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Lee Jackson is an Award-Winning Motivational Speaker and Presentation Coach working in organisations businesses and education to help people Get Good® - his style is engaging, authentic and jargon free.

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You are here: Home / Archives for education

Universities are being asked to raise their access targets, Aimhigher lives on? Erm kinda…

01/07/2011 By Lee

universities, some are being asked to raise their targets for widening participation

via guardian.co.uk

Universities are doing more than ever to finance and support widening participation. Why is it, then, that just one month before the announcement of access agreements from the Office for Fair Access, we are being asked to raise our access targets again? Over the last week, Offa has been in touch with universities to discuss their draft access agreements ahead of the announcement on 12 July. Intriguingly, these discussions appear to include proposals for “nudging up” targets. What could be the rationale for this now? It is already several weeks since universities submitted their access arrangements for scrutiny. Is it to provide some unspoken target for the sector? Could it be to provide ministers with evidence that their policies will deliver increased access to higher education for young people of talent from under-represented groups by 2015-16? If it is, we should remember that in the same month, the government is to cut its funding for the Aimhigher programme that has supported widening participation activity so well in recent years. Aimhigher has had a significant impact in encouraging young people from non-traditional backgrounds to consider higher education. Even in these difficult financial times, universities like my own are strongly committed to finding the budget to continue financing this important work themselves. We’ve seen that it works and acknowledge that it has a key role in helping us to achieve access targets. We should also remember and applaud the significant efforts and commitment of the many staff in the sector who promote and widen access to higher education. Over the summer, in universities across the country, our staff will bring their creativity, flair and energy to find ever more engaging ways to raise the awareness and aspirations of young people. Outreach teams work with children, parents and schools as early as primary years. This is excellent work, but it requires a long-term commitment. In a recent briefing, Action on Access (the co-ordination team for widening participation) brought together information from a range of independent reviews and proposed a framework for embedding widening participation within institutions. These include engaging with learners at an early stage to encourage them to enter HE; preparing learners for university; working in partnership with community groups, employers and professional bodies; and, importantly, embedding widening participation and equality in institutional strategies. Over the last decade, the sector has made real improvements in access for students from under-represented groups. However, for all the nudging of the figures by Offa, and institutional change implemented by universities, the reality is that the impact of government changes to the funding of higher education will be a live experiment with young people’s futures. There are serious concerns that, by altering so greatly the balance of funding for higher education from the public purse to the individual, the government’s changes will undermine progress in widening participation, effectively “nudging” under-represented groups “out” of higher education. Another concern for those working to widen participation is the extensive public confusion about the new funding arrangements. The government appears to have had a problem in getting a simple, coherent message across to future students and their parents about the implications of the changes to fees and loans. I trust that the newly established Independent Taskforce on Student Finance Information, headed by money-saving expert Martin Lewis and the former NUS president, Wes Streeting, will be able to address this. I also hope that Simon Hughes MP, in his role as advocate for access, will be able to ensure that our work in widening participation is supported nationally. Here at Southampton, we are proud to have the highest ranking in the Russell Group for the proportion of state school students we recruit. We are committed to this continuing. I passionately hope that no student will be deterred by uncertainty about the changes coming in 2012. However, in the light of the new funding arrangements, it is clear that while Offa works to “nudge up” the ambitions of the sector in terms of access, those of us in the sector must work even harder to find ways of ensuring that young people of talent from under-represented groups don’t reject the prospect of higher education because of an over-riding fear of debt. • Professor Debra Humphris is pro vice-chancellor, education, at the University of Southampton

Filed Under: education, leejackson, teens Tagged With: leejackson

Lee Jackson 15 min live radio interview about his book “How To Be Sick At School”

21/05/2011 By Lee

I’ve just done a radio interview about my book so i thought I’d share it with you as a background to my book. More details at http://www.howtobesickatschool.com

Online schooling might be a better option for some youth.

