Last week’s blog went behind the scenes in Ms Mann’s Year 6 maths lesson and captured her working her learning power magic. But Ms Mann is not alone – all the teachers in her school are pursuing the same aim: to build better learners. As their website declares:- “At St Herbert’s we have adopted Building…
Author Archive | Katie Poole
Preparing The Canvas
This week’s blog is a little different as it comes direct from Oakfield Primary Academy in Dartford Kent. The school has been thinking about building pupils’ learning power for a while now and recently started using the Building Learning Power online courses to deepen their approach. As we give time for the changes in classroom…
Learning-friendly classrooms: Routines
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Often on our training days we ask ‘What do good learners do?’ As teachers, we know that good learners can listen attentively for information, engage with the material, stay on task, and so on. So a teacher might quite reasonably respond to that question with ‘We want them…
Gold standard Learning Power!
We couldn’t let the term end without celebrating Wibsey primary school’s achievement, that of reaching Gold level of the Learning Quality award. Inspired by the story of Miriam Lord Primary, another Bradford school, Nigel Cooper – Headteacher at Wibsey Primary School – started his staff and pupils on building their learning power just three years…
Introducing BLP as a NQT
This week sees another guest blog from Patcham Infant School, this time by recently qualified teacher Lizzie Hilton.Here she shares her discoveries about how to get to grips with Building Learning Power. BLP as an NQT by Lizzie Hilton, Patcham Infant School As a newly qualified teacher (NQT), fresh out of teacher training, I was excited…
Progression in the Language for Learning
This week’s guest blog comes from Chris Taylor, headteacher at Patcham Infant School near Brighton. “It is inarguable that quantitative data represents an essential aspect of assessing a child’s development; it hopefully measures positive progress which is then often represented in numbers, letters, words or acronyms. However, measuring qualitative information, in my mind, enables us…
Goldilocks stretch
My two children go to a lovely infant school that is keen on learning. Each child at the school has a Learning Journey book which display their work, interesting comments they have made about what they are doing, comments from the teachers, next steps for their learning, and so on. They are a wonderful record…
A visible learning journey: introducing learning characters
Chris Taylor, Head at Patcham Infant School, has written another insightful piece for us. This week he explores the introduction of learning power heroes to his pupils. How do you help infant children develop the notion of learning muscles and become better learners? Patcham Infant School and Nursery Class is not unlike many other schools…
Perseverant Polly, patient pony.
This heartwarming video came up on my Facebook feed this morning. I don’t usually take more than a glance at these apparently random videos (although at least it wasn’t cats) but there was something about it that piqued my interest: small girl, bright pink, filly net skirt, counterpointed comically with wellies and a hard hat. Unusual…
A Visible Learning Journey
In this guest blog Chris Taylor, Head Teacher at Patcham Infant School and Nursery Class, highlights some of the brilliant effects Building Learning Power has had on learners at his school. Take it away, Chris. A few weeks back Patcham Infant School hosted a Creative Curriculum evening for Key Stage 1 parents. This meeting…
Questions questions questions!
On the importance of asking, exploring, and generating questions. Babies are beautiful, aren’t they? All rolls of soft flesh, wrapped in fluffy cotton, angelic looks, and giggles like nothing else. And then they learn to talk; often the first words are ‘Mummy’ or ‘Daddy’. This (very) quickly develops into ‘Mummyyyyyy?’ and ‘Daddyyyyy…?’: the questions begin.…
Take a risk with your learning – Guest blog from Katie Holt
This week’s guest blog comes courtesy of Katie Holt, Coordinator of Learning & Teaching and the Student Council at South Dartmoor Community College. Take it away, Katie ‘Take a risk with your learning.’ This is often something we say to students who tend to play it safe when it comes to their learning. So in the…
Guest Blog: Building Learning Habits at The King’s School in Macclesfield
Richard Griffiths, Deputy Head at The King’s School in Macclesfield gives a detailed account of the training and culture shift his school went through to embed learning power. There are some great ideas for involving senior leadership, teachers, and pupils across the board. “I first came across Learning Power at a conference, where I saw the…
Guest blog: The impact of BLP on my teaching, my students, and our school
This week Steve Baugh, Assistant Headteacher at Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School, shares the effect Building Learning Power has had on his students and his school more widely. “I have now been involved with developing a programme of ‘Building Learning Power’ (BLP) at my school for about 20 months. In that time I believe that I have…
World Book Day Resourcefulness
World Book Day: at once a wonderful innovation to encourage enthusiasm about books amongst children and parents…. and a busy parent’s last-minute nightmare! It is Wednesday 2 March, midday, and whilst idly surfing facebook ahem doing important social media research, I notice that World Book Day is less than 24 hours away. A slight sweat…
Guest Blog: The Impact of Building Learning Power on my teaching and my students
Today’s blog is brought to us by Building Learning Power teacher Tracy Goodyear. Having worked with Building Learning Power from early in her career, she considers its practicalities, pros and cons, impact, and importance. ‘I was first introduced to ‘Building Learning Power’ shortly after my NQT year; I was teaching in a mixed comprehensive school…