Transcript Slide 1

A whole school approach to
Personal Learning and Thinking
Skills
at Launceston College
In the beginning…….
• Staff were asked what attributes an ideal
student in Year 11 would demonstrate.
• These were then grouped into common
categories and used to devise a number
of ‘skill areas’
• They looked very similar to the PLTS that
were being piloted at the time.
• Each skill area was given a colour!
Launceston’s Language 4 Learning
Self Managing Learners
Independent enquiring Learners
Creative Learners
Pupils at Launceston College are self-managers who
demonstrate organisation, creativity, initiative and
enterprise skills. They show how to manage their time,
their emotions and that they can build and maintain
relationships.
Pupils at Launceston College are able to process and
evaluate; planning what to do and how to
go about it. They can make balanced, reasoned
decisions, appreciating that people have different
beliefs and attitudes.
A Launceston College pupil can…
Seek new challenges and responsibilities
Show flexibility and commitment when working towards
goals.
Organise time and resources
Take calculated risks and prioritise work
Manage emotions…to build and maintain successful
working relationships
Seeking advice and support when necessary
A Launceston College pupil can:
Identify…questions to answer and problems to solve
Plan…to carry out research, to solve the problem.
Explore…through different people’s perspectives.
Analyse/evaluate information…based on its quality.
Consider…how circumstances, beliefs and feelings
influence decisions and events
Conclude...with reasons which are evidence based.
Pupils at Launceston College think creatively by
generating and exploring new ideas, follow intuition
and take risks for success and originality. They
actively learn from mistakes and setbacks, and value
the unexpected or surprising. They try different
ways to tackle a problem, working with others to find
imaginative solutions and outcomes that are of value.
Resilient Learners
Pupils at Launceston College are ready, willing and able to
learn. They show perseverance when challenged and are
not afraid to fail. When confronted with something new
they do their best to succeed and recognise that effort
will reap rewards.
A Launceston College pupil can:
Recognise that making mistakes is a natural part of
learning
Keep going at a task until it is completed
Manage distractions by recognising and reducing
interruptions
Focus on the task at hand and sustain attention
Break tasks down into manageable steps and propose
practical ways forward
Process new ideas and use this to inform future learning
Recognise how they learn and try to develop new ways of
learning
A Launceston College pupil can:
Generate ideas and explore possibilities
Ask ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘what if’ or unusual questions to
extend their thinking
Apply imaginative thinking to achieve an objective
Try out alternatives or new solutions and follow ideas
through
Experiment with ideas and questions
Challenge the routine method and take risks for
learning
Team Learners
Reflective Learners
Pupils at Launceston College are team workers who
focus on the skills of working collaboratively with
other people, taking responsibility and resolving issues.
Students who are good team workers are sensitive to
the needs of others and can adapt their behaviour to
meet the demands of different situations.
Pupils at Launceston College are able to evaluate
their strengths and limitations so as to enable them
to move forward and improve. They are able to state
criteria for success and monitor their own progress
according to this. They are also able to accept and
give positive feedback to further their learning.
A Launceston College pupil can…
Collaborate with their peers to form a cohesive unit to
work towards a common goal.
Manage discussions and reach agreements.
Manage behaviour to deal with a variety of different
people.
Take responsibility and confidence in their
contributions to a team.
Provide support and constructive feedback to others
To resolve conflict in a constructive manner.
A Launceston College pupil can:
Use self and peer assessment.
Develop success criteria so as to develop their work.
Review their progress along the way and adjust their
practice so as to increase their achievement.
Use feedback that is given in a positive manner so as
to move forward.
Evaluate their own learning experiences.
Communicate their learning in relevant ways for
different audiences.
Learning to Learn days
• Each half term we collapsed the
curriculum for all years for one day.
• Year groups went to faculties for this day.
• Each half term had a skills theme and
faculties had to plan and deliver activities
to develop students competence in this
area.
Impact on Learning
• Students benefit from the opportunity to
work with experts other than their
teachers
• The days are skills driven, outside the
normal constraints of curriculum
• Students are transferring the skills they
learn to other areas of their school life
• Students and staff are becoming more
familiar with the language for learning
Impact on behaviour
Average number of sanctions given per day
Sanction type
Normal
day
L2L
day
1
2
3
Total
29
18
8
55
4
3
2
10
The following year….