Filed Under: education, leejackson, teens Tagged With: leejackson

10 ways to find more time

19/05/2011 By Lee

Media_httpdldropboxco_hzadp

Oh, what would we trade for just a few more minutes and hours in the day sometimes. Luckily, WebWorkerDaily provides some pointers on finding some extra time in the day. Here are just a few of the recommendations:

  1. Take breaks. When we get really busy, we tend to turn into workaholics and attempt to power through the work even when we aren’t being productive. While taking a break sounds like you will lose time, in many cases, it can help you get a new perspective on a difficult problem. A short walk can help, as can taking a break to accomplish something else, like running an errand or getting in a workout. After a little break, your brain will be refreshed and ready to be productive again.
  2. Have effective meetings. Strive to have shorter, more effective meetings by being organized and always having a definitive end time. Spending a few minutes preparing for a meeting and send out an agenda and other materials in advance; it will mean that you get through the meeting faster, with less floundering around figuring out what you need to accomplish. I also try to keep people on track during the meeting and attempt to end on time or early when possible.
  3. Schedule work. We all have certain tasks that require uninterrupted time where we can focus. For those activities, I try to free up big blocks of time on my calendar, and I schedule those tasks the same way that I would schedule a meeting, which allows me the time to work uninterrupted.

Full story at Giga Om.

More lifehacks.

Photo credit: Fotolia

via holykaw.alltop.com

Filed Under: education, leejackson, teens Tagged With: leejackson

Jamie’s Dream School – Final comments from a professional schools speaker #dreamschool

18/04/2011 By Lee

http://www.youtube.com/dreamschool

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/jamies-dream-school

Final comments on Channel 4’s / Jamie Oliver’s Dream School.

Well, dream school has certainly been a roller coaster, it’s had it’s good points and it’s bad points, but overall it has reflected the real challenges of young people who struggle with education. Something I’ve done almost every week for the last 18 years.

I covered the first five episodes in depth ( see http://leejackson.org/blog ) but after being away in Japan for two weeks I’ve had to play catch up a bit as channel 4 isn’t on Japanese TV or an Airbus A380! So I thought I would wrap it up by leaving you with some of the final thoughts shared at the end of the series…

“…My guess for what its worth…Teachers could do with less rules and regulations and more freedom to try what works for their classes” – I totally agree Jamie we need to really let teachers teach (and not just say it as a sound bite).

“I can’t say the kids weren’t hard to reach but a few things worked – practical teaching styles, a wide ranch of subjects, but most importantly finding individual passions and unlocking their creativity – nice one Jamie! I always start my motivational schools talks talking about passion, once they find their passion it spills out onto the other lessons too.

“They’ve all got lots to offer but they’ve been let down by an education system – there has to be a something wrong with an education system that lets 300,000 young people leave every year with nothing to show for it. This series was a plea on their behalf, they can be inspired by education and that is not a dream – the education system isn’t perfect, that’s for sure Jamie. That’s why we need creative head teachers not afraid to push staff to break the mould, but with league tables always present – will that be possible?

The student Jenny said these amazing, tear filled words “I went through school and everyone said that ‘i couldn’t’, and now everyone here is saying that ‘i can’ – I’ve been given the chance of my life and i never thought that would happen to me” – we must NEVER say to a young person ‘you can’t make it’, yet it seems that in the education system there are still people who do. There’s no room in education for a cynic. Seriously there isn’t, I mentioned this in a teacher training session a few weeks ago and everyone agreed, except of course the cynics! But the headteacher’s face was beaming when I said it!

 “In dream school I was surprised at how brilliant they could be, but I was also surprised, at times, at how unteachable they could be too!” – that’s the fun of teaching young people – never a dull moment, but some brilliants moments too!

Well done Jamie and Channel 4, a great series with, I hope, lasting impact on those young people’s lives through the scholarships and mentoring.

Now you should have a short break and do it all again, now that’s real education 🙂

Let’s do another series with real teachers, speakers and mentors, now that would be fun.

