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Posted By Rebecca Ross,
28 November 2018
Updated: 07 August 2019
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This month Episkopi Primary School in Cyprus became the second school outside the UK to gain the NACE Challenge Award – following in the footsteps of Malta’s Chiswick House School. Assistant Headteacher Rebecca Ross explains how the school has worked collaboratively within a cluster to develop high-quality provision for more able learners, in the context of challenge for all.
There is a shared partnership agreement across the six UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) schools based in Cyprus. We work in collaboration to achieve joint goals and most recently have been developing provision further for the more able. All the MoD schools on the island have followed the NACE Challenge Framework, which has ensured consistency in approaches, and has had a huge impact on provision for more able learners across the curriculum.
Below are five areas of collaboration we’ve found effective:
1. Whole-cluster meetings for more able leaders
While there is quite a distance between the schools, collaboration is of high importance and regular meetings for more able leaders has been essential for developing consistency. Investing in whole-day meetings allows quality time to focus on moderation, assessment and enrichment opportunities. More able leaders each take turns in hosting the meetings at their school. This has been a great opportunity for leaders to tour each school and share best practice. Subject leaders have also collaborated in this way, using the supporting resources provided alongside the Challenge Framework to audit their subjects. These resources have been particularly useful when identifying the characteristics of more able learners in specific subjects and collaborating on strategies to support them to reach their full potential.
2. Building partnerships beyond the cluster
Being on a small island does not limit the opportunities for our learners. All our schools are outward-facing and proactive in seeking a range of partnerships to create innovative opportunities for learning and progression. Budget cuts could limit opportunities, but as a cluster we overcome this by sharing costs and working collaboratively to build quality and sustainable partnerships. Strong links have been made with universities in the UK. For example, Leicester University’s Archaeological Department has been working with our schools for a number of years, providing digs and workshops on the island. Developing links that benefit both parties has strengthened the opportunities provided.
3. Collaborating on enrichment opportunities
A range of enrichment days are regularly run across the island for learners who have a particular talent in a subject or for those who show a true interest. These allow application of skills in new and challenging ways, as well as learning new techniques and strategies with like-minded individuals. It is also good preparation for secondary school and gives our learners the chance to meet some of their future peers. As a cluster, we draw on staff expertise to run these days and pupils travel to the different schools or visit external sites. By not limiting enrichment to just core subjects, many learners with varied talents have benefited from these opportunities.
4. Sharing expertise to support CPD
We do not have easy access to UK training courses; therefore we seek to maximise opportunities for CPD through the use of shared courses, resources, facilities and existing expertise. This is far more cost-effective and encourages staff to actively keep up to date with current research and best practice in their subject. Challenge for all has been a key focus for the Cyprus Schools Consortium and this shared and focused approach has been central to CPD. Regular cross-island subject leader meetings have included both primary and secondary representatives. This has up-skilled leaders in different phases, while strengthening transition links.
5. Collaborating to provide inspiring role models
The cluster works closely to provide opportunities that inspire learners and allow them to consider their futures. Many of our learners have spent their entire lives in a military setting and are not exposed to the same experiences as others their age might be. As a whole-island team, we know that role models are a powerful way to inspire young people about their future possibilities. It is so important for learners to hear real people from their own community and beyond, sharing personal stories of why they do what they do and how they got there – their aspirations, struggles, challenges, failures and how they overcame them. We know that this type of interaction encourages learners to discover their own aptitudes and passions and follow their dreams.
About the NACE Challenge Development Programme
The NACE Challenge Development Programme offers a complete package for whole-school review and improvement in provision for more able learners, in the context of challenge for all. It supports schools, clusters, alliances and trusts already demonstrating good or outstanding provision in this field, as well as those for whom this is a key area for improvement. Schools working with the programme may choose to apply for formal accreditation through the NACE Challenge Award.
Read more or contact us to find out how the programme could support your school or cluster.
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Posted By Jo Hendriksen,
26 November 2018
Updated: 07 August 2019
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Last week, NACE member and Challenge Award holder Holme Grange School hosted the launch of a new regional NACE Research and Development (R&D) Hub. Joanne Hendriksen, Director of Teaching and Learning, shares some of the key benefits valued by members of the hub...
