Month: July 2006

A Hug from Government?

A while ago the new headmaster of a large state run secondary school told me about his plan to stop excluding children – no more problem solving by binning the apparent source of the problem. He thought that of all the children who most needed the values and discipline a good school offers, it was the kids most likely to be kicked out.

So he wanted to understand why his school had excluded pupils in the past.

He looked through the figures, read reports, spoke to colleagues and then started contacting parents of excluded pupils.

He spoke to dozens of people. “At first there was no pattern, every case was unique, some surprising”, he said. “But after I thought about it for a while I reluctantly concluded one thing stood out: each child who had been excluded lacked a single adult who they knew had faith in them, who they could be sure loved them”

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David Cameron comes to brum – again

David Cameron was in Birmingham again today – to give a Chamberlain Lecture on how he sees the relationship between government and communities.

In fact the leader of the opposition was in my own neighbourhood Balsall Heath, an area he admires for the extent to which citizens and volunteers have taken control of their own streets. The Grassroots Channel programme “I am the grass now” reported on how people here would prefer to volunteer to keep their police stations open rather than leave a vacuum in their streets.

The truth is that Balsall Heath’s revival has been despite government, rather than because of it, and Mr Cameron belives there is much to learn from the people and the streets of this vibrant (yes it is fab) multi-culturural community. So where does that leave someone who wants to lead a Conservative government? Confused or clear about how government can get out of the way and let people make good choices?
You can find out here. Listen to his speech by clicking on this link, read the speech by clicking here and find out what the good people of Balsall Heath had to ask David Cameron by clicking here.

Go on, click away. You’ll be surprised.

Podcasting in Schools – or the Wendy Scattergood effect

I’ve just come to the end of a series of days working with children at Reaside School in Frankley in Birmingham. Four of us were briefed through Stan’s Cafe (I love Stan’s proper use of the apostrophe) and creative partnerships to use podcasting to tap into the children’s imaginations and their skills at evolving and structuring stories.

You can listen to and see all the work the children created at a website we have established for this and future work: www.frankleytalk.com

Early work was focussed on where the children live – the streets and neighbourhoods of Frankley and what this means to them. One piece that popped out of this was a podcast on renaming an imaginary street. Most of Frankley’s streets are named for either monarchs or British islands. The year 5 group plumped to name their new street after someone they know, one of their nan’s. So Wendy Scattergood (’tis truly her name) has became a symbol of the things that grown ups do which children appreciate: