring specific interventions or touch-points.
We have been working with colleagues at the Harris Federation and Nesta to take what has been learned in the process of setting up the fantastic Student Commission on Learning and to share it with others. The result is a written toolkit publication and accompanying website that's freely available to schools, local authorities and other organisations interested in establishing their own student commissions. Download the publication here and go to the website (www.studentcommission.org.uk) for more info and resources.
As part of the Learning Futures programme Gene is working with leaders, teachers and pupils at Matthew Moss High School, Harlington Area Trust, Villiers High School and the Harris Federation. They are doing different things but all include curriculum innovations around project based learning. Read more about the schools and the programme.
We spent the weekend in Scotland with the Age Unlimited team as they worked with people in their 50s and 60s who have ideas for innovations to combat social isolation in older people. The participants were inspiring, the facilitation fantastic (thanks to Colin Burns) and the company pretty good too. Find out more about Age Unlimited Scotland.
Caireen is currently doing some horizon scanning work as part of the new Green Next Practice programme from the brilliant Innovation Exchange. She's seeking out innovative 3rd sector projects with new approaches to reducing carbon emissions that have the potential to transform public services. Read more about the programme here.
As part of our work as Learning Partner for the Lab, we're facilitating a learning event to explore what idea development is and to what purposes idea development processes can be effectively applied.
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Gene has been helping to organise two international visits as part of the Student Commission on Learning. In the next few weeks Student Commissioners and staff from across the Harris Federation will be undertaking learning visits to ischool in New York and High Tech High in San Diego. Can't wait to hear all about it on their return.
We've just completed a review of the idea development process used with Age Unlimited projects in England and Wales. In March we're off to Scotland to work with Age Unlimited Scotland as they search for older social entrepreneurs who have the ideas, skills and the determination to create new types of social enterprises aimed at making life better for people older than them, as well as for themselves.
In January Gene had the pleasure of designing and facilitating the 2020 Public Services Commission awayday with Ruth Kennedy and the 2020 Public Services Trust team. A great bunch of people doing some really valuable thinking in order to set out a practical and compelling vision for public services in 2020. Check them out at www.2020publicservicestrust.org.
