Sports Colleges Conference 2010 - Summary

Today was the final day of the Sports Colleges Conference in Telford, which was a great success for all involved. Many thanks to Ian Cawley, and team, from Youth Sport Trust for his great support, and for putting on a good event. You can see our stand (730) pictured left.

T-Learning have been working with YST for a number of years now, and we were at the show to help spread the word about our collaborative project. We have worked together, along with four Specialist Sports Colleges, to produce interactive resources for GCSE & BTEC PE Theory. These are now being used on over 60 schools to help students engage with PE Theory in a new and innovative way, while improving standards both in delivery by teachers, and in attainment for students. By offering access to shared, community generated resources, it seems that all parties are benefiting. If you would like more info on the project, and would like to see the impact that Taecanet Springboard for PE has had on GCSE results, please follow this link http://www.taecanet.com/yst/conference.htm

We had a lot of interested parties visit the stand, and as revision is vital at this time of year, this was the focus of many discussions and demonstrations. Surprisingly, quite a few teachers wanted to explore the other resources we offer (such as Science, History, Geography, RE & Citizenship) as they were so engaged with the offering across PE.

Our community based PE learning network was also represented at one of the 'Sharing The Challenge' sessions where supporters; Tony Downey (Blessed Robert Sutton School), Mick Tizard (The Cavendish School) & Kirstie Hartwell (Charters School) were on-hand to describe the project to interested parties. These teachers have experience of the project, ranging from strategic organisation to building the actual content used within the network. All of these perspectives were valuable when informing teachers about the community and the impact it has had on PE Theory education so far.

Many thanks to everyone who was able to visit the stand. We hope to see you all again very soon and I would encourage any interested parties to contact chris.davison@t-learning.net

Sports College Conference, Telford 2010

T-Learning will be attending the YST Sports Colleges Conference 2010 at the International Centre, Telford on stand 730.

Here, we will be showcasing the output of the collaborative project between T-Learning, YST, and 4 Specialist Sports Colleges. Taecanet Springboard for PE is helping students to improve motivation and results in GCSE PE Theory by providing access to shared learning resources.

Following the roll out of the project in 2008/9, 80% of Sports Colleges who took part in the project reported improvements to their GCSE PE results.

More information on the project can be found at http://www.taecanet.com/yst/index.php, and you can follow the link to the Conference 2010 information.

Hackney School Rewarded After Completing Online PE Homework!

T-Learning will be presenting a prize at Hackney Free & Parochial School in London on Thursday 17th December. This is to commemorate the fact that a student within this school completed the 3,000,000th Taecanet Springboard learning journey on 8th November 2009 at 9.56pm.

The school will receive a financial donation from T-Learning and the pupil in question will also receive enough iTunes vouchers to keep them occupied for the next few weeks!

This caps a great first year, following the release of our PE elearning resources, which over 60 schools are now using. The first year has proven a great success, with 80% of Sports Colleges partaking in the project, reporting improvements in GCSE PE results.

T-Learning have teamed up with Youth Sport Trust and 4 Specialist Sports Colleges in order to produce interactive learning resources for GCSE & BTEC PE. For more information on the collaborative project, please visit www.taecanet.com/yst/index.php or contact chris.davison@t-learning.net

PE Resources Score Big For Schools!

Following our collaborative PE project with Youth Sport Trust (YST), our schools have been prolific in their use of the KS4 PE resources so far. Over 100,000 learning journeys have now been completed, which equates to over 3,500 hours of extra tuition across the 60 schools involved. What was the result of all of this activity?

Students completed work both inside and outside of school online, and feedback suggests that they were motivated to learn, which matches feedback from our other subject areas. Teachers also saw significant improvements in attainment with 80% of the Sports Colleges involved reporting improvements over last years GCSE grades. Although these stats are unverified at present, we are very encouraged by this initial release.

We have also seen evidence of improved results across other KS's & subject areas, which strengthens our belief that Taecanet Springboard can motivate pupils and improve attainment through the provision of personalised learning.

T-Learning are experts in the creation of sustainable elearning communities. Our PE community was established some months ago with the help of YST and 4 Specialist Sports Colleges, in which teachers produced the resources which now populate the service. Schools are now beginning to see the benefits of this project. For more information on this project, please contact chris.davison@t-learning.net or visit www.taecanet.com/yst/index.php

Join Our Growing PE Learning Network!

Following on from the Sports Colleges Conference earlier this month, I would like to welcome: The Lammas School in Leyton, Wood Green High School in Sandwell, Cumberland School in London and Wey Valley School in Dorset into our teaching and learning community.

