Elearning

The Gloucestershire virtual school for children in care

In Gloucestershire there are currently 410 children and young people in care. 295 of these have been looked after for longer than 12 months and 90% are in foster placements or placed for adoption.

Those responsible for looked-after children fully appreciate that these youngsters deserve the same life chances as any other child. Gloucestershire County Council decided to set up the online classes because the Council was worried that children in care were not achieving as well as their peers. In Gloucestershire we believe that early intervention is essential to improving outcomes for vulnerable children and young people and we have given priority to establishing the 5-19 part of the virtual school.

I was appointed as Virtual Head in September 2007; I was previously a Vice Principal of a secondary school in Plymouth where a large part of my role was to help raise attainment for the more vulnerable youngsters, so I was totally committed to the inclusion process. Our school had been using an online revision resource from SAM Learning with great success so it made sense to use the same provision for our virtual school.

Outcomes for children in care in Gloucestershire are above the national average This provides us with an excellent platform to move to a higher challenge of further narrowing the gap between their achievement and that of other children and young people in Gloucestershire.

The UK Government’s increasing commitment to its education policy, Every Child Matters [1], makes personalised learning a key focus area, and online learning provides part of the solution. The achievement of children in care is also an important target within our Local Area Agreement. We have set challenging stretched targets to eradicate the gap in achievement between children in care and other children at Key Stage 2 of the school curriculum and to substantially reduce the gap at other key stages. The gap will be measured by the “value-added” points achieved between each of the Key Stages.

At the virtual school we work closely with an individual’s designated teacher and social worker in order to assess which personalized learning package is appropriate for each child.

Through the Care Matters initiative [2] we applied to be part of the Department for Children Schools and Families' (DCSF) virtual school pilot. SAM learning was launched in all the care homes around the county in January 2008 initially, and then over the forthcoming months, each care home was visited by Lisa Hurst the company's Regional Manager and myself to engage the care workers of each home in this particular online learning programme.

We found the response to the online revision resource overwhelming! Over a period of four months, over 200 hours of revision were carried out by these young people and their enthusiasm to learn very much increased.

A specifically tailored version of SAM Learning has been recently made available to all children in care in Gloucestershire, from Key Stages 1 to 4. It can be used wherever they may be studying, whether it is inside or outside the county, within a primary or secondary school, a special school, or any other educational setting such as a Pupil Reintegration Centre.

The beauty of using an online revision service is that pupils are encouraged to revise independently, whether in lessons, lunch breaks, or even at home. In this way, struggling pupils are given ownership of their learning and the freedom to work on the subject areas they are least confident in, rather than being limited to revising the same topics as the rest of the class.

We have also been working closely with the Schools Council to establish a virtual council and have elected a Chair and made a date for a meeting at the Schools Council head office in London to discuss the setting up of an ICT forum. The forum will enable looked-after children to contact each other, discuss their experiences and share their problems and concerns in relation to their learning.

This is a very new and exciting opportunity. We want a student council to give a true voice to children in care looking at some of the generic learning issues they face.

The Gloucestershire virtual school also carried out an ASDAN trial and we are now an accredited centre.* So we are looking at all the opportunities that young children have and are building their evidence so that we can and involve them in the accreditation process.

The virtual school chose to subscribe to SAM Learning because the service’s platform allows students to assess their own progress and set their own learning challenges. The school’s learners already have a ‘real’ school they attend, and what the virtual school aims to provide are additional resources to help raise attainment. The learning platform also enables the staff at the virtual school to monitor student progress, and to work in partnership with the learners’ ‘real’ schools in addressing the children’s learning needs.

The online learning provision allows the Virtual School to see where the students are having problems with their work as well as where they are managing it well, based on time working on a particular task and percentage of completion. Being able to set tasks remotely is very useful, as my teachers can very easily encourage individual pupils to attempt work they need to revise and/or improve on. It is then possible to liaise with their classroom teacher to highlight any problems or successes encountered when working online.

In providing access to both lower and higher level Key Stage material students can build their learning confidence and/or challenge themselves. This makes it appealing to all students, whether they are in the mainstream classroom, or are accessing the materials from alternative provisions.

We are also encouraging children to use after-school clubs and breakfast clubs and 20 of the education settings are trialling a laptop-lettings schemes. This scheme is carefully monitored and children are using the laptops for learning as opposed to leisure activities. Many, particularly the primary age children, get really excited about taking a laptop home with them and of course it provides them with the flexibility to learn wherever, whenever.

A measure of the success we have had is that the students who have been working on the online revision tool have already met or exceeded the ten-task-hour challenge. Independent research carried out by the Fischer Family Trust (FFT) proves that by carrying out just ten task hours of homework, pupils at Key Stage 2 can increase their grades by a least one grade or more.

It also means that the adults supporting the learners can have access to anytime-anywhere learning resources to support the students. If learners change schools, they will still be able to access SAM Learning to help with their studies. This is another way to encourage foster carers and social workers to support learners in care with their studies.

For the students this means that they have a personal, online revision ‘buddy’ 24 hours a day. If they are at a friend’s house or at a cyber café they have the opportunity to revise and practise their skills and knowledge which will ultimately improve their confidence as young learners.

One Year 11 student says, “I like SAM Learning because you can get it marked straight away and it gives you a choice of answers.”

Another year 11 student adds, “I use the sound bites facility for maths as it helps when you are not sure how to do something.”

As a result of its success in raising achievement, and its popularity with students and teachers alike, the virtual school has built in a series of rewards and praises to recognise learners’ efforts as they engage with the online learning system. SAM has also set up a file, a personalized e-portfolio for each young person.

Gloucestershire County Council has a clear vision of ‘helping every child thrive and reach their potential’ and we believe that this will be achieved by giving children and young people a voice, increasing impact, improving access and providing better support.

We recognise that we have to challenge complacency. We are a Shire County of contrasts and need to address issues emerging from our data analysis with an emphasis on closing the gap in achievement and attainment to secure progress for all pupils.

Jane Featherstone, Head Teacher, Gloucestershire County Council Virtual School.

References

1. Every Child Matters: www.everychildmatters.gov.uk

2. Department for Education and Skills. Care Matters: Transforming the Lives of Children and Young People in Care. London, 2006. www.dcsf.gov.uk/publications/carematters/index.shtml

Notes

* ASDAN is a UK organisation that offers a wide range of awards for young people of all abilities. They aim to recognise and reward skills as young people complete 'personal challenges' in such areas as sports, healthy living, community involvement, work experience, expressive arts, relationships, citizenship, personal finance and enterprise. They run alongside the school GCSE exams. ASDAN Website: www.asdan.org.uk