THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE – LEARNING TOGETHER RESOURCE
Learning Together: Curriculum for
Excellence
Achieving success for all learners
Journey to Excellence
Professional development pack topics have been chosen to help you plan a
journey through popular staff development themes. They provide “guided tours”
through some of the resources on The Journey to Excellence website as a
window onto excellent practice. Engaging with the associated activities will help
you to reflect on and develop your practice purposefully.
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Leading learning Update July 2010
THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE – LEARNING TOGETHER RESOURCE
This resource will be updated to reflect new and innovative
approaches as Curriculum for Excellence is developed. Please
email or comment in the box below any feedback on the
resource or suggestions for improvement to help keep the
resource up to date.
Update July 2010
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THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE – LEARNING TOGETHER RESOURCE
“Excellent leadership is inclusive. It involves a wide range of people
within the school, including pupils, in leading on aspects of the
school’s work. The most effective leadership will always focus on
improving children’s learning as its key priority.”
The Journey to Excellence
Purpose of this activity
This activity is designed to help you consider what leading learning means for you and
your learners. It considers the differing roles of learners, teachers and managers in
leading, both in the classroom and across the school. The movies will introduce you to
current thinking on leading learning and illustrate how some schools are working to
provide opportunities for all learners to take a leadership role in learning. The activities
will help you consider the extent to which the learning opportunities you create as a
teacher empower and encourage learners to become leaders in their own learning.
They will also encourage you to consider the extent to which these opportunities
empower and encourage staff to become leaders with a positive impact on learning.
The activities will enable you to:
• reflect on your practice in the area of leading learning;
• extend your knowledge and expertise through studying innovative and creative
practice;
• plan how to develop your practice to incorporate some new concepts and ideas; and
• share views and ideas with colleagues on leading learning.
Learning outcomes
This programme of study is designed to help you:
• develop an awareness of how your current practice compares with excellent
practice from across Scotland in the area of leading learning;
• increase your knowledge and expertise through studying innovative and creative
practice;
• use and select relevant resources to support your staff development; and
• draw up a plan of action to achieve next steps.
Who is this for?
This professional development pack is for everyone who supports learning. This
programme is particularly relevant for those who design and manage learning
experiences in the classroom and beyond.
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What will I/we need to work through this programme?
You will need access to the online resource which supports The Journey to Excellence.
Is this an individual activity or do I need to work with others?
The core activities enable you to work individually at a time and place of your choice.
However, there are opportunities to work with colleagues and to discuss and reflect on
the issues raised. The activities also ask you to consider how engagement with this
programme has changed and improved your classroom practice. It may be helpful to
work reciprocally with a colleague to observe each other’s practice and offer mutually
helpful feedback and advice.
The programme of study may easily be adapted at stage, department or whole school
levels to enable larger groups of staff to work through it collaboratively.
How long will it take?
This programme is designed to be open ended and responsive to the needs of differing
learning establishments. The series of connected activities will probably last between
30 to 60 minutes per activity and would benefit from being planned into a series of
collegiate times or for a whole in-service day. The final group activity is designed to
take place over an extended period of time.
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THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE – LEARNING TOGETHER RESOURCE
Individual activity
The movies below provide the perspective of one well-known
educationist and also illustrate some of the issues within the context of
a particular school. While you watch them, you might find it helpful to
make brief notes in response to the questions below.
‘A learning classroom’ (Brian Boyd)
Making a difference, St Thomas of Aquin's High School
How does your classroom compare to the one where there is:
• a ‘balance in the level of challenge and support’
• a context for learning
• a culture where learning is valued?
How do you know?
From your notes, select one new idea or approach which you would like to
try in your own class.
Plan how you will introduce this new idea, and how and when you will
evaluate its impact.
Now watch the following movies which present features of excellence, and complete
the table that follows with bullet point notes as in the example below.
Meeting children’s learning needs
Leading learning
Building leadership at all levels
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Meeting children’s
learning needs in
classrooms and
helping them to take
ownership of their
learning
•
•
•
•
Teachers leading
learning in classrooms
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
School leaders
encouraging staff and
learners to be leaders
at all levels
an appropriate pace of work
appropriately challenging tasks
providing support and feedback
learners discussing their own ways of learning and
their success and progress.
