Building Learning Powers
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At Meridian Community Primary School & Nursery we place learning at the heart of all that we do. We are keen to develop resilient and cooperative learners with the ability to increase their capacity to learn as they develop. We want to equip children with the skills, techniques and vocabulary to talk about their learning more effectively. Building Learning Power is the mechanism through which we are enabling this.
What is Building Learning Power?
Life-long learning is part of human maturation. We can continually develop our capacity to learn in new and challenging circumstances through our life. In the developing field of learning to learn, research suggests that there are several broad dispositions that we need to develop in order to become successful life-long learners.
They are not fixed at birth, or when we leave school. They can be developed in everyone regardless of current ability or age. There are no limits to extending our learning power.
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Resilience
Being ready, willing and able to lock onto learning – knowing how to work through difficulties when the going gets tough.
- Absorption – the pleasure of being engrossed in learning.
- Managing Distractions –recognising and reducing interruptions.
- Noticing – concentrating hard and really seeing what’s out there in learning.
- Perseverance – not giving up when learning is hard, understanding the feelings of learning when things are a challenge.
Reflectiveness
Being ready, willing and able to become more strategic about learning.
- Planning – working out learning in advance. Planning learning.
- Revising – being flexible, changing plans in light of different circumstances.
- Distilling – drawing out the lessons from experience. Looking at what has been learned – pulling out the essential features – carrying them forward to aid further learning; being your own learning coach.
- Meta-learning – knowing yourself as a learner – how to learn best; how to talk about the learning process.
Resourcefulness
Being ready, willing and able to learn in different ways – using both internal and external resources effectively, calling on different ways of learning as appropriate.
- Questioning – asking questions of themselves and others. Being curious and playful with ideas – delving beneath the surface of things.
- Making links – seeing connections between events and experiences – building patterns – weaving a web of understanding.
- Imagining – using your imagination and intuition to put yourselves through new experiences or to explore possibilities. Wondering ‘what if…?’
- Reasoning – calling up your logical and rational skills to work things out methodically and rigorously
- Capitalising – making good use of and drawing on the full range of resources from school and the wider world.
Reciprocity
Being ready, willing and able to learn alone or with other people. Being able to listen well to a talk partner or group, trying to understand what other people are saying; helping your own and others’ learning.
- Independence and Interdependence – knowing when to learn on their own and with others.
- Collaboration – the skills of learning with others. Respecting and recognising other points of view.
- Empathy and listening – contributing to others’ experiences by listening to them to understand what they are really saying, and putting yourself in their shoes.
- Imitation – constructively adopting methods, habits or values from other people whom you observe.
