Collection: Biography
Biography for John Howells
I was born and brought up in Brynmawr, Breconshire, Wales, UK
EDUCATION
Brynmawr Grammar school from 1958 – 1966
University of Wales Aberystwyth 1966 1970 ( now Aberystwyth University)
Honours degree in Pure mathematics 1969
Post graduate Certificate for education in 1970
Masters in Education at Keele University part-time, September 1980 – September 1982
CAREER DETAILS
January !971 – September 1972
I taught mathematics at Halesowen Grammar school, Worcester LEA
September 1972 – December 1973
I was Second in the Mathematics department at Codsall High school, Staffordshire LEA
January 1974 – December 1982
I was Head of Mathematics at Codsall High School, Staffordshire LEA
January 1983 – January 1986
I was a Deputy Head at The Holly Hall School, Dudley LEA
January 1986 – August 1986
I was the Acting Head of The Buckpool School, Dudley LEA
September 1986 – April 2011
I was the Principal of Leasowes High School and Community College, Dudley LEA
I chaired the IT Steering Group for Education in Dudley LEA 1988-2002.
I had a secondment within the LEA to introduce the IT administration system into schools.
I Initiated the ‘Blue Sky’ thinking sessions that lead to the LEA having the first PFI (Private Finance Initiative) in Education – “ THE DUDLEY GRID FOR LEARNING or DGFL”. I was seconded to work on this and support the implementation of the project. The project brought an investment of £45M, over 10 years, for IT across the curriculum for schools in the LEA.
EDUCATION LINKS
Centre for Research in Development, Instruction and Training (CREDIT) at Nottingham University.
In October 1992 it started with an ESRC centre grant to Professor David Wood to form a research centre based in the School of Psychology, which he called the Centre for Research in Development, Instruction and Training (CREDIT).
I was on the monitoring group for CREDIT for a number of years and my school was part of research on assessing individual learning pathways; one of the school staff created resources for learning genetics.
We also worked on “help prompts” for computer led learning, particularly looking at time intervals for allowing such prompts.
Because of my involvement with Credit I was part of a major conference looking at curriculum development using technologies organised by Nottingham University. It had over 250 delegates from other universities and I spoke on the impact, potential opportunities, skill and learning developments that we were seeing with secondary age students.
BECTA – British Educational Computer Teachers Association
We were part of projects with CDi technology, and “integrated Learning Systems” (ILS): where we worked with Jostens resources.
I and my staff attended their conferences and I acted as an expert witness for some projects.
My last involvement with them was on a project called “Harnessing Technologies for Learning”. The group wrote a curriculum project to develop a model for using technologies to personalise learning. It looked at other organisation that could support student research and learning. The role of the teacher becoming that of a facilitator and accreditor to validate the authenticity of the student’s work. Unfortunately due to politic change it was never enacted.
SSAT- Specialist Schools academy Trust
The school was a Regional Curriculum Development Centre for SSAT and ran courses for other schools. I contributed to these with my deputy, who managed the centre.
Our curriculum model was used for their major publication. My Deputy and I delivered seminars at their national conferences.
QCA - The Qualifications and Curriculum Agency
I worked on ideas for the curriculum of the future, which became a publication under the same name.
I did a seminar with them at BETT following this publication.
I also contributed to an inset day led by them with a local education authority.
The Futures Team at QCA worked with Ofsted to look at innovation in secondary education; to which the school contributed. I then was part of a seminar for the dissemination of their findings.
21St Century Learning Alliance
I was a member of this group and contributed with them at a discussion seminar at BETT.
Learning lab – a think tank led by Professor Stephen Molyneux at Wolverhampton University.
I was member and contributed a number of seminars as part of their programme.
They also published an article of our developments in art using digital media.
NESTA
Nesta is a global innovation foundation. They back new ideas to tackle the big challenges of our time.
Mission: We see a future full of potential, where new ideas solve the big challenges that matter to everyone.
They used our digital media ideas to contribute for a research paper funded by the EU.
I also took part in discussion groups they initiated.
Creative Partnerships
This was a government funded initiatives based on the work of Richard Florida. Whilst not part of the £53m project we were used to exemplify approaches to the arts. The school provided two staff to support the project in the West Midlands and attended their national seminars.
ASCD
My school and I had membership of this organisation through a large part of my time as a head..
MY CURRICULUM IDEAS
Were published in such journals as:-
THE DAILY MAIL
The TIMES EDUCATIONAL SIPPLEMENT (TES)
THE TELEGRAPH
The OBSERVER
PARLIAMENTARY BRIEF
I am a life member of Royal Society for the Arts (FRSA)
INSET
I delivered inset on curriculum ideas to LEAS, schools, and for companies and other organisations linked to education
EDUCATION SHOW
My school had a stand regularly in the 1990s to promote our curriculum ideas and provided in-service training and resources to one school who fully implemented our concept of the Flexible day.
INTERAGENCY Initiatives.
I did a number of partnerships with other agencies.
I organised a seminar with other agencies to look at early intervention strategies.
This led to a conference of over 100 participants from other agencies and charities to look at the concept of holistic assessment of students to prevent and /or intervene in mental, social and behavioural issues.
It led to a project using SDQs to assess students on the above areas.
It was used by a local health authority to look at cooperative models for development, to which I contributed.
Industrial
When a Head of Mathematics I was involved with local industry/ education groups to look at, and understand company needs.
When I was Principal there were also a number of industrial links.
We created a design race/problem solving day that ran annually for four years. Four companies provided one of their staff to support one of the four student teams on the day. There was also support from a member of our staff.
Each year the problem set was different. The morning was about solving problems to gain knowledge or resources. These were needed in the afternoon to solve a bigger problem.
The one company asked if we could include a team of their apprentices and they then participated every year we did it.
The last year we did it another of the companies asked us if we could allow them to use the resources the day after the event as they had looked to create team building events for their staff. We did.
We also had some companies provide curriculum opportunities for students and in one particular case contributed significantly to the design and delivery of a course.
I was a trustee of the Central Schools Academy Trust for 3 years.
These are some of the initiatives I was involved with and some of the in-service I delivered over my career.