“Lee Jackson is schools speaker with 20 years experience and the author of the book “”How To Be Sick At School” which help teens succeed in school  – www.howtobesickatschool.com” 

Filed Under: education, leejackson, teens Tagged With: education, leejackson, teens

Jamie’s Dream School Episode 5 “Sperm, Shakespeare and surgery!” – comments from a professional schools speaker #dreamschool

31/03/2011 By Lee

Lord_robert_winston_school35mm_376

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/jamies-dream-school

http://www.youtube.com/dreamschool

Jamie’s dream school episode 5. “Sperm, Shakespeare and surgery!”

 

A big move this week as we (at last!) move out of the classroom a bit more. Jamie has really got it now as the penny drops that a lot of “challenging teens” are kinesthetic learners (they learn by ‘doing’).

 

We must let young people move around if they are to learn. Often when I work in school I get asked to do a presentation followed by a workshop, and the first thing I do in the workshop is stop taking and get them moving around the room. It’s a must and it’s biologically sound… e.g. did you know that testosterone levels in lads reaches it’s peak mid morning, and that doesn’t necessarily make them ‘randy’ (!), it makes them restless. Lads, in particular, get fidgety, but we routinely tell them to sit down and be quiet. Something we may have to re-think, if we are to reach the unreachable.

 

Jamie and his teachers really grasped this concept this week as we saw them doing cooking, surgery, art and acting (at The Globe theatre). Simon Callow struggled to get them engaged with Romeo and Juliet but when they had to read the words live on stage at The Globe, then it all changed for them. They came alive, even the grumpy lads who couldn’t connect with it in the classroom, acted their hearts out. Great stuff.

 

And when cooking Jamie realised that a ‘pre-amble’ before an activity is a waste of time and he twigged that he had to get them chopping vegetables straight away, he did, and it worked. And some of the young people started to love cookery, a possible career choice for some of them.

 

Robert Winston was on form this week as he put the lads semen under the microscope (interesting new lesson Mr. Gove!) and also brought in a surgery team to show them how surgery and medicine works in the real world. It was great and Chloe was very passionate and went on to do some work experience in an operating theatre, it was a bit of a shock for her but, again, it’s real world stuff and it might be an job option for her.

 

It was also good to see one of my childhood heroes back on TV – Daley Thompson, what a legend. He got the young people into the diving pool and deliberately got them out of their comfort zone and after a lot of practice and encouragement they started to love it. Proof indeed that we should always push young people beyond their current mindset – but we must support them while they are being pushed, and not leave them in the lurch! “They are not very confident, so little victories are good for them” Daley said.

 

Unfortunately in the human rights lessons with Cherie Booth/Blair they were very chatty again, constantly interrupting and talking over each other, almost back to earlier episodes, which made me think…I wonder whether some of the young people have no inner monologue?! I had a friend who hasn’t got one – she speaks out loud almost every thought, making it exhausting being with her. Can we help our young people to think a little more before they speak? I wonder when they watch the program whether they see themselves in a different light?

 

I’m not having a go at them I just wonder whether their lack of restraint was the biggest factor to their underachievement? Answers on postcard please.

 

Academia exists for the pure pursuit of knowledge but education in school surely should be more practical than that?

 

I think this program is proving that. Keep going Jamie you are doing well! 

 

Cushdie! 

Filed Under: education, leejackson, teens Tagged With: education, leejackson, teens

Jamie’s Dream School Episode 4 – comments from a professional schools speaker

24/03/2011 By Lee

Images

 

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/jamies-dream-school

http://www.youtube.com/dreamschool

Episode 4 “Old school”

Jamie and his team of celeb teachers take it back to the old school this week and try to teach Latin and Poetry, a brave move.

And at first it’s a disaster! Constant chatting from the class (often known as “low level disruption”) causes some big problems in some very ‘wordy’ lessons. Andrew Motion the former poet laureate really struggled to be heard – he only lasted half a lesson and then decided to call the class off – something that teachers and schools speakers can’t do in real schools. You keep going until the bell goes, that’s one of the skills of teaching, pushing through until you get a breakthrough or at the very least, the bell rings!