This is a positive indication that Sports Colleges and other schools alike see the benefits of developing personalised learning across the GCSE & BTEC PE courses. Initial feedback has been extremely positive and we look forward to working closely with the above schools in the coming months.

If you would like to know more about the collaborative PE project, please go to http://www.taecanet.com/yst/index.htm . Here you can learn about the origins of the project and submit any questions/comments you may have.

We look forward to expanding our PE community, as we have with other subjects across the curriculum.

For more general information about Taecanet Springboard please visit www.taecanet.com where you can hear how schools are using the service to deliver personalised learning and to help engage and motivate students. To find out more about how schools are using the service and what impact it has made, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm

Need Help With PE Theory Revision? Talk To T-Learning!

Many thanks to everyone who managed to attend the T-Learning stand at the Sports Colleges Conference in Telford last week (pictured above). I'm pleased to say it was a huge success with over 100 schools visiting the stand over the two days, which certainly kept us on our toes!

Thanks also to Ian Cawley and his team from Youth Sport Trust (YST) for their invitation to the exhibition and for their excellent support in making our collaborative project a success to date. We are delighted to be part of this collaborative network made up of 4 Specialist Sports Colleges, YST and T-Learning, in order to distribute best practice and deliver effective teaching and learning resources for KS4 PE. With revision high on the school agenda at the current time, it could not be a better time to get involved with this project.

So far, feedback from schools has been extremely positive. Scott Cordon form Chasetown Sports College described Taecanet Springboard as "absolutely fantastic" and he "could not speak highly enough of it students love it and staff like the service too, because Units are easy to set up and teachers get instant feedback of student progress”. At present, with revision occupying much school time, this instant feedback through Reports is key to guiding teachers on targeted revision activities for whole classes as well as individual students. For a full copy of the case study, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/yst/casestudy.htm

Following on from the show, we would like to welcome Wood Green High School in Sandwell, Lammas School and Sports College in Waltham Forest and Cumberland School in Plaistow, London, into our teaching and learning community. We very much look forward to getting you started in the coming days to help with your immediate revision needs.

Visitors to our stand will have all the info needed to get involved. However, should you like further information please visit www.taecanet.com and follow the YST link at the foot of the page. Otherwise, please email ian.nairn@taecanet.com with any specific requests.

Collaborative Learning - Sharing Knowledge Through Teacher Networks

Some would say collaboration in education is the best way of efficiently sharing best practice in order to help raise standards. By sharing techniques and resources, schools can improve efficiency and the quality of output. This thinking underpins the Taecanet model, and with hundreds of teachers acting to collaborate, the rest of the teaching population can significantly benefit. After all, why should teachers continually re-invent the wheel?

We see ourselves as integral to the dissemination of this 'knowledge share' to which teachers, themselves, actively contribute. Teacher's expertise for teaching is matched by our expertise to build their input into educationally valuable digital objects, and distribute them online. In this way, easy access is achieved, and so far, millions of Learning Journeys have been completed. In many cases, results have also improved accordingly. To find out more about how Taecanet are helping schools, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm

As a result of this successful collaboration between education and industry, Taecanet are now undertaking more specialist projects. A collaborative project is now underway involving Taecanet and the Youth Sports Trust. This project was initiated by Tony Downey, Headteacher at Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Sports College (http://www.robertsutton.staffs.sch.uk/), who saw Taecanet as a valuable partner to help facilitate shared knowledge across a number of schools. Mr Downey commented;

"I very much liked the process of collaboration between schools and industry, and I think Taecanet are undertaking work that I have not seen from anybody else".

"What I liked about the service, was how receptive I was as a learner. The user is invited to learn and improve, and then undertake assessment. The mixture of engagement and interactivity, which make up the learning process, is the closest thing that I have witnessed to a real life school scenario."

"I have been impressed with the output of materials so far, and I look forward to the finished product and it's release in the future".

Other schools, such as Charters School, Cavendish and Kingdown Schools have now joined forces in order to create KS4 G.C.S.E and BTEC P.E. modules, which will be distributed through the Taecanet Springboard service. There will be an Autumn Term trialling process involving 20 schools, before the results are presented to the Sports Colleges Conference 2008. A significant proportion of the work has been completed by the teachers involved, and Taecanet are delighted to be involved in this innovative and exciting project. Please click here for the full article from the Youth Sports Trust website.

If you would like any more information on this project, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/contact.htm and type 'P.E.' before entering your query. More general information on Taecanet's services can be found by visiting www.taecanet.com