Alternative Learning Opportunities for London Boroughs

Advanced Solutions Deliver Alternative Learning Opportunities for London Boroughs

 

As part of the Excellence in Cities (EiC) initiative, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster formed a partnership to raise standards and tackle barriers to learning across its LEAs, schools and communities. Together they launched the City Learning Centre (CLC), a state-of-the-art learning facility committed to enhancing teaching and learning for pupils and the community.

Striving to achieve excellence through innovation, the CLC wanted to deliver alternative learning opportunities for pupils, as well as remote training for school staff. Promethean’s Advanced Solutions team offered a solution accessible to every school across the two London boroughs.

What was needed?

As the Westminster-Kensington Partnership spans a vast area, they were looking for an effective way to deliver alternative learning opportunities for pupils across the boroughs, as well as being able to provide remote training for school staff. It soon became clear that video conferencing could help to bring students together to learn. Because of the scale of the project they need a supplier who could understand the specific needs of the education environment. Having already worked closely with Promethean to install interactive whiteboards in the London boroughs, the CLC engaged Promethean’s  Advanced Solutions team to deliver a comprehensive and highly sophisticated video conferencing system.

The solution.

The Advanced Solutions team installed a 60-user ‘Click-to-Meet’ Web conferencing server, providing web/video conferencing not only to all schools in the Partnership, but to almost any other video conferencing system or PC in the UK and overseas. Developed by First Virtual Communications and supplied by Promethean, Click-to-Meet offers a simple way to view public conferences or create private ad hoc video conferences which can be accessed directly from a web browser. Promethean also equipped the 12 secondary schools within the boroughs with whole-class systems, including pan-tilt-zoom cameras. Used in conjunction with an active whiteboard, Click-to-Meet can be accessed and controlled directly from the front of the class to provide a group viewing and participation area.

The verdict

By providing a new level of connectivity, the video conferencing system has opened up a number of opportunities for the boroughs in terms of its teaching and learning environment. Different activities demonstrate how the technology can deliver real educational value at all levels by building inter-school and international relationships:

• Four primary schools link up using Click-to-Meet for an exciting math lesson with celebrity expert, Johnny Ball. Roger Bloxham, Interim Gifted and Talented Coordinator, discusses the valuable experience pupils gained: “The lesson was entirely interactive, with Johnny Ball involving all of the pupils in the activity. Click-to-Meet allowed many more pupils to participate in the lesson than would otherwise have been possible and the event helped to show teachers how easy it is to set up and use.” The Click-to-Meet math session helped to form inter-school relationships, which led two of the primaries to regularly work together in developing a literacy strategy. Roger continues: “As the schools are at opposite ends of the boroughs, meeting to perform and read poetry or exchange ideas is near impossible – getting parental permission in itself would be a huge task. Having Click-to-Meet means the schools can meet most weeks and participate in fully interactive literacy sessions.”
• A more formal approach for secondary schools proved popular too. Structured modern language lessons are held with a teacher in France. The French teacher is able to lead the lesson over video conference exactly as if they were physically in the classroom. As well as giving students authentic exposure to the French language, a lesson taught like this can free up a teacher in the school as an assistant can supervise the class.
• Also at secondary level, the web conferencing system has provided Westminster and Kensington-Chelsea boroughs with an efficient and innovative way of selecting teams for the London Debate Challenge. “To save time the knock-out rounds were held over video conference. Addressing current issues, the debates brought students together from a wide area and with different life experiences which provided rich and topical discussions.”
• The Click-to-Meet system also helps teach valuable social lessons in group learning and collaboration, via programmes such as linking Westminster and Kensington-Chelsea students with schools in Japan. “Whilst the Japanese students are given the opportunity to converse in English, it allows students from the two boroughs to experience social studies in a practical way – by having a 21st Century pen friend.”
• At a teacher level, the Click-to-Meet system has encouraged across border discussions and sharing different approaches to Personal Health and Social Education (PHSE). “We used a web conference to make contact with the International School of Belgium and gain insight into how they tackled PHSE. This sparked off a regular exchange between teachers, and helping develop a similar model to the National Curriculum. We use Click-to-Meet to bring up information on the Internet to illustrates points we have been discussing.”

With the Click-to-Meet system firmly established in the Westminster and Kensington-Chelsea boroughs, plans are being made to push boundaries even further and find new ways to make a positive impact on the education environment.