1. Celebrate what is working to inspire future success
The inaugural hub meeting at Holme Grange School afforded participating schools the opportunity to share the abundant examples of best practice associated with supporting our more able learners. All too often this side of evaluation and review is omitted and we focus on what is not working, rather than purposefully acknowledging what is going well. Discussing our journeys as a group led us to the realisation that a great deal has already been achieved, and we must stop and celebrate in order to cultivate a success mindset and inspire future work.
2. School-to-school working across phases, subjects and sectors
This NACE initiative allows schools to share across phases, subjects and sectors of education. The appetite for this type of collaboration was evident at our launch meeting, where the group was formed of primary, prep, secondary and through schools from both the state and independent sectors – a diversity which was particularly apt given the session’s focus on transition. This opportunity of an open and supportive forum allowed delegates to consider their journey towards a long-term, genuine and sustainable approach towards transition across all phases.
3. Sharing evidence-based good practice
Billions of pounds are spent on research each year, but how much of this informs practice in our schools? A positive shift in culture has seen many schools move towards more enquiry-based philosophies, where leaders encourage teachers to see themselves as researchers. The hub launch at Holme Grange School saw participants relish the opportunity to share evidence-based research from work completed in direct association with key educational researchers such as Bill Lucas and John Hattie. It also sparked a desire in many to work collaboratively and move forward with in-house research to explore implications of actions on current practice.
4. Opportunities to shape the future provision for more able learners
The Holme Grange NACE R&D Hub sets out a clear ambition and commitment to continue to serve our more able learners now and in the future. The team involved in the meeting were highly experienced, credible leaders and practitioners who know and understand the educational landscape and the needs of our schools. This group will allow staff in schools, working at ground level, to be at the forefront of evidence-based approaches and discover, first-hand, the results of implementing various interventions. Projects will be guided, tested and evaluated by the group, for the group and for our learners.
5. Impact-focused, long-term collaboration
All too often CPD and INSET are costly, short-term and have very little impact on staff bodies as a whole, on learners and therefore on schools. At our hub launch, practitioners were able to collectively agree on future priorities, in the knowledge that there will be regular opportunities for support, discussion and evaluation. Areas of focus varied greatly and included writing, effective use of technology, and learner awareness of ability. The hub plans to meet regularly and encourages core members to commit to consistent collaboration and communication to gain maximum benefit. The group has also discussed involving learners in the hub, supporting cross-school collaboration between pupils.
About the NACE R&D Hubs
NACE R&D Hubs are open to all NACE member schools, offering regional opportunities to share effective practice for more able learners and to collaborate on action research projects in this field. To date, four NACE R&D Hubs have been launched, all hosted by NACE Challenge Award-accredited schools: Barry Island Primary School in the Vale of Glamorgan, Haybridge High School and Sixth Form in Worcestershire, Portswood Primary School in Hampshire, and Holme Grange School in Berkshire.
To find out more or to join your nearest hub, get in touch.
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Posted By Peter Clift,
10 October 2018
Updated: 23 December 2020
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Earlier this year, NACE member and Challenge Award holder The Broxbourne School was named one of nine schools to become national language hubs, supporting England’s new Centre of Excellence for Modern Languages. In this blog post, Deputy Headteacher Peter Clift reflects on the school’s journey to becoming a national language hub, and what it hopes to achieve in this role.
We are delighted to have been selected as a national language hub. It is an affirmation of all the hard work of the outstanding practitioners we have in our modern foreign language (MFL) department and the enthusiasm they have engendered in our young people to learn a language.
We are constantly looking for ways in which to further develop our practice as a school and we believe this will enable us to further enhance the effectiveness of our pedagogy, not just in languages. We are also excited at the prospect of working with other schools to develop their practice; we are confident that as well as having a considerable body of expertise and resources to share, we will also learn an immense amount from the MFL colleagues we work with in other schools. Our lead practitioners are also looking forward to the training they will receive from the Centre of Excellence that will be an integral component of the MFL hub programme.
