APA News
Dear Parent and Carers,
Nearly two weeks ago, several St Saviour's Primary Staff were fortunate to be given the opportunity to attend a conference by renowned educational expert James Nottingham. James has an extremely credible resume including 11 books about teaching, learning and leadership. He co-founded Challenging Learning in 2006 to share some of the best ways to strengthen learning in schools. He is perhaps most renowned for his work on the Learning Pit, which I will explore in a future newsletter.
Amongst many messages that our teaching staff took away from the day, perhaps the most important is the fact that 'Learning should be challenging and it should make you think .....hard!'
No longer do we expect students to get everything right the very first time. If they do, they probably already knew it. If that is the case, are they actually learning something new? Serious learning happens when learners have to 'struggle' with a new concept or skill.
To help put this into action, there are many challenges for us as educators and for parents as well. One simple way is to not only focus on achievement, but to also focus on improvement. Concentrating on improvment, charting the progress that each learner makes, can be much more motivating and can lead to accelerated learning. In sports and athletics, for example, everyone wants to win, but the way to get there is to focus on the continual improvement of your personal best.
If your child is 'struggling' with anything at home (learning or otherwise), do we as parents, tell them what to do or give them the answer? Or do we let them have a go (and potentially struggle), encourage and celebrate improvement, ask challenging questions and let them find the answers?
As previously mentioned, the St Saviour's Primary Learning Dispositions are certainly there to help you and your children along the way. Always remembering that one of our aims at St Saviour's is for our learners to 'Strive in Learning', but to also help create good people along the way.