• Divided each skill into sub-skills and wrote
statements at gold, silver and bronze levels.
• Posters created for every classroom
• Extended tutor periods at the start and end of
each half term to introduce skill and then reflect
on progress
• Target grids and evidence logs in contact books
• Curriculum areas asked to deliver skills
objectives in lessons
• Objective stems written for each skill area
Life and Learning skills
• Build on the success and increase awareness
of LLfL
• Realised that SEAL, citizenship and PSHE
were closely linked to our language.
• Develop a coordainated approach to delivery
• Poorly delivered and inconsistent tutor
programme
• Ensure that students and staff see the skills as
purposeful and beneficial to student
progression and development
Change Groups
• Staff invited by Principal to give it weight
• Staff chosen as diagonal slice across the
school
• Created sense of ownership to change and
creative solutions to implementation
• Identified overlapping areas
• Staff skills audit
• Review of tutor programme
• New curriculum models debated by whole
staff.
Planning phase
• Key staff involved in mapping
• Half termly themes
• Intergrated SEAL, Core 24, LLfL, IAG
and Health and well-being into a delivery
package
• Covering content through Skills
• Year group writing teams
Delivery
• 1 x 50 min lesson per week
• Schemes of learning written for each
year group and delivered by tutors.
• Tutor led
• Links into tutor activities
• Builds on Learning to learn days
Opportunities
• Better tutoring
– More time with tutees
– Tutor reports focus on skills
– Better K&U of student progress at academic
tutoring
• Coherent delivery of programmes
• Emergence of ‘year group leads’
Messages so far
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Better understanding of pupils from tutors
Pupils feeling better prepared to learn
More reflection from pupils
‘Frantic Friday’
Some pupils taking a long time to accept
the changes.
The Future….
• Embed into normal lesson slot
• More integration between lessons and
tutoring
• Pupils prepared to face challenges of
KS4 and 5 better
• Subjects assessing skill achievement
• Pupils self assessing skills and setting
own targets
Next steps….
• We have been working with a
commercial company called INCYTE to
develop an online recording system for
our language
• Drama are reporting attainment against
Language for Learning skills
LAUNCESTON’S LANGUAGE 4 LEARNING
At Launceston College we are committed to developing the learning skills pupils will
need to enable them to fulfil their potential regardless of their ability.
We believe strongly that Learning should not be confined to subject areas, and we
have a learning to learn programme designed to equip our students with these
crucial learning skills. It is hoped that it is this that will help them to remain
successful learners throughout their lives and prepare them for the 21st century.
We have devised a Language for Learning that incorporates six key learning skills.
These are not taught as discrete units but are instead embedded and woven into
the curriculum so that pupils can experience them in different contexts.
LAUNCESTON’S LANGUAGE 4 LEARNING
The following framework has been created to assist teachers when planning their collapsed curriculum days next year. The framework comprises
six groups of skills that are essential to success in learning of a Launceston College Pupil. It is these skills that will enable our students to
develop learning habits to enter work and adult life as confident and capable individuals.
The titles of the six groups of skills are set out below and are based in some part on the framework of personal, learning and thinking skills
(PLTS) embedded in the new diplomas.
Independent Enquiring Learners
Team Learners
Creative Learners
Self-managing Learners
Reflective Learners
Resilient Learners
For each group of skills, a focus statement sums up the range of skills. This is accompanied by a set of outcome statements that are indicative of
the skills, behaviours and personal qualities associated within each group. It is these statements that provide the learning outcomes when
planning a learning experience for the collapsed days.
When planning your collapsed days it is hoped that you will focus on several of the statements and make it explicit to the learners which skill they
are developing. You may wish to concentrate on one group of skills or chose outcome statements from more than one group in any one learning
experience.
The goal is to familiarise our pupils with a common learning language so that they can recognise the skills they are developing and use them in a
wide range of learning experiences. This language can then be ‘infused’ into the curriculum and used to frame all learning and in activity planning
rather than as a stand-alone approach.