Archive | From our own correspondent

Coming back to school after the most difficult lockdown yet, many children – however glad they will be at seeing their friends again – will have become disconnected from their former patterns of learning. Even the keenest are likely to have lost their edge of concentration; others, perhaps many, will be feeling adrift and maybe…

Picking up on the idea of students’ reactions to lockdown and how some have found them much more difficult than others…. I talked recently with an ex-colleague who works in a large, successful comprehensive school in the Midlands, and mused that students might fall into 6 broad ‘sustaining learning’ categories. During the lockdowns, some students:…

In June last year, the Welsh Government published some wise guidance about returning to school after the first lockdown. The emphasis was on the need to focus on students’ health and well-being and getting them ready for learning, and cautions against any attempt at ‘catch up’: “Focus should be on learners becoming ‘learning fit’ rather…

  … it doesn’t matter how experienced we are, we all entered uncharted waters as we welcomed our students back to school. As one Head Teacher has put it:   So, where do we start when our students are in so many different places mentally? What might help teachers and students to navigate and inform…

What do we mean by Questioning ? Questioning means both the ability to ask good questions and the disposition to do so (which is sometimes called curiosity). Good learners like questions, and are not afraid of the ‘don’t know’ state of mind out of which questions emerge. Good learners like to wonder about things. For…

What do we mean by Reasoning? Reasoning—the kind of logical, analytical, explicit disciplined thinking that schools often focus on. There is a lot of interest at the moment in ways of teaching thinking, and such ‘Show your working’ kinds of thinking are a very important part of the good learner’s toolkit, although not the be-all…

What do we mean by Planning ? Planning is the ability to take a strategic overview of your learning, and make sensible decisions. It means: taking stock of the problem and the parameters within which you must work assessing the available resources, both inner and outer, and deciding which you think are going to be…

What does being a good collaborator involve? If you have well formed collaborating habit you will be ready, willing, and able to: Work effectively with others towards common goals; Seek to understand what others are saying; Share, challenge, support and build on ideas; Adopt different roles and responsibilities in pursuit of team goals; Act responsibly with…

If you have a well formed Imagining habit you will be ready, willing, and able to: Use the mind as a theatre in which to play out ideas and possible actions experimentally; Use a rich variety of visual, aural and sensory experiences to trigger creative and lateral thinking; Explore possibilities speculatively, saying ‘What might …’,…

A well formed Making Links habit involves being ready, willing, and able to: Connect new ideas to what you know and feel already; Match and categorise ideas, techniques and concepts to ones that are already understood; Link ideas across different academic disciplines and in varying contexts; Looking for similarities, differences, the unusual and absurd; Seek…

A couple of weeks ago we considered using a freestanding Learning how to Learn course as a way of introducing Learning Power to students. This week we contrast that with a more integrated approach to putting Learning Power into secondary schools. Let’s say the school has already: explored and developed its vision for learning. leaders…

Making meaning through reflection.  A defining condition of being human is that we have to understand the meaning of our experience. —Jack Mezirow There’s a tendency to go through life viewing our experiences as just that – experiences –  rather than seeing them as opportunities for learning. But in building powerful learners we want students…

‘There are ways of saying it and there are ways of saying it.’ Two of the most important influences on developing your students’ learning powers are how you talk – the messages you convey in the words and tone you use, and how you behave. Some ways of talking strengthen students’ positive attitudes towards learning;…

Make “working together” work better.  Pair work, group work or teamwork are frequent features of classroom practice across all age ranges. The essential purpose of collaborative learning is the co-construction of learning; to make meaning together. Many of you will have recognised the importance of collaboration through the recent BBC 2 series The Family Brain…

Few secondary schools benefit from an intake of students who are well-versed in their Learning Powers i.e. those learning dispositions that determine their propensity for change and will influence and underpin their performance throughout life. Sadly, despite a rapid uptake of learning power ideas in primary schools ten and more years ago, few have persevered…

Make “working together” work better.  Pair work, group work or teamwork are all frequent features of classroom practice across every age range. The role of collaborative learning is the co-construction of learning; to make meaning together. For this to be successful students will need to ‘live’ being collaborative throughout their time in school; to be…

For some years now many primary schools have been consciously working on the development of their students’ habits or dispositions of learning…those attributes of character that make you more or less likely to: persevere and learn well with others; check out and change your learning as you go along; think carefully and question things critically.…

Picking up on last week’s theme of learning language this week we take look at goals, a well used classroom word, and how we could make them more achievable. One of the problems with goals is that they’re often couched in terms that are too big. Research tells us that our brain ignores goals if…

