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Merlin John

"It's the only time we are quiet," quips Kianna, aged 11. And there is no dissent from Dawn Hallybone, her teacher at Oakdale Junior School. In fact the silence in the Year 6 maths lesson is remarkable as the pupils immerse themselves in the mental maths exercises generated as quickly as they can handle them by Dr Kawashima's Brain Training software on their Nintendo handheld gaming consoles.

A quick observation reveals that this is the silence of absolute engagement – with not a sullen, resentful mathophobe face in sight. And the question "Do any pupils not like using the Nintendo DS Lites?" produces responses of 100% incredulity from the children. How could I even ask such a thing? The penny drops - what better way is there to do this kind of mental maths? Pen and paper to do 20 questions in 18 seconds? I don't think so.

Irony of ironies, the Nintendos even help prepare children for their SATs which require quick, confident responses. However, that ‘justification’ for their use may not have traction in a rapidly changing education culture where the ripples from the Rose Review are palpable in primary schools, including this one. The devices even help with behaviour – children showing positive behaviour can get free use of them on Friday lunchtimes

It would be a mistake to think of Oakdale Junior as high-tech. It is more or less exactly what you would expect of a 350-pupil 7-11 school in a mixed, integrated community like South Woodford in the East London borough of Redbridge. The ICT is relatively low-level and distributed: a Promethean whiteboard and PC in every classroom, with a well-timetabled ICT network suite that every class gets access to, and uses fully, for two sessions a week. The Becta description would be ‘embedded’.

You might not even notice the Nintendos unless you were visiting for that purpose. Head of Year 6 and ICT Dawn Hallybone hands them out from two typical classroom plastic boxes (one for the charged machines, the other for those needing charging) in much the same way as she might distribute text books.

The activity this morning is for the children to work on the ‘x20’ challenges. They each get 20 randomised ‘mental maths’ exercises and they compete against themselves (their previous scores), each other and even their teachers - yes, they get involved too, and get excited! The software's challenge is to lower the ‘mental age’ given to users by Dr Kawashima on the basis of their timed performances. It's engaging and motivating and records are kept of performance - on a typical little classroom register. As you would expect with such activities - more than half of the children have these devices at home - improvements are recorded all round.

Teachers have been careful to keep records of performance to establish the evidence of raised standards and increased engagement, and these have been shared at conferences and ‘unconferences’ like TeachMeet (Redbridge and Havering hosted their own, with input from Scotland where game-based learning is becoming established) which are spearheading current changes in classroom practice. And of course you can find and ‘follow’ these teachers and advisers on social networking services like Twitter and Facebook as they work to make learning more relevant and effective for their pupils.

It would also be a mistake to think that the Nintendo activities are somehow ‘taking over’. Their use is regular and entirely appropriate alongside all the other activities you would expect to see in a primary classroom. Peter Gandy, who is a teaching assistant at the school and helps support Year 6 maths, joins in the handheld work and also takes groups around the whiteboard working with RM’s Easiteach maths software.

The children are happy to explain and demonstrate. Wickedly, Kianna gives me the toughest test, Head Count - counting people in and out of a building - at the hardest level. My total humiliation brings much hilarity – for me too, strangely enough - and demonstrates the powerful social aspects of these gaming machines, prompting comparisons, further exploration and plenty of discussion.

Climb the stairs to the other Year 6 classroom and teacher Leanne Bedford is happy to confirm that these ways of working are not just replicable; they fit happily with current learning and teaching practice in schools throughout the UK as well as extending it. Leanne Bedford is exploring shapes using whiteboard software with her youngsters, who, to the amazement of this mathematically challenged journalist, appear to know what a dodecahedron is (a three-dimensional object with 12 sides).

