The annual CLC Managers conference was held at the Olympia Exhibition Centre on 11th January. The annual conference provided the opportunity for the CLC Managers and curriculum developers to have an overview of: the Departments thinking regarding the New Relationship with Schools; Foundation Partnerships and the potential role of CLCs within these partnerships; the National College for School Leadership newly developed programme for Head Teachers and Senior Management to assist in developing the role of ICT in education; two key policy workshops on Building Schools for the Future and E-Learning Strategy and a number of workshops demonstrating innovative practice using ICT that impacts on educational attainment.

Stephen Heppell’s keynote address
Stephen Heppell provided a thought provoking talk on education using technology by illustrating the rate of technological change and freedoms of creative expression by comparing a 7 year old’s clay animation from 1993 with one from 2004. He also intimated that the biggest barriers that education professionals faced were ‘capped’ ambitions and institutions providing a diet of national provision, he felt that schools do not have a right to survive and need to adapt to how people learn today. Stephen spoke about some of his current projects that are primarily concerned with the design of the learning institution and the learning environment, then offered thoughts on how education could be delivered in the future. Finally he highlighted a mismatch in the way young people now learn using peer-to-peer networks rather than the formal ‘centralised’, ‘controlled’ model of the curriculum. To download the presentation click here ( 101 Kb).

Foundation Partnerships & funding of CLCs post 2006
Janice Lawson, from the DfES, gave an overview of the New Relationships with Schools policy and its place within the 5 Year Strategy for Children and Learners. In her presentation she gave indications of current thinking on foundation partnerships (fps) and the potential role of CLCs within an fp. She was keen to highlight their potential to lead innovation in learning and using ICT as key teaching resource. The fact that CLCs provide a valuable community learning facility gives them additional strength. Janice highlighted the success of Excellence in Cities with average rates of improvement "well over twice the rate of other schools in terms of the percentage of pupils gaining 5 good GCSEs". Click here to download the PowerPoint slides from Janice's presentation.

The conference welcomed the announcement that CLCs would sit outside the NRwS and that they were to be moved more closely with the LEA ICT Strategy and possibly funded directly through the LEA. They would however, continue to be managed by the manager and a Partnership Board to direct their activity according to need.

Strategic Leadership of ICT
Hannah Jones, Director of Strategic Leadership of ICT (SLICT), National College for School Leadership, gave an interesting presentation on the aims of the SLICT programme. The programme has been designed to provide Head Teachers with informed professional judgement to ensure that the potential of ICT is realised in their schools as a tool for school improvement. The programme also supports school leaders in developing knowledge, skills and understanding to plan for and use ICT innovatively to raise standards and provide children with life long learning skills. Hannah explained that schools with strong leadership of ICT (defined as design and development of a vision for a school's ICT strategy) were more likely to address workload issues since they stopped teachers from being overwhelmed with new initiatives, training and new processes coming all at once. Hannah said that ICT has the potential to transform education, to enrich and enhance subject teaching. Her vision is one where teachers are confidently, successfully and routinely using ICT in their teaching practice. To download her presentation, click here ( 2.8 Mb).

E-Learning Strategy
Mark Cummings (DfES official in the E-Learning Strategy Unit), gave a presentation giving the general outlines of the Department's e-learning strategy which supports the Department's Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners. The strategy plans to unify e-learning by: personalising the learning experience, engaging/supporting learners, supporting the learning workforce, supporting leaders/institutions and integrating the e-systems. Mark also gave his thoughts on how moving towards an integrated e-strategy by removing the current barriers would enable the department to be the drivers of sustainable innovation. To download the e-Learning Strategy presentation click here ( 2.9 Mb).

Building Schools for the Future
Joan Minogue, from the Schools Capital Team DfES, gave a talk about the Department's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. This is a commitment to rebuild and upgrade secondary-schools. The aim is to renew every secondary school in England in a ten to fifteen year period from 2005-06. The BSF programme will necessitate reform in the way schools are designed, the way funding is allocated, and the way school buildings are procured. From now on LEAs with an interest in developing a schools PFI project will do so via the BSF route, as PFI will be integrated into the BSF programme. By 2011: 60% of local authorities will be involved in BSF. By 2007-08, 6.5 billion pounds of funding will have been allocated to BSF and all authorities will be given an indication of when they can join. 60% are to join by 2011 and all others will have at least one secondary school by 2011. By 2016, there will be at least three new secondary schools for every authority. To download a copy of the presentation click here ( 2.6 Mb).