Build your Learning Power
Transform the culture of the classroom and in turn the climate of your school.
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We offer a variety of solutions for your school improvement planning, capitalising on previous learning ideas and engaging teachers and students creatively to develop an appetite for learning.
THE SCIENCE OF LEARNING AND DEEP THINKING
TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
CURRICULUM DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT
UNDERSTANDING BEHAVIOUR : SUPPORTING LEARNERS TO MAKE POSITIVE CHOICES
Working with young people can be challenging especially if their behaviour is such that it is not conducive to learning. In Sept 2022 the DfE reported that "schools need to manage behaviour well so they can provide calm, safe and supportive environments which children and young people want to attend and where they can learn and thrive". This means that educationalists need to be able to teach and guide students how to behave well, within their specific context.
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This course will provide the participant with the most current thinking in relation to setting high behavioural expectations and responding to students who exhibit challenging behaviour.
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It will provide guidance on why students misbehave, strategies for dealing with misbehaviour in the classroom through proactive rather than reactive means.
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It will explore how to de-escalate potential challenging behaviour and how to support students following behaviour incidents.
TEACHING TO ENCOURAGE DEEP THINKING
How you teach depends upon the audience you are delivering to and the topic that is the focus of learning. What is clear however is that teaching is complex and therefore difficult. It may look easy when you see a competent teacher in the classroom but what you don't see is the effort, time and preparation that has gone before the actual performance in the classroom.
This on-line course explores the argument that to prepare young people for life in the 21st century, education must involve more than what is proposed by the latest government prescribed curriculum. Dylan William (2021) says that 'what students know about traditional subject areas is important but so too is their ability to react to challenges and frustrations, what they believe about people who have different opinions and beliefs from their own and the determination to do good in the world is arguably much more important.'
UNDERSTANDING THE LEARNING PROCESS
Learning is not the same as performance: it is a much more messy process. It is not simply the cycle of listening, reading, remembering, rehearsing and reproducing (Claxton, 2021)). It follows then that good teaching is also not a straightforward process. Effective teaching depends very much on a teacher’s accurate understanding of the learning process and the complexities that impact on it.
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This course delves into the nature of the learning process and how one can make students think harder rather than simply at a surface level. It also explores how teachers can plan for learning and deliver effective classroom lessons for all abilities.
BUILDING CHARACTER AND RESILIENCE IN YOUNG PEOPLE
This course will increase knowledge of the 'Growth Mindset' movement and the argument that what we are actually doing in schools is building character and resilience in our young people. It provides teachers with a set of "benchmarks" against which to rate their character education.
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Aims of the course:
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To increase participant knowledge of why a growth mindset in learners is important .
To investigate the latest thinking in relation to the development of 'character education' as part of the curriculum
To increase the participants knowledge of how student agency can help learners to investe in their own growth and empower them to follow a path to subject mastery.
To understand how teaching students about brain development and neuroplasticity, can help them develop an interest in learning and become more motivated to learn.
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MAKING THE MOST OF LEARNING TIME IN LESSONS
Teachers can have a lasting impact on their students. They have a direct influence of how students learn, how much learning they retain and how they interact with the world around them. With this considerable influence it is vital that teachers are aware of what constitutes good teaching to ensure lessons are effective and efficient.
This course deals with maximising learning time in lessons by raising pupil outcomes through carefully planned and sequenced high-impact activities that make the most of every lesson.
Aims of the course:
To increase participant knowledge of what constitutes a coherent framework for thinking.
To think about the planning process using a backward design.
To explore practical strategies to scaffold learning.
To increase the participants knowledge of the importance of developing sufficient rehearsal opportunities in order to prevent the knowledge being lost.
To increase knowledge about making learning meaningful taking into account students’ diverse knowledge, skills, interests, experiences, and cultures.
To raise awareness of the importance of 'Threshold Concepts' so that learning can become deep and permanent.
To reflect upon planning for progression, setting out the knowledge, key concepts and skills that need to be developed through curriculum sequencing .