Once this sharing and question-and-answer part of the lesson is over, out come the Nintendos, fresh from Dawn Hallybone's class. Any of them running out of power are simply plugged in to the nearest sockets. While the problem-solving activities are relevant to explorations of shape, they deal with number rather than shape. And Leanne Bedford, right on cue, reveals that Oakdale teachers have already been drawing up their own ‘wish lists’ to fill the software ‘gaps’.

Software developers take note: these teachers and learners have even created their own games (on paper) to help coders get to the parts beyond Ninetendo's current reach. The rapid deployment of gaming technology for the curriculum - Oakdale had help from Redbridge and is committed to getting more than the present 35 - ought to be a signal to Nintendo and its suppliers to start tailoring deals for schools to support a nascent market. How about site licensing and bulk deals for example?

Leanne Bedford's confidence and enthusiasm for bringing curriculum work into the 21st century with the kinds of learning tools children happily use outside school, shows that this approach is not confined to Dawn Hallybone's classroom. In fact she confirms that it is already being picked up by other Oakdale teachers.

Oakdale staff, with added impetus from the Rose Review, are already planning to develop more cross-curricular work with the Nintendos. They have already earmarked the program they want to use - Professor Layton and The Curious Village - and Dawn Hallybone reckons it will work for imaginative project work across English, art and design and more.

This quickly-found confidence with the Nintendos is underlined by the two most powerful attributes of these handhelds, attributes which do not necessarily hold true for other classroom ICT. They are designed for all users, of all ages, and so really are easy to use; the only classroom management they need, besides changing software programs when needed (easy too) is charging the batteries. This means that they do not share the disruptive features of other school ICT which can sometimes reduce a class to chaos or spell a return to traditional media.

It's not a surprise that such a culture could flourish in an otherwise ordinary suburban primary school when headteacher Mrs Linda Snow confirms that she is at the early stages of working for an MA in game-based learning. Like Dawn Hallybone and Leanne Bedford, she is at pains to explain that she is no ‘techie’. She has been convinced by the success of the learning that’s happening in the classrooms: "It's really exciting." And she is not the only one. Ofsted came calling in March and was impressed by standards, particularly with the innovative use of ICT, which deals a killer blow to a prevalent argument that innovative classroom work is impossible with the current curriculum and testing regime.

This is what the Ofsted report had to say: "Overall, pupils make good progress and reach above-average standards in English, mathematics and science. Standards in art and in information and communication technology (ICT) are high. This is because teachers are enthusiastic and keen to provide pupils with exciting and stimulating lessons. When lessons capture pupils' interest they show impressive powers of concentration and perseverance. They know that progress in their learning depends on their own efforts as well as those of the school. This was evident in an outstanding mathematics lesson that used innovative technology to promote mental calculation. Pupils particularly relished the challenge to 'beat the teacher'."

So there you have it: even the ‘Ofstapo’ - as children’s author Terry Deary vituperatively dubbed Ofsted at Games Based Learning 2008 – recognises the value of learning with handheld games consoles. But the indications are that what is happening is broader than mathematics: what the Consolarium’s Derek Robertson describes as bringing the context of learners’ success with ICT in their home lives into school, where it also belongs.

The journey for Oakdale Junior continues. The Nintendos are already used for a variety of other activities, such as collaborative creative writing for English, and they are also looking at using the devices to support MFL work in Spanish, and the door is now open to wider creativity and more sharing of ideas.

As Dawn Hallybone says, “The children are engaged and enthusiastic users of the consoles and we are merely harnessing this enthusiasm to promote the curriculum. It is not necessarily about the game or the console – as Derek Robertson is fond of saying, ‘Good teachers use good tools’. We see the console as another tool to aid our teaching.”

Next on the agenda is a visit from creative powerhouse Tim Rylands who is well known for his inspirational teaching work with the adventure game Myst (and a lot more) which earned him a coveted Becta’s ICT in Good Practice award. And in true networking spirit, teachers from other schools are also invited. This revolution might not be televised but you can certainly follow it on Twitter and Facebook and whatever comes next…

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