Author: Alec Fearon

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The Millfields Trust

The Millfields Community Economic Development Trust

Set up to enable local people to contribute and manage the regeneration of the Stonehouse neighbourhood in Plymouth.
Owned by the community and managed by a professional staff under the direction of a Board of Directors.  The Board consist of members representing the local community, City Council and tenants.
Core business is rental of commercial premises.
The trust provides a platform to enable small and medium sized business to grow and develop.

Widening Horizons is an innovative project developed by the Trust in conjunction with the six local primary schools located in Stonehouse. It  enables students to explore new and challenging learning experiences through visits to a number of different venues spread across the city and further afield. The aim is to raise levels of aspirations and subsequently the levels of attainment in students taking part and thus open doors to possible career areas that were not previously considered.

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Seedbed – a social accelerator programme

Seedbed is one of ten projects in the UK funded by the Social Incubator Fund which is backed by the Cabinet Office. It is a new type of social accelerator programme that will offer intensive support and investment for social ventures in the South West.

Funded by the Cabinet Office and project partners, the £1.2 million project is able to provide £750,000 worth of loan investment and a support package of £8,500 per venture.

Based at Dartington. Link to more information.

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itch.io

itch.io is an open marketplace for independent digital creators with a focus on independent video games. It’s a platform that enables anyone to sell the content they’ve created. As a seller you’re in charge of how it’s done: you set the price, you run sales, and you design your pages.

About itch.io – itch.io
https://itch.io/docs/general/about

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Tom Eisenmann

My Photo

 is a professor at Harvard Business School who studies startup management and tech entrepreneurship. In 2011 he developed a new course at Harvard Business School: Launching Tech Ventures. His blog contains some valuable resources.

 

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Growth, Acceleration and Investment Network

The Growth, Acceleration and Investment Network (GAIN) “was founded by Plymouth University, Plymouth City Council and Tamar Science Park to accelerate the creation, growth and investment in high quality businesses and ideas to create wealth and jobs in the South West“. It is a regional partnership involving formation zones, innovation centres, business networks and the national University Enterprise Network. Through its partners GAIN is involved with more than 500 businesses. It seeks to add value by creating “a focused and accessible business ecosystem of aspirational businesses and investors”.

GAIN has different though related value propositions for businesses, for people with ideas, for investors and for partners.

  • “For investors: GAIN will reduce risk and maximise growth by finding the best businesses and ideas, providing a first look at potential deals, bringing intelligence together in one place and helping businesses become investment-ready.
    For partners: GAIN puts you at the heart of the South West’s most important business growth network.“

GAIN20 will give “the most innovative and exciting businesses in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset exclusive access to a unique series of opportunities and support over 12 months. … The aim is [to] boost enterprise and innovation across the region. …. Half of the GAIN20 will be recruited through Crowdfunder … ”

Some partners …

Formation Zone is a business start-up service (incubator) based on Plymouth University campus. The university also manages three Innovation Centres in Cornwall on behalf of Cornwall Council: at Pool, Penryn, and Truro. Unlike the BETA Enterprise Programme, the service is open to everyone. They are looking for innovative start-ups in these sectors: creative industries; hi-tech; marine, environmental, advanced engineering; health and well-being.

X Forces, based in London, supports ex-forces people and their families to start up businesses by providing them with loans, mentoring and support. People who think they could support X-FORCES with sponsoring, mentoring, work experience, contribution to the start-up fund of by offering a service or product are asked to contact admin@x-forces.com.

THINQTANQ is a socially-minded business based in Plymouth. It offers a range of office and workspace facilities.

Business Information Point provides advice, guidance, business support, training and information to both pre-start and existing businesses.

 

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How to make marking more efficient

Writing in The Guardian, English teacher Andrew Tharby suggests that bringing feedback to the forefront of everything that is done in the classroom can reduce the time spent marking and improve the quality of feedback for students. He gives three examples.

The five-minute flick. Check through a cross-section of books to assess how students across a range of abilities performed in the previous lesson. If they have produced a piece of writing, begin the next class by showing an example from one student and critique it together. Guide the class through the editing process to model an improvement together. Individuals then edit their own work with this example in mind.

Gallery critique. Students move around the classroom critiquing one another’s work using Berger’s “kind, specific, helpful” mantra, along with a plentiful supply of post-it notes. Not only do students receive detailed feedback from a number of peers, they also learn from reading each other’s work.

Live marking. As the students are working, call them up one-by-one to discuss their work and feedback both verbally and with symbols.

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Teachers’ workload

Three review groups have looked at how to reduce the workload of teachers in these 3 areas:

The groups published their reports on 26 March 2016:

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Reception baseline assessment

The government’s intention was to assess primary school pupils at the beginning of the Reception year so as to provide a baseline for judging progress between Reception and the end of Year 6. There are four approved methods for carrying out the reception baseline assessment, provided by separate suppliers. For the 2016 to 2017 academic year these are:

However, for reasons not yet clear to me it turns out that the four methods do not produce comparable results. Hence the baseline assessment cannot be used to compare schools and hold them to account for the progress of their pupils. For the time being that will continue to be based on progress from the end of Year 2 to the end of Year 6.