Last year I was lucky enough to visit Toronto, Canada as part of the TIPD programme. The focus of our visit was Thinking Skills. While there, I saw a lot of strategies that my school already use and some others that would encourage the children to think more in depth about their learning and its impact.
On returning from Canada, I attended several sessions with the focus of Building Learning Power at a local Grammar School. It was interesting to share good practice during the workshop sessions. (Guy Claxton).
Various tasks were set to integrate Building Learning Power/Thinking Skills in to my planning and teaching. It was quite surprising how quickly the children embraced the four R’s and were able to identify when one of their class members had demonstrated one of them. In my classroom, I have a board that shows the the four R’s and what qualities relate to it. Accompanying this, there are individual pictures of each child. These can be struck next to the demonstrated quality. I feel this empowers the children and encourages them to value each other.
The plan for this academic year is that the whole school will learn how to integrate Building Learning Power in to their classrooms.
It’s the new academic year, so will be introducing the four R’s gradually to my class. I have simplified the qualities in to language that all the children can understand. I constantly talk about their potential learning power and that this can be built upon. The first of the four R’s I will concentrate on is Resilience. The concept of locking on to learning which children do have difficulty with.
· Perseverance: sticking with difficulty
· Absorption: becoming engrossed in learning
· Noticing: looking for patterns and clues
· Managing distractions: strengthening concentration
