Challenge
Within the secondary school, higher education environment, students become disengaged with particular subjects, from core Maths, English or Science, to Geography, Art, French. We teach students these skills but struggle to truly contextualise it and make it relevant to the real world and outside of the classroom. The reason this is particularly difficult within the English/UK national curriculum in most secondary schools is the nearly complete lack of synergy between subjects where 5-6 different rooms and 5-6 different teachers deliver their content in separate blocks of information. Departments rarely liaise on content and Scheme of Work Planning, whether this is due to time management or a narrow focus on their own subjects, whilst students often struggle to see the connections between their various subjects unless it is pointed out in class explicitly. Even in the case of the latter, it is a moment of fleeting realisation, and then not revisited, not reinforced, forgotten until students join the real working world and realise that these various skills are all needed in a full career and daily experience of the world. If we could use technology to increase the synergy and collaboration between departments/teachers, then maybe we could increase the level of engagement in young people and make their education experience feel more fulfilling and relevant, without adding significantly to teacher workload by trying to go outside of the school for content. We have many experts within our schools to aid in cross-curriculum teaching, yet often fail to collaborate with them in a meaningful way.