Jamie made lots of insightful comments in this episode as the learning deepens for him too…”you have to be like an octopus” was one of my favourites, how right he is. Teaching challenging teens is the ultimate in multi-tasking.

E.g. In one of the Latin classes the young people brought a squabble into the class room with them, always an issue in schools as we don’t know what has just happened outside of class, or at home – only a few weeks ago I was in a school speaking to Year 10 and it just felt “odd” I couldn’t really put my finger on it, it wasn’t an easy day at all. Then later I found out by accident that they were due an imminent OFSTED inspection which they were only expected to ‘scrape through’, as a visitor the staff hadn’t even told me, and their stress was rubbing off on the young people, it was all very tense.

And then anger shows its face again…

“If anyone is rude to me, I’ll be angry” says Harlem the shortest tempered of the teens, she doesn’t realise that being angry and aggressive is a choice she makes! I still find that amazing. We as humans make thousands of choices everyday and getting angry is one of them. Harlem seems to think that once she gets angry then there’s no going back – the red mist rules her life. I really hope she gets some help, or she just won’t ever get a chance to work or even live a normal life 🙁

Then it all gets too much…

…the head teacher John “Dabs” gets really emotional and rightly so – teaching is a tough job, teaching is much more than a job, it’s a life choice, and you could really feel his pain in this episode. It was good to see a teacher cry on TV, it shows the rest of us why they do their job. They want to make a difference.

So, in the light of this, Jamie had a word with them all about the constant talking and disrespect that sent the Headteacher over the edge, and amazingly it seemed to work (!) the lessons got better. Even my least favourite teacher David Starkey seemed to get through to them.

One key to the difference was that the teachers started to have some one to one time with the students and it really paid off. The individual attention had a big impact on their learning. Should our teachers spend more time one to one, rather than in big classes? Challenging stuff.

Then one of the students said “I can’t write with everyone talking”, so maybe peace and quiet is a key to learning too, how do we help our young people focus? I talk about this alot in schools, focus is so important. The research shows that distractions, are, err, well, distractions!! Our young people (and us adults) must learn to switch off their phones, Facebook chat and their music and learn to study in quiet when a task needs doing. It’s not very fashionable to say it, but it works!

Anyway, I’ll leave you with Jamie’s lessons from this week…

 “We had our moments, but we had our breakthroughs”

“All the teachers are learning just as much as the students”

I agree Jamie, and this is becoming a great show that everyone should watch.

 

“Lee Jackson is school speaker with 20 years experience and the author of the book “”How To Be Sick At School” which help teens succeed in school  – www.howtobesickatschool.com “

Filed Under: education, leejackson, teens Tagged With: education, leejackson, teens

Jamie’s Dream School Episode 3 – comments from a professional schools speaker

21/03/2011 By Lee

Jamie-dream-school1

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/jamies-dream-school

http://www.youtube.com/dreamschool

Episode 3

Some interesting twists and turns in this episode! 

Harlem was the main feature after her aggressive outburst and very nearly punch up. Not uncommon in some schools. She went home and told her Mum her side of the story but then she had to take her Mum into school and watch the video of what really happened in the lesson. It was fascinating to see first hand one of the biggest issues with teenagers – their lack of self-awareness (this is one of the last things that develops in a young person). 

I’m not for recording every school lesson (obviously), but sometimes it may be handy! 

Only today a teenager was very rude to me in school and “went off on one” after he disagreed with me. I’m sure he had no idea what he looked and sounded like, he wasn’t and isn’t self-aware. The easiest example i can give is often teenagers can be a bit like David Brent in The Office, that show was all about him NOT being self-aware.

The biosphere stuff was great too, Danielle really came alive and found her passion, one of the keys to a happy education. Brilliant. Danielle said “Hair and beauty was the easy option for someone like me, I know that now”. Wow. Danielle was one of four people who went into the biosphere, the other three left because they wanted a fag! 

Nicotine has a lot to answer for in our society. 

