The blog

I can’t believe it, I’ve been writing the Room 13 blog for two and a half years now!

For me it’s been a way of capturing  all the exciting learning and connections we have been making and has helped me keep track of all of the thinking I’ve been doing. (Well some of it anyway!)

Im starting a new adventure shortly and I’m going on secondment to work with the Focus Learning Trust for 18 months so this blog will be quiet for a while. 

I hope it has been interesting to read my ramblings for the past two and a half years. Lots of people have mentioned that they have found the blog useful and it has helped their understanding of SOLEs and the impact it can make. 

I have been shocked and stunned by the number of people who have read the blog and the geographic breadth of those readers. 

6545 so far! 

Too many countries to mention but amazed it includes places like Gabon, Argentina, Mexico, Australia, Iceland, Saudi Arabia, Phillipines, Bangladesh, Russia, Guatemala….

I will be keeping in touch while I’m away and am happy to help with enquiries where I can. 

Engaging with Enquiry

I was asked to deliver our staff CPD recently and the title was ‘Engaging with Enquiry’. 

It was an opportunity to share some SOLE experiences and explore these examples to highlight the philosophy of enquiry and student led learning. 

I shared stories of SOLE sessions that had stuck with me for one reason or another such as the 4 and 5 year olds who were wondering why we like some colours and not others, the year 10 A level Maths SOLE, the boy in Gocharan who had used SOLE to create a new computer programming system and the children in Chandrakona who had shown us their ‘magic tricks’ and explained in almost perfect English how these science experiments worked. 

It was clear from the examples that with the right conditions and circumstances that teachers can create, how possible student led enquiry can be. 

“Creativity takes courage”- Henri Matisse.

“You’re not meant to do what is easy, you’re meant to challenge yourself” – Justin Timberlake.

We also celebrated the dedicated and innovative vertical tutor time that David Priestley developed – Time for Success. There is time everyday committed to enquiry through the T4S model and we discussed an open enquiry area for the next half term. We considered the kind of shared outcomes that could be created and possible, focusing on what could be shared across tutor groups, the whole school as well as the wider community too.
I shared some examples of enquiries we have set up for next half term including work with Luxi and the National Crime Agency exploring cybercrime, global learning opportunities and SOLEs with our partners in India, our adopted train station and the possibilities that this opportunity could create. 

I think it will be an exciting half term that encourages everyone to explore, enquire and question and to celebrate this publicly with outcomes that can be shared across the school and wider community.