A whole-school commitment to language learning
We are committed to offering a broad and balanced curriculum to all our students and particularly our disadvantaged pupils, whose attainment exceeds those of non-disadvantaged pupils nationally. Modern languages are central to this curriculum offer. In the past year our curriculum pathways ensured that over 52% of our pupils obtained the EBacc at 4+. In the previous two years this led to the Schools Minister writing to congratulate us for being in the top 100 schools in the country for our EBacc outcomes.
In recent years we have given learners a freer choice of languages, which has helped to keep the numbers choosing a language at a very high level, despite a national decline in language numbers. We are keen that the whole school community embrace languages, and this is clear when you walk round our site and see signage in the three languages the school offers.
A good part of our success comes down to a considered approach to pedagogy – one of the reasons for our selection as a hub school was the extent to which our daily practice already exemplified the best practice outlined in the Teaching Schools Council (TSC)’s review of MFL provision and practice, which I would urge interested parties to read.
As an economics teacher, I am more than aware of the increasingly global nature of trade (despite certain challenges!) and that our young people are increasingly being asked to compete in a global marketplace for jobs. Facility in a modern foreign language can enable them to compete successfully. More broadly I believe that learning a language and the doors this opens into other cultures can engender empathy and fellow-feeling amongst people around the world at a time when a narrow nationalism seems to be increasingly and worryingly prevalent.
Developing as a national language hub
On a simple level we hope to improve the outcomes and improve the uptake of languages at our school and those of our immediate hub partners. We are looking to ensure a widespread implementation of the pedagogical approach outlined in the TSC review. We would be particularly proud if our work led to an uptake amongst disadvantaged learners, given the cultural capital that access to a modern language can facilitate.
Initially it is planned that language hub schools will work with other schools in their immediate geographical area. We are also planning a wider offer of training activities and conferences, and will certainly be welcoming as many colleagues as we can from other schools.
Another cohort we think will particularly benefit, and of relevance to our work as a NACE member and Challenge Award school, is our more able language learners. We will be looking to developing a role for them as MFL ambassadors, and from work they have done in the schools as MFL prefects we know they will excel in this.
Peter Clift is Deputy Headteacher at The Broxbourne School, a NACE member and Challenge Award-accredited secondary school and sixth form in Hertfordshire. He has been a teacher for 20 years and a senior leader for more than 10. He leads on pupil progress, able, gifted and talented provision and is the SLT lead for The Broxbourne School’s new MFL hub.
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Posted By Matthew Williams,
05 June 2018
Updated: 15 April 2019
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When it comes to Oxford and Cambridge, there are still many perceived barriers that can deter students from applying – and may deter others from encouraging them to do so. For school and sixth-form staff involved in supporting students with university applications, Oxford’s Dr Matthew Williams is keen to break down some of the myths…
My name’s Matt Williams, and I’m Access Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University. “Access Fellow” means I’m an academic, and I’m also responsible for helping to open up the university to more aspiring applicants. This listicle picks apart some of the myths I hear in schools when I’m out trying to encourage young people of all backgrounds to apply.
1. “Oxford is socially exclusive.”
There’s a common perception that Oxford is socially exclusive and unwelcoming. It’s not true.
Let’s break down the myth. In 2016 59% of offers went to students from state schools. So a comfortable majority of offer-holders, and Oxford entrants, were educated by the state, and not in private schools.
The university and its colleges offer generous financial support to those who need it. For instance, in 2018, up to 175 incoming students will be offered a Moritz-Heyman Scholarship to provide them with bursaries for living costs, and money off their tuition fees.
Oxford’s intake is more diverse than is commonly portrayed. Of those who declared their ethnicity from 2014-2016, 18% of offer-holders were from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. In 2017 the university made more offers to young women than men.
We only make admissions decisions on the bases of academic ability and academic potential. We’re not judging candidates on where they went to school or what they look like. All are made very welcome in Oxford.
2. “Oxford is expensive.”
