only connect - starting points - STUDENTS

Eight students have been selected by Liz McQueen from DCC to participate in the project.

			who are they?

The students in this project come from a wide range of backgrounds. Fundamentally, the only thing they have in common is that they are being educated at home. Seven out of the eight are living at home with their parents, the eighth student is in the care of the local social services. Due to the confidentiality principles behind this project it is not possible here to list the specific reasons why each student is being educated at home, although you can read personal accounts further down this page where the students have been willing to give them. Generally there is a mix of children who are at home on physical health grounds, psycho-social grounds - for instance bullying and school-phobia - and, in one case only, due to exclusion. This group was chosen not to be a representative cross section of the 200+ home-tutored students in Derbyshire. It was felt by both myself and DCC that for the project, being a pilot and thus almost being a project about a project, it would be helpful to choose a group of students who, while not containing exclusively what might be termed the 'easiest' cases, did not have built-in problems from the start. Thus, while the group ranges in age over UK school years 8 to 10 and very widely in ability, motivation and attitude, it should be noted from the start that simply applying across the board any lessons learned within Only Connect would be un-wise (to say the least).

			Spotting the difference

I'm putting this here as part of the starting out bit as it was true then, it's just that it took me a while to realise it. I couldn't quite sort out what it was about this project that made it seem different from all the other on-line learning projects and research that have gone before. Certainly most of them are about HE and FE, but these's students aren't exactly infants. They have a very low level of initial IT skills but we soon got past that. The Answer What makes them different is about motivation. it seems to me that the students in the other studies have some fundamental motivation - this might be to do with the fact that they're self-selecting, that the course is vocational, whatever. The Only Connect students are in many ways simply school students - they're there because they have to be and, to quote Sellars and Yateman, "For every person who wants to teach there's 30 who don't want to learn.' I'm not saying that these students aren't motivated, several of them are well organised and hard working, but they will have no more motivation that any group of 13-15 year olds in any secondary school. Add to this the points made elsewhere about time management and Only Connect finds itself dealing with a particular set of problems. And that's not all. Many of the on-line learning projects currently around assume that the students involved will be independent learners; this is much less likely to be the case with the Only Connect students. Independent learning is something that was at one time a fairly common part of at least the junior phase of education in the UK. However, over the last 15 years or so, with the introduction of the National Curriculum and wide ranging testing, we have seen a move away from the child-centred approach to a teacher centred, whole-class based set of methods. While group work still exists it is more from an organisational rather than collaborative standpoint. All this means that the idea of simply handing over project tasks via the internet is not likely to work very well with our group, and things will need to be much more structured.

			current provision

At the start of the project each student is given about four hours a week one to one tuition in two blocks of two hours. Generally this takes place in the students home and usually the same tutor covers the entire curriculum.

			the students by themselves

Here is information provided by some of the students about their particular circumstances. From the start, names have been changed. Kelly I have had a home tutor for half of a year. I have a home tutor because I have a phobia about large groups of people. I want to go back to school but at the moment I don't. Jennifer I've been on home tuition for 1 year and 3 months. I'm home tutored because I'm bullied by 4 girls at my school. I was being bullied for about 4 or 5 months before I told anyone. The bullying was constant and it was mostly verbal but it did get physical once or twice. I used to be friends with the people that bullied me, but then they just started bullying me. In the end I had to tell my parents because the thought of going to school and having to put up with being bullied made me sick and I was always poorly because of it. My Mum and Dad got really worried because I was always sick and they took me to the doctors. The doctors said it was stress and that's when I told them I was being bullied. My Mum and Dad went to school and told the head teacher she said she would call the people who was bullying me into her office and tell them to stop it, but I didn't want that because it would only make things worse. So they gave me a card so I could get out of the lesson if I needed to but that didn't really work, they also said all the teachers would be informed that I was being bullied so they could look out for me but we later found out that none of the teachers had been informed. I was really depressed I wouldn't go out or anything like that so I started going to CAFTS I told them why I wasn't going to school and they said I had school phobia and would help me to find a way to over come it and get back into school. I was going there for a couple of months and then I thought I felt confident enough to go back to school. So I went in for half a day but I couldn't handle it. Although it was good to be back with my friends the bullying started again and I couldn't cope with it. I felt really depressed but I wanted to try to go back again. So a week later I went for another half day but I still couldn't cope with it. Then I was really depressed again I was depressed for ages, but I kept going to CAFTS and I started getting a little bit more confident again and I started to go back out with my friends. I've been going to CAFTS for a year now and they are helping me to get over it. I've had 2 home tutors Mike has really helped with my work and he's helped me build up confidence with my work. I'm hoping to get back into school full time. Together Mike and I are looking for new ways for me to try and get back into school and hopefully I will. Amanda I'm at home because I have been ill for nearly 2 years first with Glandula fever and now have post viral stress syndrome. And I hope to go back to school. Robert I became home tutored when I got a long-term illness, I have been home tutored for over a year. I do not know whether I will go back to school at some point.