As you interact with your students day in and day out  you’ll be talking about the ‘what’ of their learning – the content. With content, whether it’s English or Maths or History you know what you are looking for, you’re aware of the misunderstandings students may have, you’re aware of common sticking points and so…

The Big Picture Teachers at Squirrel Hayes First School in Biddulph, Staffordshire monitor every child’s use of learning behaviours in every single lesson. But why are they doing this? What are the benefits? Is it worth it? Headteacher Erica Pickford explains that this data gives teachers and the school the ability to track and identify…

Here a year 6 teacher from Miriam Lord primary school in Bradford offers a short explanation about how they draw out and develop their students’ learning habits.

It’s wonderful to be carried away by inspirational platform speakers who take you into the realms of possibility, speak to your inner beliefs about learning, and make change sound oh-so easy. And yet we know that anything worthwhile is never a matter of tweaks here and there, but more a stretching, sometimes tricky, learning journey…

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…

Last week we took a peek at junior children from St Herbert’s C of E primary school in Keswick talking confidently about their learning power. This week we take a closer look at what’s going on in a learning powered maths lesson in Year 6. Take a look at how the story of the lesson…

For some weeks now we’ve been writing  ‘behind the scenes’ of learning power…how it could look; how it might grow; what students might be encouraged to say; what learning friendly cultures could look and feel like; what emotional behaviours does perseverance seem to be made up of? In effect we have been using what’s come to…

I have spent much of the past few weeks considering the issues that have faced Scottish schools for over a decade as a result of the Donaldson Report. This report spawned their Curriculum for Excellence which is built around four key purposes, sometimes referred to as key capacities. These purposes look to the longer term…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Two things caught my eye this week – did you see them too? The first was an ad in the TES from a school in London that is seeking a Detention Director. Do you, the ad begins, like order and discipline? Believe in children being obedient every time? When I last looked online, TES was…

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…

I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days last week at a new free school in London that accepted its first intake (120 year 7 students) last September. Having previously spent two days working with the newly appointed staff in June, I was keen to see how their vision was taking shape. The…

When I ask senior leaders about learning walks, most say that they do them regularly. When pressed about what they actually do during such a learning walk, the answer is usually more about walking than learning. A few systematically gather data about learning that can be used to monitor changes in the school’s learning culture,…

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about life changing times for two of my grandsons. I’m happy to report that the elder has become the cook for his friends and the youngest is still skipping happily to the new adventure….school. This week I’ve been struck by what my youngest granddaughter has been asked to think…

There has been much excitement on Facebook this week about setting homework for primary age pupils. The trigger was a teacher in the US who wrote to her pupils’ parents that she would no longer be setting homework as there was no evidence that it works. As is now so often the case, the social…

For many young people this week has been the start of a new phase in their lives. In my family my oldest grandson was proudly driven hundreds of miles, in a car packed to the roof, to begin his university career. My youngest grandson donned his crash helmet and scooted his way to ‘big’ school, just like many…

Almost every classroom I go into has children talking, working and learning together for considerable periods. Sometimes this group work is carefully managed and structured by the teacher, but too often it is little more than children sitting around the same table working together or near each other. Frequently stimulated by the poorly specified invitation…

I returned home recently after two wonderful days undertaking a learning review in a welsh medium school in North Wales. You might think sitting around in lessons all day watching students learning would be easy, but spotting which learning behaviours they are employing and how their teachers are stimulating this to happen always leaves me exhausted.…

I work in schools in all corners of the UK, but increasingly in Scotland. The first flight to Edinburgh or Glasgow, a day’s work with a school and the last flight back is just feasible with schools in the central belt. But why the interest in BLP in Scotland, when most English schools are currently…

Teachers are familiar with the need to assess, record and report on curriculum progress and attainment. The world is full of levels, level descriptors, tests, diagnostics, examinations, point scores, value added measures, and the like – even in ‘life after levels’ !! But they all refer to the acquisition of the knowledge, skills and understandings…

I have worked with colleagues at South Dartmoor Community College for six years now. Under the inspirational leadership of Hugh Bellamy, they have retained – during a period of educational turbulence – a dedicated commitment to the enhancement of learning for all students. Hugh – with whom I have had the privilege of working for…

Discussion is a key feature of learning, whether it be working in groups, think pair share, or engaging with a question and answer session. The spoken word is a frequent medium for learning. It follows that effective listening behaviours are necessary if the student is to access the learning. Why then, do so many teachers…