Tuition fees at Oxford are the same as other universities in the Russell Group – that is £9,250 per year. And those fees can be reduced for students in need of help. The university and its colleges have squirrelled away money over hundreds of years, precisely so it can be invested in bright young people who could most benefit from it.
Plus, you get a lot of bang for your buck at Oxford. We not only have exceptional facilities – including over 100 libraries – we also use the highly effective tutorial system. Students are taught in tiny groups of about two or three, usually twice a week, for their whole degree. This level of personalised attention from academic experts just isn’t possible at most other universities. Even medical students enjoy tutorials, alongside the more normal lectures, seminars and lab sessions you’d find at other universities.
Only Cambridge also operates tutorials (called supervisions there) as comprehensively as Oxford. Even the best US universities cannot usually match the tiny class sizes at Oxford.
3. “It’s impossible to get in.”
No. Roughly one offer is made for every five applications we receive. Some subjects – including medicine, law, economics and management, and engineering – are more competitive than one in five, and the applicants we receive are highly accomplished. But the point is that we do make a lot of offers – around 3,200 to undergraduates. And most students I speak to in schools woefully underestimate their own academic abilities.
4. “You have to be a genius at Oxford.”
I’m not sure what genius is, but let’s unpack this myth. You don’t need to have perfect school grades, nor an IQ of over 150 to be considered. Our offer holders do, it’s true, usually have very good grades from school. But we’re not looking for a flawless academic record. Most of our degrees require AAA at A-level (38 IB), not A*A*A*A*. Some of our degrees, such as chemistry, call for A*A*A, but for none of our degrees are students required to have straight A*s at either GCSE or A-level.
And a very high IQ is also not required. Many of our degrees use admissions tests to assess problem-solving and critical thinking skills. But we also interview about three candidates for every place, so that we can also assess motivation, passion and intellectual bravery. By bravery, I mean a willingness to think independently, and not just follow the herd. Those with perfect school grades and high IQs sometimes lack passion and independent-mindedness, and that can weaken their applications.
5. “The application process is scary.”
Our application process is longer than for most other universities. We ask applicants to submit their UCAS forms by 15 October, then there are admissions tests for most of our degree courses, then we conduct interviews in early December, and our decisions are sent out in early January.
It’s the tests and interviews that really seem to give potential applicants cold feet. But it’s not our aim (nor in our interest) to scare off applicants. The aim of our admissions process is to make best possible decisions. We collect a lot of information on each of our applicants so we can choose the very best from an excellent pool. As I wrote above, we don’t just look for perfect grades, we also want to consider the context in which applicants secured their school grades, and we want to gauge their potential to stretch themselves beyond the school curriculum. This all takes time and effort.
We want our applicants to be themselves, and at ease. Yes, taking admissions tests and attending interviews can be intellectually demanding, but it’s also very good practice for job seeking, and it’s character building!
Put it this way: deciding not to apply because the application process is a little more demanding is not a good reason. Far better reasons for not applying would be that the courses don’t suit, or the applicant would rather live and study somewhere else.
6. “It’s boring, no fun, and full of geeks!”
There are literally hundreds of clubs and societies at Oxford. Both the university and the colleges have societies for music, drama, sport, and much else besides. Each college has a packed diary of social events that will suit pretty much every different taste.
On average students will spend around 40 hours a week studying, which still leaves lots of time for fun, friends and extracurricular activities.
7. “Cambridge is for sciences, Oxford is for humanities.”
This is a myth several centuries in the making. Cambridge has had several luminary scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton, Crick and Watson, and Stephen Hawking amongst its members.
But Oxford is no scientific slouch. Stephen Hawking took his undergraduate degree with us, as did Nobel-laureate Dorothy Hodgkin. Further back, Oxford had Robert Hooke and Christopher Wren as students – both co-founders, in Oxford, of the Royal Society.
Oxford University has invested over £400 million over the past 10 years into its science facilities and infrastructure. One of our newest facilities is the Beecroft Building, a state-of-the-art laboratory and teaching facility for the Department of Physics, which will create a space for discussion, collaboration and cutting-edge science.