•
•
focusing on learning and teaching as the central driver
to school improvement
modeling as a lead learner.
collegiate and collaborative working practices
creating conditions where people and teams feel
empowered
•
•
•
The following movies look at specific aspects of leading
learning.
Leading nursery learning - Staff describe how they implement
informed practice.
A team approach - The ways that the school uses to promote a
participative style of decision making and encourage all
stakeholders to contribute their ideas and views.
Taking a school forward - Staff review and evaluate the
school's approaches to building leadership at all levels and
leading the school community.
Fostering distributed leadership - The benefits of creating a
culture where young people feel confident to take a leading role
in relevant developments and how to manage distributed
leadership.
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THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE – LEARNING TOGETHER RESOURCE
Consider the practice illustrated in these movies.
How will you change your approaches to:
• encouraging learners to become leaders
• leading learning in your classroom and/or
• encouraging staff to take the initiative and be leaders of learning?
Make notes using the table below.
Something I’ll stop
doing
Something I’ll keep
doing
Something I’ll start
doing
Meeting children’s
learning needs in
classrooms and
helping them to
take ownership of
their learning
Teachers leading
learning in
classrooms
School leaders
encouraging staff
and learners to be
leaders at all levels
How might you shape your approaches to leading learning for learners, teachers
and other adults? Choose one action for each box in the table above.
Discuss your plans and intended outcomes with a colleague acting as a critical
friend.
Implement your ideas in your own classroom.
Video your own lessons and refine your practice.
Ask your critical friend to act as a peer evaluator to assess the impact and to
support you in achieving your outcomes.
Consider ways of sharing your project and experiences with others in the school
and the wider education community through websites such as Glow.
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Activity for groups (e.g. departments, schools, learning communities)
The movie ‘A learning classroom’ (Brian Boyd) featured earlier presents
the perspective of a well-known educationist.
Watch the movie again as a group and note down and agree the key
ideas relating to leading learning arising from the movie.
Group Discussion
How does classroom practice within your group compare to the one
described in the movie where there is:
• a ‘balance in the level of challenge and support’?
• a context for learning?
• a culture where learning is valued?
How do you know?
What are the main areas of good practice in your group?
How might you move your practice to be similar to that highlighted in the
movie?
Record your findings.
In a plenary agree the common key features of good practice in leading
learning.
Group Action
From your discussions select one new idea or approach to try across your
own group, department or school.
Plan how you will introduce this.
Agree how and when you will evaluate its success and impact.
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THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE – LEARNING TOGETHER RESOURCE
If you are working as a whole staff, you might wish to divide into groups and
take one of these sets of activities per group. Otherwise, work through
these one set at a time.
1. Learning in classrooms
Meeting children’s learning needs
Leading nursery learning - Staff describe how they implement practice in
leading learning.
2. Teachers leading learning as a group or as individuals
Leading learning
A team approach - The ways in which the school promotes a participative
style of decision making and encourages all stakeholders to contribute their
ideas and views.
3. Encouraging staff and pupils to be leaders at all levels
Building leadership at all levels
Taking a school forward - Staff review and evaluate the school's approaches
to building leadership at all levels and leading the school community.
Fostering distributed leadership - The benefits of creating a culture where
learners feel confident to take a leading role in relevant developments and
how to manage distributed leadership.
Group Discussion
Discuss and record the key features of the excellent practice described
in the movies.
Add to them the key features of good practice in your own
establishment in all three areas.
What more could be done to encourage leadership of learning?’
Display these for further reflection or share them with the other groups.
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Group Activity
You can use these key features to shape some action points for “leading
learning” for senior and middle managers; teachers; learning assistants and
other adults who work in the classroom; and learners in classrooms.
Try to emphasise in particular how you would engage learners to take ownership of
their own learning.
Agree your intended outcomes and action plan. Here is a template, or you may choose
to use your own.
What?
How?
Who?
managers
When?
Outcomes
teachers
learning
assistants/other
adults
learners
Establish a project team to:
• agree the intended outcomes, action plan and success criteria;
• check that the action plan fits in with the school improvement plan, departmental
development plan and your own agreed CPD;
• discuss it with line managers;
• manage the implementation of the action plan;
• devise ways to track progress and to share and evaluate emerging practice in
classrooms and in the school (such as peer observation, focus groups or using
technology to record views); and
• evaluate the impact.
Consider ways of sharing your project and experiences with others in the school and
the wider education community through websites or projects, such as Glow.
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