Dan Lea, Year One teacher at Gearies Infant School, Ilford, was the Becta Award winner for Next Generation Learning Teaching 2009
Extracts from the Teaching Awards website:
Dan’s pupils hate feeling poorly and having a day off because they’re worried they might miss something. He is one of those teachers that children remember into adulthood for their sense of fun, the laughter that filled the classroom and how every day felt like an adventure.
The use of ICT is a huge part of Dan’s work. He has pioneered the school’s Visual Learning Project, which is used for story writing, and developed class-based assessment applications, allowing teachers to assess and track pupil progress. This has removed the need for paper-based planning. Dan has set up interactive blogs with parents to increase their involvement in their children's learning and improve home-school communication, which have strengthened the partnership between school and home. Pupils are also encouraged to start their own blogs about issues that interest them.
Dan saw the need to develop a curriculum for visual learners following an audit of children’s learning styles. So he devised a sequence of lessons using children as authors and included visual prompts to stories. He has a wonderfully creative approach to teaching and learning, and is always looking for the best ways to inspire his pupils. He has also led the Children's Research into Poetry pilot as part of the school’s Active Learning Community. Dan developed a way for information and findings to be shared using a blog which would have all the planning, questionnaires and feedback on it, and could be accessed by pupils and other schools in the same network.
A parent said that Dan shows his pupils “that there are many means by which learning can take place - not just in the conventional ways.”
Books 4 Breakfast: www.b4b09.blogspot.com
Pleasure Readers: www.pleasurereaders.blogspot.com
Gearies Eden Project: www.edenproject.blogspot.com
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