And, as for the present day, Oxford is very highly ranked amongst the world’s universities for its scientific teaching and research. Apart from anything else, in sciences and all else besides, there are plenty of fantastic universities in the UK, not just Oxford and Cambridge.
8. “Oxford is arrogant, and doesn’t care about its reputation.”
This is the worst myth of them all. Oxford’s strengths come from its students and staff. The pretty buildings, the money and the history are nothing without the people who daily make the university great.
So, we care deeply about opening the doors to the brightest and best, regardless of their background, personal wealth, skin colour, religion, sexual orientation and so forth. We therefore invest enormous amounts of time, money and effort to ensure that Oxford is open to everyone with academic ability and potential.
Some groups are still under-represented in our academic community and we want this to change. If you agree, then please encourage your students to apply and contribute to helping is make that change. Oxford can only be what its students make it.
Please feel free to contact me via @jesus_access or matthew.williams@jesus.ox.ac.uk
Dr Matt Williams is the Access Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University. That means he is an academic, and works to open up the university to students from under-represented backgrounds. He came to Oxford in 2006 to take his Masters and Doctorate in political science. He has since held lectureships at seven Oxford colleges, and has written on uses of language in politics.
Sources:
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Posted By Sue Riley,
15 January 2018
Updated: 07 August 2019
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From all the NACE team – a very happy new year!
Whilst you settle back into the term I want to use my first blog of 2018 to share news of NACE developments and details of upcoming member opportunities. Brief updates on DfE, Ofsted and Estyn are also included.
Member-led research
At the end of last year NACE announced a key focus on member-led research and development for 2018, and I am pleased to update you on two aspects of this. First, we have selected three schools to become NACE Research and Development Hubs – Haybridge High School and Sixth Form, Portswood Primary School and Barry Island Primary School. These schools will allow us to test and refine our regional approach to improving outcomes for more able learners in practical ways, including hosting Hub meetings for NACE members, sharing resources and best practice, and undertaking research.
Alongside the Hubs initiative we will be working with the University of Winchester on an action research project. The project, which launches in March, will be open to invited Challenge Award schools, with teachers exploring an aspect of “curriculum, teaching and support" for more able learners that is being delivered or developed in their school under the NACE Challenge Development Programme. Alongside more detailed case study work, we will continue to build our evidence base and formally capture and disseminate some of the best practice in the country.
Free webinars and member meetups
To provide all members with a good start to the year, NACE is continuing its series of free webinars and member meetups. Webinar sessions on SOLO Taxonomy and learning mindset will take place on 30 January and 6 February – log in to the members’ area of our website for full details and registration.
Following the success of our first member meetup in November, the series continues this term with the English-Speaking Union hosting a secondary school event on 6 March. The Globe will host our final meetup of the year on 8 June, for both primary and secondary schools. Full details of these free events will be shared with all members via email and in the members’ area of our website.
Funding and research updates
Members will be aware that governments in England and Wales are placing an increased focus on more able. I spoke about developments in Wales in my last blog.
You may be interested to read Estyn’s latest thematic reports. Good Practice in the Humanities highlights, amongst other things, the importance of transition for learners, whilst Active and experiential learning – Effective foundation phase practice in delivering literacy and numeracy in Year 1 and Year 2 includes an online video to exemplify good practice, and includes specific references of support provided to more able learners.
In December the DfE launched Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential, its plan for improving social mobility through education. Within this it announced the Future Talent Fund, which will seek to test and evaluate approaches to supporting the most academically able disadvantaged students in non-selective state-funded secondary schools. Bidding for this fund is expected to open in the summer term, and NACE will be seeking member schools to work with us on this. Further detail will follow.
We also wait with interest to read the final report of Ofsted’s curriculum thematic review.
2018 promises to be interesting – and I look forward to sharing developments and working with you as we move through the year. In the meantime, please contact me directly if you want to learn more, or feel you can contribute to our developments.
