The School Curriculum Ten Years Hence - UCET: Universities ...

An earlier report from HMI, Access and Achievement in Urban
Education (OFSTED 1993), pointed to the tendency of schools in
challenging circumstances to focus on the care of pupils to the
exclusion of attention to their learning. Schools are now more likely
to strike a better balance: a positive approach to attainment and
progress going hand in hand with a positive approach to behaviour,
attitudes and personal development.
Put simply, good behaviour is based on good classroom work:
teachers have high expectations of what pupils should achieve and
set challenging targets; they support pupils in their work so that
they do not lose their way; pupils respond well; their progress is
tracked and supported; and success is rewarded. The reality is, of
course, more complex. For example, winning the support of parents
is crucial and working with other local agencies can play a vital part.
It is often argued that a key part of the solution to remotivating
learners who are disengaging and to make teaching more learnercentred
is the much greater use of ICT. I hope I will be forgiven if I
express a little caution here. I have been around long enough to
have heard confident predictions over the past twenty years or so of
the teaching and learning revolution that the use of computers
would bring - and similar predictions for teaching machines before
that! Perhaps we really are on the brink of a break-through but I
will limit myself to the current evidence.
In the vast majority of our schools, the use of ICT to support
teaching and learning is still in its infancy. There is, however,
enough evidence of effective practice to be confident that it can
improve the motivation of learners and make teaching and learning
more interesting. What is also clear is that effective intervention
and mediation of the ICT resource by the teacher is crucial to
successful learning. We need to learn much more about how ICT
changes the role of the teacher, including the use of teaching
assistants. There is also evidence that ICT, especially integrated
learning systems, can help to manage the learning of the individual.
But however sophisticated the on-line materials, the teacher
remains crucial to the whole learning process.
I will just make one last point on ICT. As Frank has indicated, we
are seeing increasing availability of on-line lifelong and community
learning resources for adults. It is crucial therefore that we ensure
that young people in schools and colleges are given the skills to
access and use these on-line materials. Physical access to these
resources for all our communities is also essential.
An important and developing strand of policy with respect to
retaining and improving the motivation of learners in the crucial 14-