All the right notes

Getting together to share experiences of learning styles has been a particularly harmonious experience for staff and students from five different schools across Europe

How did an assortment of Czechs, Germans, Italians and Latvians  end up playing drums with English students at Taunton’s Heathfield Community School in April this year? How did a German magician-cum-headteacher called Harald end up performing tricks for the benefit of teachers from the Czech Republic, Italy and Latvia? And why did some of the English students suddenly develop a burning desire to master the Latvian language? The answer’s a Comenius School Development Project.

It all began in Mayschoss, a small German village in the wine-growing Ahr valley near Bonn. Members of our group first met there in November 2002 when we attended a Comenius-sponsored contact seminar, with participants from countries across the EU joining forces in a kind of educational equivalent of Blind Date! This has led to teachers from five different countries collaborating on a project about Multiple Intelligences, a very well-known theory both here and in the States, but one that’s far less familiar to our European colleagues. Our aim is to look at how we can promote different learning styles to make our teaching as inclusive and as stimulating as possible, thus motivating the teachers as well as the students.

Meeting the challenge
But why did we at Heathfield want to get involved in such a project? We are, after all, already successful by most measures. The most over-subscribed school in Somerset, we’re a specialist arts college with high grade achievements and a very positive Ofsted report.

However, we do feel that our drive for academic success must be complemented by a concern for wider issues. We are conscious that our school community should have an awareness of the wider world, both in terms of promoting values of tolerance and mutual understanding, and being able to situate the school in its European context. And we do put the emphasis on teachers as well as students – it’s essential that teachers have the opportunity to learn from examples of best practice from around Europe, and to share their own best practice with others. So in my view, a joint project of this sort is one of the best forms of professional development that we can offer.

Our first meeting – to establish the project framework – was held in September 2003 in Leonberg, a small town near Stuttgart. Participants included both staff and students, a format we intend to continue.

As I’ve mentioned, our theme is the theory of Multiple Intelligences, and how we can apply this in our classroom practice. So far we’ve drawn extensively on a very useful web-based assessment of Multiple Intelligences available on the City of Birmingham website (www.bgfl.org). So we were especially fortunate that the devisor of this assessment, Jean Maund from the King’s Norton City Learning Centre in Birmingham, agreed to come along and give us all a presentation.

We worked hard and played hard in Leonberg, with the German headteacher even changing professions for a day and treating the students to a magic show! At our final meeting there, one of our Latvian colleagues made an impromptu speech which concluded with the words ‘I never thought that I would have the opportunity to talk to live foreigners.’ We all laughed, but it was also a reminder that to our colleagues from Latvia and to the Czech Republic, projects like this are as much about freedom and opportunity as anything else.

Promising results
Six months later the group met up again in Taunton to discuss what we had achieved. The Czech Republic had focused on discovering the proportions in which their students’ intelligences are displayed and if any type of intelligence prevails over the others, as well as gender differences and similarities. Germany had looked at different practical applications of the various intelligences, focusing in particular on art, and German grammar. Italy had used the Multiple Intelligences assessment in conjunction with aptitude testing and teacher assessment. They saw the work as having profound implications for teaching styles in their school.

Meanwhile Latvia had looked at how the Multiple Intelligences theory could fit in with their vision of the whole school, and how they could accommodate different learning styles in their lessons. And at Heathfield we’d made use of the assessment process to assist with GCSE options for Year 9 (children aged 13-14), and to develop teaching strategies for use with Year 8 groups (children aged 12-13). This has proved very useful both in terms of looking at individuals and at whole groups.

Diverse cultures
As well as some great fun involving students and teachers alike banging drums in an almost co-ordinated fashion, it was fascinating to observe how each school had adapted the assessment project to their particular environments. It also shed yet more light on the rich variations – and similarities – in our different school cultures.

So what next for the project? The Latvian town of Saldus in September 2004. Then we have the Czech Republic lined up for the following academic year, and our final meeting will be in Turin in 2006 – just in time to coincide with the Winter Olympics!

But one step at a time. Our particular challenge in Saldus will be for all participants to give and observe lessons that illustrate how we can bring multiple intelligences into the classroom. I’m certain that I can also look forward to some more magic tricks from Harald, and that the students can look forward to renewing old acquaintances in whatever language they so choose…

Mike Bettles is deputy headteacher at Heathfield Community School (Secondary), Taunton, Somerset