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Posted By Naomi Watson,
15 November 2017
Updated: 07 August 2019
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Rising Stars’ Naomi Watson outlines a new opportunity for NACE members to contribute to research on effective support for more able learners in mathematics. Read on to find out how your school could participate…
NACE and Rising Stars have collaborated for over 10 years on initiatives to ensure more able learners and their teachers can benefit from challenging and exciting resources in core subjects, grounded in the curriculum while offering stretching and enriched learning.
This year, we are working together to research how schools are effectively supporting more able learners while teaching mathematics within a mastery curriculum.
As part of this project, we are looking for five NACE member primary schools who are teaching mathematics using a mastery approach to participate in a research initiative. Participating schools will receive free copies of Rising Stars’ Maths for the More Able teachers’ guides and Brain Academy pupil books, and will be invited to integrate these resources into their teaching of mathematics during the spring term.
In April/May 2018 we will bring all participating schools together for a half-day focus group (in Oxfordshire), to gather and share approaches to supporting more able learners in mathematics, and to explore ideas for future resources. The results of the project will be shared with the wider NACE and Rising Stars communities.
Alongside this school-led initiative, NACE is partnering with expert practitioners in mathematics on a series of new resources and articles, which will be made available to all NACE members. For updates on the project, log in to the NACE members’ website, and keep an eye out for the NACE email newsfeed and Insight newsletter.
Register your interest:
To apply to be one of the five primary schools involved in this project, send an email to membership@nace.co.uk, with the subject line “Rising Stars maths project”. Include an outline of your school’s current approach to supporting more able learners in mathematics, with reference to your use of a mastery curriculum.
The deadline for applications is 6 December 2017. Successful schools will be notified before the end of the autumn term.
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Posted By Sue Riley,
08 September 2017
Updated: 07 August 2019
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Welcome back to a new academic year – I hope you feel refreshed for the coming term.
Like NACE, I am sure many of you spent much of the summer preparing for the new academic year – reflecting on policy and development, results and the new challenges that lie ahead.
In my first blog post of the year, I want to share with you some of NACE’s developments – and how NACE members will benefit in the coming weeks and term.
Responding to member views
At the end of last year NACE undertook its first member survey – and the results have informed much of the work we have been focused on over the summer. You told us that online resources and subject-specific materials were some of the most useful ways NACE could support you, so this term will see key resources added to the members’ section of our site; log in to see the latest additions.
Later this term, we’ll be sharing new primary maths resources, and links to partner materials, with a focus on English to follow. We’re also investing in the technology to make these more accessible to busy teachers, with a relaunch of the NACE website planned for later in the year.
NACE Insight, our termly member newsletter, has had a summer “facelift”. With a refreshed and extended format, it will offer some new regular features, including updates from Ofsted, Estyn and partners, a focus on NACE members in the news, recommended resources and your views on the key issues affecting schools.
NACE members are our strength – you are involved in testing, reviewing and developing practice for more able learners. We see in our 400+ Challenge Award schools some of the best practice in the country, representing a unique repository of excellence in teaching and learning for high achievement. Later this term we will be inviting some of you to work with us to interrogate and disseminate good practice, offering supported research opportunities.
National and international developments
As part of its role, NACE not only monitors and reviews more able policy and practice, but also seeks to inform development and debate – both at home and further afield. Here are just a few of the areas we are currently focused on:
- Ofsted updates. This month marks the 25th anniversary of the formation of Ofsted, and we await with interest the first set of findings from its curriculum survey. Once Ofsted has the initial evidence, it will look at whether it needs to place a greater focus on curriculum during inspection; this will feed into the new inspection framework being developed for September 2019.
- Developments in Wales. NACE is closely monitoring the curriculum and professional standard changes in Wales, and it is against this backdrop that we have been asked to work closely with regional consortia partners to support the development of regional MAT policy and practice.
- International support. Further afield, NACE’s international membership continues to grow. Spanning 18 countries including Cyprus, China, Kenya, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Spain and Nigeria, there is a wide mix of primary, secondary, international, British and MoD schools. Over the past 18 months NACE has supported a number of these schools with CPD, and we’ve been delighted to welcome schools from as far afield as China, Italy and Malta to our UK conferences.
