Improving Children’s Education The crusade against Comic Sans and outdated designs!

In 2010 1 in 3 primary children left school not being able to read. This map shows the level of children achieving the expected level of education within England. As you can see from this map there is a vast amount of the darker shades which are a poorer level of achievement. In 2010 1 in 3 primary children left school not being able to read. Children’s education is something that you hear about all the time. It always is in the media and being discussed by the government. There are numerous statistics showing how children’s learning is failing and what can be done to change this, but there doesn’t seem to be a vast improvement. This is something that I wanted to look into and try to come up with a solution to improve this. I started off getting some statistics from the government about children’s level of achievement within primary schools in the UK. I was surprised by some of the results that I found! 1 in 5 primary school children within the UK are not reaching their expected educational level.

Pye Bank Primary School Ages 3 to 11 Ofsted rating of 3 – Requires improvement 13% of pupils are meeting their expected standard of education. Only 2% are achieving a higher standard. “Pupils’ progress in mathematics is too varied. Teachers often give the same depth of work to middle-ability pupils as well as the most able. As a result, the tasks in some classes are too easy, repetitive and undemanding. Consequently, pupils are not challenged sufficiently and their progress slows.” “The quality of teaching, learning and assessment requires improvement because not all teaching is consistently good across the school. Expectations of what pupils can achieve, especially middle-ability pupils and the most able, are not high enough.” There is so much statistical information available on the government website for each school within the UK. I thought it made sense to look into a few of Sheffield's primary schools levels of achievements. The results of this school really shocked me, in total that is 15% so what is happening to the other 85% of children? Ofsted report 14/02/17

Ofsted rating of 4 - inadequate Oasis Academy Fir Vale Ages 4 - 11 Ofsted rating of 4 - inadequate 5% of children are meeting their expected standard level of education. 0% are achieving a higher standard of education “The quality of the learning environment varies across the school. More work is needed to provide a language-rich environment to develop the spoken and written language, particularly in the early years.” The worse school in Sheffield that I saw was Oasis Academy. Ofsted report 13/01/16

Malin Bridge Primary School Ages 2 – 11 Ofsted rating 2 - Good 74% children are not meeting the expected standard 10% of children are reaching higher level than expected It is not yet an outstanding school because: “Teachers do not use information about pupils’ progress precisely enough when planning their lessons. Pupils’ development of writing skills and the progress they make in writing do not match their levels in reading and mathematics. Staff in the Early Years Foundation Stage do not ensure that children access all areas of learning when they choose activities for themselves. Opportunities are missed to develop pupils’ speaking and listening skills and to provide opportunities for writing in other subjects.” From looking into these statistics and the Ofsted reports, it is clear that the one of the main causes is that the teaching is not consistent. Due to this I wanted to try to create some teaching aids and learning tools that could be used in every school to help fix this issue. I looked into some existing resources to see what is out there already. Ofsted report 26/09/12

Here are a set of posters Here are a set of posters. To me these have a very 90’s design aspect with the change in the colour gradients. The illustrations on most of these are very basic and with a heavy stroke. The designs seem to be squashed on the page and don’t make use of any negative space to let the designs breathe.

Display Banners Here are some examples of Display Banners that go in the classroom. These are both from the same company Sparklebox.co.uk. I believe that these fonts are Sassoon, which although this is generally easy to read I feel this looks outdated and not very contemporary. The first has quite a nice layout in the way that the images are all evenly placed and the title is easy to read. This isn’t too busy on the page. I don’t like how they have used the drop shadow effect on the title as this doesn’t seem to flow with the images. I think that the second banner is really ineffective. There is too much going on and makes the content hard to read.

Sparklebox.co.uk Again these are some resources from Sparklebox.co.uk. The first page is a number display. I feel that the title is difficult to read with the clash in colour, but I understand that the colours are trying to keep in the theme of the ladybird imagery. I don’t feel like the layout is very balanced as the numbers look too squashed together. I like the use of colours on the elephant poster and that the layout is quite simple. The illustrations have a little detail with shading which gives them a more modern feel than being a solid block of colour. The last page is an activity sheet for number formations. Although I don’t like the font choices I do think that the layout works well. There is a variations with different activities within the one page with makes it more interesting. Sparklebox.co.uk

Here is a board game that I found online. This design is awful Here is a board game that I found online. This design is awful! The layout leaves something to be desired, there doesn’t seem to be any logical reasoning to where objects have been placed on the page. They have used comic sans as the main body type which is a popular choice in schools due to readability. I feel this is outdated and needs to be changed.

Learning styles - VARK, SEN etc. Things to consider: Learning styles - VARK, SEN etc. I will look into creating various aids to help pupils of all learning styles and abilities – Flash cards, phonics, activity sheets & PowerPoints etc. Consistent styles/designs throughout. Converting into different languages, such as Welsh & Gaeilge not to exclude regions. Appropriate colour themes, typeface, illustrations and content suitable for the age groups & Key Stages. From looking into this area, I feel that this area of teaching aids can be massively improved. The designs can be much more interesting and contemporary. By creating these learning tools I am hoping that this will create a consistency of teaching within all schools. This will then improve the children’s experience, and improve the level of achievement. I am hoping that this will then also make the teacher’s job a little easier as there will be less time needed to prepare lessons etc.