Teachers Flex Their Learning Muscles:

While the girls were making the most of the end of their summer break, teachers were back in school on 3 rd September analysing the summer’s examination results and preparing for the academic year ahead. On Friday, 4 th September staff were challenged to think about cutting edge educational research as the school hosted a teachers’ conference with colleagues from Camp Hill Boys’ School and Queen Mary’s High School for Girls in Walsall.

We were fortunate to have as our keynote speaker Professor Guy Claxton, one of the UK’s leading experts on the development of young people’s learning and creative capacities. The author of a dozen well-respected books, his latest, What’s the Point of School?, has been highly praised by international educationalists such as Professor Howard Gardner; Baroness Susan Greenfield and QCA Director of Curriculum, Mick Waters. Professor Claxton’s approach, known as Building Learning Power (BLP), has influenced students’ lives throughout the UK as well as in Singapore, Sweden, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.

Last year at Camp Hill Girls we spent time discussing BLP and we undertook a review of girls’ learning in order to help develop their capacity to learn. One of the key aims of our School Improvement Plan is to create more active and independent learners and we are trying to provide more opportunities which foster the necessary learning habits. In 2009-10 we plan to develop even more teaching strategies to support BLP, introduce students to the 5Rs and apply them to target setting on Review Days.

The common language for these learning habits focuses on the 5Rs – based on Professor Claxton’s ‘The Four Rs of Learning Power’.

The overarching R is RESPONSIBILITY. We want to encourage our girls to take responsibility for their own learning and progress. Girls who give up too easily and remain passive in lessons, expecting teachers to ‘spoonfeed’ the right answers, limit their own potential and do not prepare themselves for life’s challenges. We want girls to challenge and question us, to take risks, make mistakes (and learn from them) and to explore around the main learning or topic. Educational research proves that those who develop such intellectual curiosity and are disposed to read and research independently are better prepared for the demands of higher education.

The other 4 Rs are:

Resilience

Engaging with learning challenges; managing distractions; having perseverance and determination when faced with problems, not giving up too easily

Resourcefulness

Being willing and able to learn in different ways; asking questions;making links; thinking rigorously and methodically; making good use of a variety of resources and time

Reflectiveness

Becoming more strategic about learning; planning; adapting; distilling and drawing out key learning from experience; meta-learning-understanding how to make improvements and to be a better learner

Reciprocity

Working effectively either alone or in groups; balancing self-reliance and sociability; collaborating; empathising and listening; learning from others

I’m sure many parents will agree that developing these habits will help the girls not only to develop a more responsible and mature approach to their studies but also to life in general.

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