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.

Help Us To Help You!

Our attempts to quantify whether Taecanet helps to improve student attainment continue. We now have much feedback and case study material attesting to the fact that learning on Taecanet Springboard does help to improve results, as well as helping student motivation levels.

We have recently heard from Ian Fergus, Headteacher at Woodside Primary School in the Forest of Dean (SW England). The school is very small, with only 100 students and Taecanet Springboard was originally implemented in 2006 to help support teaching and learning in Science. Initially, Years 5/6 were the main users, but since then, younger students have begun to use the service across different subject areas as well. They really enjoy using the service and seem to have a real appetite for all things Taecanet, which is great news! Teachers also find the service a great help for class work, in terms of finding and utilising content for whole class sessions.

So what was the impact on learning?

Results at KS2
06/07 100% L4 Science 35% L5 in a group with 33% SEN
07/08 100% L4 Science 66% L5 much more able group but still exceeded targets.

This seems quite a marked improvement, even taking into account the factors stated. Even the 06/07 stats show Taecanet can be used to help students with varying levels of ability to achieve.

For any schools who wish to know more about improved results and general school feedback, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm or email enquiries@taecanet.com. We are very proud of our contribution at Woodside Primary, as well as all of the other schools we are currently helping.

Thanks to Ian Fergus and his team for their continued support.

More Schools See Exam Improvements Using Taecanet!

Feedback is key to any service related business, in order to help improve standards. Taecanet is no different and we are now receiving feedback from many different schools. One such school is Blessed Sacrament Junior School in Liverpool, and their feedback on our online elearing service is as follows.

Following an initial familiarisation session, teachers now get together to discuss and set appropriate Units of work for students. Multiple Units are set at one time, usually a mix of subjects.

Their main focus is home use and students who cannot gain access at home are allowed into lunch clubs. They use this technique to reinforce class learning. Parents have reacted very well and like the fact that they can play a role in the education of their child. Some parents have even brought PCs based on how much they are beginning to see the benefits of learning through ICT. This is a very encouraging shift, as it shows the transparency that using ICT in education can provide across both school and home. Teachers report that lessons are more productive when Taecanet work has been completed. Science results were 8% better than LEA guidelines and teachers were very candid in suggesting Level 4 SATs improvements were down to Taecanet! Another example of improved knowledge was when a student in class told the teacher a fact about Henry VIII. The teacher was not aware of this fact and when quizzed about where they learned it, the student suggested it was on Taecanet Springboard. The teachers attest to the fact that students learn even more than they need to on the service, and more than through text books because of the wealth of info contained on Taecanet, which leads to a more rounded learning experience.

Teachers use the teacher centre to track student Reports online from home, so that they have prior knowledge when they return to class the following day. This gives them a distinct advantage over traditional homework. Teachers and parents like the focused nature of the service, meaning increased safety and less distraction for pupils. They even suggested that Taecanet helps to improve the family unit, as there is more shared info across the family as well as more collaborative tasks such as homework. Even though some teachers in the school have limited ICT skills, they are still able to use the service. Even teachers who were initially resistant are now accessing the service, and taking that valuable ‘first step’ into using ICT, thus improving their skills. The school are now interested in booking further training to help staff reach the next level of competency.

The above feedback suggests that Taecanet Springboard is doing what we set out to do! It helps to: engage pupils, improve results, open up access outside of school and help teachers....to name but a few things. We look forward to hearing back from more of our schools in the future.

To find out more, please visit www.taecanet.com where you can apply for a free guest account. Please contact enquiries@taecanet.com if you have any questions.

Some Good News For SATs Results!

The vast majority of people involved in education have the same goal; to help students learn, improve and achieve as best they can. A key requirement to facilitate this is to provide both students and teachers with a comprehensive tool set, which meets the needs of the parties involved. As teachers are increasingly busy, ICT is now playing a valuable role in helping schools to modernise education, provide teachers with excellent interactive resources, and giving students increased ownership of their own learning. With ICT giving teachers so many options, and by giving students a platform on which they enjoy learning, student motivation is increased and results can be improved.

Taecanet Springboard provides teachers with a live online teaching and learning community, and by sharing best practice, both teachers and students can thrive in the ways described above. Students can benefit from personalised learning, engaging materials and the fact that they can access the service online, 24/7. Teachers can benefit by having access to a pool of resources from hundreds of teachers, as well as time saving features, such as automated marking (making it easy to spot strong/weak areas) and the rapid release of work, meaning that a Unit of work can be released to a class in about 30 seconds!

Year on year, we have received feedback from schools suggesting that Taecanet Springboard has helped to improve results and in some cases, massive improvements have been witnessed. To see case studies relating to this, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm. We have most recently heard from Woodside Primary School in Gloucestershire (http://www.woodside.ik.org/).

In the case of Woodside Primary, not only did they achieve their best ever results for Science (100% Level 4 & 66% Level 5 - against predicted results which were 94% Level 4 and 54% Level 5) but they also for the first time achieved 100% Level 4 for Literacy & Numeracy, with Taecanet making a positive impact on Literacy through improved reading levels.

This is brilliant news, and to this end, we would encourage more schools to get involved to see if we can help in the same way. Please visit www.taecanet.com to apply for a free guest account, or call 0871 288 4580 to speak with the team about how we can help in your school.

We have also previously outlined feedback from Claires Court School in Berkshire, describing how using Taecanet Springboard has helped their students to achieve fantastic results in the new 'SOSCA' online assessments. For more information on this, please see the blog article below this one.

We would like to thank all subscribing schools for their on-going support, and also welcome interest from new schools and other interested parties. We will be detailing other 'good news' stories in the near future and look forward to continuing this trend of improved results next year!