Tuesday, 18 April 2006
Today we visited an amazing primary school called “The School” part of Columbia University. The school is only a couple of years old however has been in the planning for 30 or more years. It was established to attract professors and university lecturers to teach within the university. Having a school on site together with accommodation is a powerful incentive for staff to apply for these professorships. However 50% of all students attending ‘the school’ came initially from a public lottery for people living within a geographic area around the school.
The fees are as high as $24,000US per year however many ‘local parents’ pay a small portion according to their income. The purpose build building had some design issues with class sizes needing to be considerably smaller, 16, due to the size of the rooms. Still the staff : student ratio was ..... 1:5, with up to 20 adults working on learning programs for 60 students ..... 1:3!
The technologies was pervasive and part of learning programs. Interactive whiteboards and an integrated media centre for each classroom was the centre piece of the room. All students in Year 3 and above had a laptop with each teacher allocated a notebook as part of their package. All the notebooks remained the property of the school and the network was wireless with a fibre backbone.
Interestingly if a student wanted to take the home, they had to book them out and in each day.
The parents and children come to school at about 8.00 am and involved in a breakfast program although they bring their lunch. Once the children go to class at about 8.25 am many parents go back to the canteen and many are involved in committees until 9.30.
All students have a MAP, “My Achievement Plan” and MAP time in the week on their 3 goals, 3-4 strategies per goal one of which has to come within other students in the class.
The MAPs and other curriculum materials were recorded in a developing learning management system. This is web browser based, developed in-house with outside developer consultants using an Oracle database back end.
