L. I. T

Meet Bobby, Monty and Olly:  Explicitly teaching children learning habits, attributes, dispositions or characteristics is common place in primary schools. However, what is important is ensuring that you involve everyone in the process when designing your method of application. This includes teachers, children and parents. We decided to base ours on the well established Characteristics for Learning outlined in the EYFS curriculum and build from there. Next we discussed what we could use to represent each characteristic. Puppets fitted the role perfectly for our Reception to Year Two children (our pilot group). Bobby the Bee concentrates, perseveres and feels proud of his/her achievements (we tried to go for gender neutral names). Monty the Monkey is curious, applies himself/herself, takes risks and is collaborative. Finally, Olly the Owl is creative, plans, makes links and is reflective. Each of the 11 learning habits were then broken down into descriptors to help children, t...

Sir Ken Robinson Sir Ken Robinson was one of the first motivational speakers I listened to in relation to education. After that I was hooked. I discovered many more speakers and inspirational educationalists through links and google searches. I still think Ken is one of the best. Not only is he funny, he has a powerful message that we all need to listen to and hopefully take action. Here are two of my favourites from YouTube.

Understanding a school ’s  culture is a significant contributor to the success of any type of school improvement. Ross (2010) discusses the importance of understanding a  school’s culture before introducing any form  of internal or external change. Without this understanding, it is likely that the improvement or initiative will fail. After the initial enthusiasm of the new initiative, there is often a sense of frustration when problems arise, which leads to abandonment. Ross explains that this is because there is too much  consideration given to the initiative itself and not enough to the people who will need to accept and implement the initiative,  the staff and parents who together make up a school’s  culture. School culture is defined by Schein (1985) as, ‘... the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shaped by members of an organisation,  that operate unconsciously, and that define in a basic “taken -for- granted” fas...