- National publications. Our senior team is regularly asked to contribute to publications in the more able field. Currently our education adviser Hilary Lowe sits on the Advisory Editorial Board for The SAGE Handbook of Gifted and Talented Education, and is author of the chapter on The Education of the Highly Able in England and Wales. We will share more on this later in the year.
Updates to the NACE Challenge Framework
It is against this backdrop of constant review and development that next month NACE will announce an important update to the NACE Challenge Framework. Over the past decade, the NACE Challenge Framework has become an established and respected tool for whole-school review and improvement in provision for more able learners. The update reflects current policy and thinking and will make the framework more accessible to schools, at any stage in their more able journey. The next issue of Insight, due to arrive in schools in October, will provide more detail.
I hope you will agree that this is an exciting start to NACE’s year – and to the opportunities we can provide our growing community of member schools. I look forward to sharing developments with you as we move through the year, and invite you to contact me directly in the meantime if you want to learn more, or feel you can contribute to our developments.
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Posted By Simon Colton,
22 June 2017
Updated: 08 April 2019
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Professor Simon Colton shares his experience of speaking at the NACE National Conference 2017, and invites NACE members to help develop his new app for schools.
Yesterday, I was very fortunate to attend the NACE National Conference in London and delighted to give the closing keynote address. In my talk, I introduced a few topics and projects from my research in computational creativity, where we study how to share creative responsibilities with software. I presented a few slides and videos about The Painting Fool, The What-If Machine and my latest project, Wevva.
Wevva is a "casual creator" for games, allowing anyone to make simple games in minutes rather than days, weeks or months (which is usual in game design). Wevva has taken many (difficult) months of development. But along the way, we’ve had a lot of encouragement and positive feedback from running game jams – events where people get together and make games – with students and staff at Falmouth University (where I work) and local girl guides.
We’ve also helped with an after-school club for children from the Nexus specialist STEM centre in Camborne, which was a big success. In particular, using earlier prototypes of Wevva, we enabled children to make interesting and engaging games, learning so many things about design, user interaction, art theory and physics along the way. Working with Nexus has been the one of the coolest projects I've done so far, and was a real inspiration for the next stage of the app’s development.
So, as part of my talk at the conference, I was delighted to announce the launch of Wevva for Schools, and grateful to NACE for giving me the platform to do this. Wevva for Schools is a new educational pack, an out-of-the-box game design classroom, enabling students to make videogames easily and straight away, giving them space to learn all about game design and other topics like simulated physics, colour theory and programming, and to experience what working in the creative industries is like.
We received such enthusiastic feedback from teachers at the NACE National Conference yesterday. It was great that many teachers expressed a keen interest in Wevva for Schools, and we can't wait to see Wevva for Schools being used in primary and secondary schools, to empower students to explore the joys of videogame design.
Wevva for Schools will be available for September and we are asking NACE members to help shape this educational offering. I was delighted by the positive response to this request, and around 20 people have already signed up. If you would like to help with the final development of Wevva for Schools, then please see the web pages at www.wevvagame.com or contact us at wevvaforschools@metamakersinstitute.com
The opening keynote from Lord Robert Winston was really inspiring and reminded me of my time at Imperial College. I also got to sit in on the workshop run by Jo Foster, the director of Nexus, and heard the inside track on how Nexus has been made so successful, which I’ve been able to see first-hand this year. So, all in all, it was a wonderful day at the NACE National Conference. I’d like to thank the NACE team for the invitation to talk, all the people at the conference who gave us great feedback, and the staff at etc.venues for such a great day!
A leading artificial intelligence researcher, Professor Simon Colton specialises in the field of computational creativity. He leads the Computational Creativity Group at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and holds an EC-funded ERA chair at Falmouth University, as well as an EPSRC Leadership Fellowship. He has published around 200 papers, won national and international prizes for his research, and helped create software that can make mathematical discoveries, create art, generate games and produce fictional ideas. One of his best-known projects is The Painting Fool, a computer programme designed to one day be taken seriously as a creative artist in its own right.
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