Of course fags weren’t the real reason they left, maybe they didn’t like being singled out from the crowd or maybe they just didn’t see the bigger picture and they were only out for themselves. Selfishness and “the grass is greener…” is a powerful influence. A shame they couldn’t stick it out, but full marks and a scholarship to Danielle, very inspiring. 

Sometimes working with young people is tough and seeing those light bulb moments like Danielle’s and Harlem’s are worth holding onto. 

Well done Jamie and team, you might just change some young peoples lives after all 🙂
“Lee Jackson is school speaker with 20 years experience and the author of the book “”How To Be Sick At School” which help teens succeed in school  – www.howtobesickatschool.com “

 

Filed Under: education, leejackson, teens Tagged With: education, leejackson, teens

Jamie’s Dream School Episode 2 – comments from a professional schools speaker

21/03/2011 By Lee

Dream_school

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/jamies-dream-school
http://www.youtube.com/dreamschoo

Episode 2

Well done Jamie! After the last episode and the Dr. Starkey incident things have got much better. The way Jazzy B dealt with the young people was brilliant, he was firm but fair and inspired them to write music, great stuff. 

But the start of the show was Rankin who had a class full of young people who all seemed to say to him “I’m not creative, I cant do art” but he helped and encouraged them and they came back with some amazing artwork. At that point the whole series got interesting as “the lights went on” and some of them realised that they could be creative and yes – they could achieve.

One of the most perplexing things about working with young people is that the “cocky” ones seem confident but in reality they often have low self-esteem – and so the outworking of that is that they would rather “mess around” and fail than “step up” and achieve.

It’s much easier to be invisible, than to put your head above the parapet and risk being slagged off by your mate or even (sadly) by adults. 

Well done Dream School both the adults and the young people made big steps forward this week and even conflict was dealt with well and apologies were made. Great TV!

Now, I must go I’m off to speak to 200 15 year olds! 

“Lee Jackson is the one of the UK’s most experienced school speakers and author of the book “”How To Be Sick At School” which help teens succeed in school  – www.howtobesickatschool.com “

 

Filed Under: education, leejackson, teens Tagged With: education, leejackson, teens

Jamie’s Dream School Episode 1 – comments from a professional schools speaker

21/03/2011 By Lee

Jamie_oliver_dream_school
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/jamies-dream-school
http://www.youtube.com/dreamschool

For the last 18 years I’ve been speaking to young people in schools, yet like the celebs I’m not a trained teacher and because of that i can sympathise with Simon Callow in many ways. The show like most TV is contrived to bring out conflict / good / watchable TV. The reality is that young people aren’t impressed by big expensive props and famous names especially when their lives are so chaotic – like many of the young people in the show. What young people respond to is authenticity, patience and you surviving a few of their little tests! They need to know that you know what you are doing, know you are in charge but without arrogance, disrespect or defensiveness. 

If all they have had is bad experiences, then that’s what they’ll expect and in David Starkey’s case that’s what they got. Young people didn’t need to see 3 million pounds worth of artefacts – they just need someone who can engage with them. Teachers must earn their respect just like anyone else, and Simon Callow experienced some breakthroughs there.

Here’s the deal – if the young people don’t take responsibility for their own education then no amount of talking from “famous” or not famous people will bring them round – they have to want to change, and we should persuade them why, in their language. I have worked in some of the most challenging schools in the country and the way you work well with these young people is knowing your content, the ability to keep on going, but above all show them that you are human not “the expert in an ivory tower” – well done Simon Callow for your honesty, as for the rest of the teachers and the show – time will tell.”

“Lee Jackson is the one of the UK’s most experienced school speakers and author of the book “”How To Be Sick At School” which help teens succeed in school  – www.howtobesickatschool.com “

Filed Under: education, leejackson, teens Tagged With: education, leejackson, teens

BBC News – Newsnight – Singer Plan B on why poor youngsters feel worthless

17/02/2011 By Lee

via news.bbc.co.uk

Filed Under: education, leejackson, teens Tagged With: leejackson

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