When working with schools, I regularly initiate conversations with teachers about learning. It is, surely, the core purpose of schools, and to be an effective teacher with little interest in, or understanding of, human learning is inconceivable. So why, then, do such conversations frequently become derailed by other, more ‘pressing’, issues? What are these pressing…

On a visit to a BLP hub school in Cornwall this week I came across a remarkable story from Jo Wotton, the Saints Way MAT’s Catering Manager. In just three years she has evolved from being the disgruntled parent of five to a finalist in the BBC Cook of the Year category; part of the…

Schools frequently talk about producing independent learners who are able to rise to the challenges of the 21st Century. Indeed, many schools include such notions in their mission statement. But how often does this aspiration get beyond wishful thinking and empty rhetoric? Part of the problem might lie in the lack of a shared understanding of…

It’s easy to get stuck, so why is it so hard to get unstuck ? Lack of sensible strategies when faced by perceived difficulty is a recurring theme from the teachers with whom I work – about their students, obviously! Why, they ask, do my kids give up so readily? Why do they freeze when…

The great thing about my friend Paul is that he’s opinionated; we don’t always agree with each other but he always requires me to justify my opinions and think for myself. Take the jazz concert we attended the other night; on the way to the bar, his face told me that he thought the music we’d just heard…

When working with schools I frequently ask the question “Which learning behaviour, if improved, would make the biggest difference to learning in your school?”. Invariably the answer is Perseverance. I wonder why that is ? When you talk with students, it is immediately clear that perseverance carries many negative connotations that reflect their (often unspoken)…

There is much talk of the flipped classroom and of flipped learning – some of you may have attended FlipCon UK this week (Twitter was positively alive with it!). The terms, which are frequently used interchangeably, concern, at a basic level, what would have otherwise been covered in class being covered at home and in…

When working with teachers I often mention Carol Dweck and her work on developing a growth mindset. Most teachers nod knowingly and say they have heard of it. When pressed, many fewer have actually read much of her work, such as her excellent book ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success’. Nonetheless, teachers across the country…

It was interesting to read The Chief Inspector of Schools referring to Key Stage 3 as the Wasted Years in his address to the ASCL conference on Friday. For many years, Y8 – usually the second year of secondary education – has been called the dip year; when learners’ initial enthusiasm for their new teachers and varied…

I was working only last week with a school that provides education for secondary aged children with social, emotional and behavioural needs, on full and part time placements. Additionally it offers support for primary aged pupils on a similar basis. We had already completed 2 days of BLP training together in November, and I had set the 12…

I have been a parent – and now a grandparent – for over 35 years and have probably just attended my last parents’ evening: my youngest son Tom’s Masters degree ceremony. Looking back, I often asked myself whether the experience of talking to teachers about my children’s progress really answered the right questions. I remember…

The Early Years curriculum, mercifully lacking too much ‘stuff they need to know’, has long focussed on developing positive attitudes to learning through a blend of play and adult-led learning. These ‘positive attitudes’ have now been named the Characteristics of Effective Learning, a section of the EYFS that is too frequently overlooked as it runs…

As a headteacher, I used to say that one of the most significant outcomes we should aim for in our students was open-mindedness. That is to say the capacity to see things from other people’s point view and to approach their relationships with empathy and understanding. It is interesting to note that – in the…

There’s no escaping one simple truth: teachers are in the habit forming business. The only problem is that – the older they get – students are in the habit of manipulating their teachers to provide them with answers and solutions rather than helping them build understanding for themselves. Teachers – in many schools – comply…

I’ve worked with – and had the pleasure of observing – some great teachers throughout my career and I’m beginning to understand what makes them stand out as outstanding – better than good. These are the teachers that make a difference and who have long-term impact on student learning and achievement. All headteachers with whom…

There seems to be a bit of a buzz around about perseverance, resilience and grit, especially since Character has gained a prominent place in the national debate. Sorting out the differences between them, if you need to, rather depends on what and who you read. But however you distinguish these three terms they all boil…

How do pupils get better at learning? The idea of building pupils’ learning power has been around for several years now and hundreds of schools proclaim on their website that their school is using the ideas to enable their children to learn better. One of those three powerful words….Building Learning Power…. is the word ‘Building’. It is…

It’s not every day you get to listen to an internationally renowned professor, learn about a highly significant research project, and laugh till your sides split at the tales of a Bradford headteacher. These three elements threaded their way through a special day for schools in the western shadow of the Pennines. The North-west is…