I would love to say I had written this article but I think I would be caught out pretty quick given that it’s a lot longer than 6 years since I’ve seen the inside of a classroom! So thanks Donal, this had me smiling and made me realise that times are changing faster than they ever did.

The Times They Are a Changin’
I’ve heard Bob Dylan wail this line countless times but it was only recently that the meaning of it really hit home with me. I was visiting the All Saints School in sunny Sheffield, my first trip back to a school environment in a number of years; when the realisation struck me that students today have a vastly different experience to the one I had.

Now I should probably mention that I finished my secondary education a mere six years ago, and as such, I’d like to think that I’m relatively in touch with the “youth of today”. However as I picked my way through the forest of computers, mp3 players, mobile phones and technology in general that constituted All Saints School I found myself mumbling the types of phrases that until then I’d associated only with my parents.

“Things were very different back in my day” was my response to a question on how I found the school. A statement that prior to then I’d thought I was a good ten years away from ever using! It wasn’t so much the students –I was still “down” (they still say that, don’t they??) with them, instead I was shocked by the array of technology at their fingertips and even more so by the ability of these Year 9 students to completely engage with it!

“In my day” we often had 3 people to a computer, and the most interesting (and often only) activity was drawing funny pictures in Paint. Most of us didn’t even have email addresses until we got to work or college!

I was visiting the school to cover the answers portion of a Question and Answers session with a group of Year 9’s who had been tasked with analysing the ThirdForce online assessment tool, Level Tracker for ICT for a project. To say the depth of their analysis blew me away would be similar to saying that this summer has been a tad damp. I was astounded. They were questioning our instructional design, how we got our results, why the particular colour scheme was chosen and even how we came up with the name ThirdForce! They had far more base knowledge than I could have even imagined having at their age.

When I sought some feedback they were equally impressive. I asked did they like the way their results were instantaneously displayed by Level Tracker. The answer, “I think the way of displaying your results in Level Tracker was genius. In a class of 7 boys there was competition so it showed you how you did well in all areas”, showed great understanding of a key feature and was well articulated.

All in all I would like to say a big thank you to the staff and pupils (pictured below) of All Saints for opening my eyes to a modern school and also for making me feel old.

Cheers guys!

All Saints School Year 9