By providing a space where teachers have agency, direction and connection to drive their own professional learning journey. Our goal is to develop our practise purposefully and collaboratively within an international, diverse, safe learning environment.
We take inspiration from the latest research into collective efficacy, learning dynamics, regenerative organisations and each other. As such, our community is owned and driven by all, has shared values and an ethos, that is ever-learning and growing.
Dr Kulvarn Atwal
These are the core values that run through Learning Pioneers. They are ever-present and part of discussions both implicitly and explicitly. This means we return to them, deepen our understanding of them and make links between them.
Learning to become better learners is at the heart of what we do; for ourselves, for our schools and for the learners in our classrooms. We are constantly and consistently working on deepening, broadening and strengthening habits for learning.
Having worked and written a book with Professor Guy Claxton, a world leader on learning-to-learn; our community designer, Becky Carlzon, is well-positioned to lead and deepen these discussions.
Professor Guy Claxton joins our community twice a year to deepen and refine our understanding of how to embed The Learning Power Approach in our classrooms and schools. Here is a snippet of his answer to one of our questions last year; we have a plethora of these thought nuggets to reflect on in our community!
We are ever-inquisitive about our practice and carefully create conditions for our children to express, deepen and pursue their natural inquisitiveness too. We are always wondering
Through this approach, we are open, ever-evolving and mindful that we are doing the very best for the adults and children in our care.
Kath Murdoch is an advocate for our community. We regularly invite her in to sharpen our thinking in this area. This year, she will join us with Anne van Dam to discuss our inquiry line on “Habitats for Learning” - in and out of the classroom, at home, in school and the wider community.
Every learning move we make is purposeful and well thought-out. This is achieved through hearing from the world’s experts, collectively discussing and unpicking their ideas, putting these into action, then bringing them back to discuss, re-group and re-think. As suggested by Dr Kulvarn Atwal, world leader in developing learning cultures, we aim for the 80/20 rule for developing our practise - the 80% core of what we do remains the same or is refined, 20% is innovative, expansive and ever-improving.
Dr Atwal will be an ever-present font of knowledge in our learning journey. He will join Learning Pioneers throughout the year to support us in developing learning cultures in our schools.
Education is empowerment. Let’s rephrase that. Education done well is empowerment. We aim to empower our children and schools by listening, giving people voice and choice and enabling people to have agency. This goes for the children in our classrooms, the parents with whom we collaborate, people within our team, whole schools and whole communities. We take inspiration from approaches like Project Based Learning and Inquiry to bring meaning and depth to our curriculums.
We have previously had David Price OBE in to speak about developing agency and project-based learning with students. This is what he has to say about Learning Pioneers:
We are playful thinkers, tinkerers, wonderers. We are open to new ideas and thinking. We work smart and play smart. We know when to switch off and rest and when to get down and focus. We bring play and playful thinking into our classrooms.
Anne van Dam has previously shaped our thinking in this area and will return to deepen our understanding of playful learning environments this year. Here is a snippet of her talking with our community about documenting learning during play and developing a culture of curiosity:
We invite in new speakers from across the globe to broaden our minds and perspectives. These speakers are chosen based on our current inquiry lines, discussions and interests within the community and the emergence of leading ideas in education.
As a shared book study, we discussed Ron’s latest book, “The Power of Making Thinking Visible”. We invited Ron in to clarify and deepen our practice around developing cultures for thinking in our classrooms.
As new members joined our community, many of us developed a shared interest in incorporating play and play-based learning into our classrooms. As a world expert in documenting play and setting up effective playful environments, we invited Anne in to strengthen our practice in this area.
As we learned about developing agency with our students and wondered about authentic assessment opportunities, we invited Trevor in to discuss strategies for developing more agency with our students and finding ways to include them in assessments.
*Copyright Hutchins & Storm - From the book Regenerative Leadership by Giles Hutchins & Laura Storm
Relationships in schools are key to everything within a school - How it runs, how much learning takes place, how people feel. The stronger and deeper the relationships, the stronger the community, the more everyone feels included, the better life chances for everyone who is connected with our school organisations.
This is why we will spend quality time collectively exploring how to purposefully build relationships in our schools; so that all families feel included, schools become a central part of the wider community and, ultimately, everyone, including ourselves, is happy.
This is why we will spend quality time collectively exploring how to purposefully build relationships in our schools; so that all families feel included, schools become a central part of the wider community and, ultimately, everyone, including ourselves, is happy.
Dr Robert Loe and Mark Finnis will join us to kick start our thinking in this line of inquiry.
Kath Murdoch beautifully describes learning environments as “habitats for learning”. This conjures up an image of learning environments being organic, symbiotic ecosystems. And we also know that learning doesn’t only happen in the classroom - it happens across and beyond the school building; indoors and outdoors; with friends, alone and with families. Remote learning and recent lockdowns have surfaced new wonderings and ideas about effective environments for learning. We will draw on our current understandings, learnings from lockdown and collaborations with colleagues and families to create the richest environments for learning.
Kath Murdoch and Anne van Dam will join us to kick start out thinking in this line of inquiry.
Other possible lines of inquiry, to be decided by members of the community, based on our needs, interests and journeys:
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We have a monthly newsletter with key take-aways and wonderings from that month, including clips of our “lives”. We also release exclusive offers to our readers.
Our “lives” are shared and uploaded to our YouTube channel. Check out some of the clips here. Follow us to get first access to new clips.
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Becky writes and shares blogs via her website learningpowerkids.com and has written a book with Professor Guy Claxton on practical ideas for primary teachers.
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