Learning History
workshop guide
What’s included in the slide pack?
This slide pack with accompanying facilitators’ notes has been created to assist
the use of the learning history as a tool and forms the basis of a four hour
workshop. The workshop’s purpose is to introduce the learning history,
understand the experiences and lessons learnt and to consider how to apply
this to the future of working in a holistic way.
Slides to assist your preparation
Slides as a resource for the workshop
Thinking about what you want to achieve
Aims
Phases of a workshop
Principles of Total Place work
A sample half day workshop
Starting where you are
Using quotes to provoke discussion
Sections of the report explained
Sample points for discussion
What is a learning history?
How its laid out
Elements of the story
Kolb’s learning cycle
Action learning cycle
Pre Work
The following slides are designed
to assist you in your preparation
for the workshop
Thinking about what you want to achieve
The workshop will enable the group to use the learning
history document: ‘Places, People & Politics: Learning to
do things differently’*
Having read the learning history and identified those
parts that resonate (or irritate) it enables workshop
participants to relate their own experience of Total Place
The exploration will stimulate ideas for what learning
might be taken forward
Actions to take forward may emerge and are the tangible
outcomes the workshop seeks to promote
* copies available online from www.localleadership.gov.uk/current/publications/
The phases of a workshop
Setting the scene
Invite someone from senior management, a champion or a key
player to kick the workshop off. This gives value to the dialogue
about to take place (and the validity of the report on which it is
based)
Phase one
‘What happened and why?’
Phase two
‘So what?’ and ‘What next?’
Summarising
What will happen next?
A sample half-day workshop
Setting the scene
9.30 Introduction by a senior leader / local champion
Introduction to the Learning History, the session and the group
Phase 1
First reactions (small groups)
What stood out for you when you read the report and why? (Surprise, joy, anger,
sadness, frustration etc.)
Working on extracts/ quotes/questions – (see samples, gather some from the group or
Select some in advance relevant for the group)
Phase 2
‘So what?’ In small groups participants share reactions and thinking about possibilities
for change within their area of responsibility
Insight into action ‘What next?’
• What can be developed and at what points in the system?
• Who, how and when these will be taken forward
Summarising
12.45 Summary of next steps and what will happen next
13.00 Close
Sample quotes to provoke conversation
“The good ideas still have to be done regardless really and when the dust
settles, an election’s held, whatever we do we’re going to keep coming back
to this area?”
“Oh I could do it every day of the week; I just find it fascinating because it’s
inspiring isn’t it looking at how you change things. I find that the concept of
Total Place is a really liberating one in terms of freeing you up to think about
things in a different way.”
(Select other quotes more carefully or gather some from
participants to be the focus for discussion)
Sample points for discussion
What did you notice from the quotes that you recognised
or that connected powerfully with
your own experience?
From your perspective, what is new and what isn’t?
(Things that you have thought and how you have behaved for
a long time?)
What inspires, reawakens old values?
What are the blocks which you recognise where
you work?
What are the doubts and difficulties that have not
been spoken about?
The following slides can be used or
adapted for use on the workshop
Title of your
workshop:
Name of the
facilitator:
How we aim to use ‘Places, People &
Politics: Learning to do things differently’
To identify whether your reflections are personal and which are
shared by others
To value, evaluate and hear different voices and perspectives from
different levels and roles in the local and central government system
To learn and become conscious of lessons so we don’t repeat them
To challenge what you are all thinking
To notice what are ‘old’ ideas and what is ‘new’
To focus on the challenges and opportunities
Aims of the workshop
The overall purpose of this workshop is to …….
The more specific aims of the workshop are:
xxx
xxx
xxx
xxx
Principles of Total Place
Locally led
Holistic
Customer-needs driven
Relationships are more critical than are the rules
Try it and experiment
It is better to ask forgiveness than permission
Respect people in authority and seek conversations and
ask for them to open doors
Don’t make assumptions - find out, explore
Starting where you are
Identify the most significant time for your locality during
your involvement in Total Place
Identify what your questions are now about Total Place
What affected or inspired you most personally?
What was most difficult or challenging for you
personally?
If it all left you cold why do you think that was?
Sections of the report explained
Contents:
• Section 0 Arguments for a new approach to public sector
working in places
• Section 1 The origins of Total Place
• Section 2 Project inception to the Pre-Budget
Report (PBR)
• Section 3 From the PBR to the final reports
• Section 4 Was it worth it? Yes it was
• Afterword
What is the Learning History?
It’s a collection of stories, learning and reflection from
a large number of people involved in Total Place
Over 100 people were interviewed from different
Places and parts of the system
The interviews were recorded and analysed with
the themes and data drawn from people’s
concrete experiences
The process produces a ‘jointly told tale’
The next stage is for readers to join the story, react,
identify and learn themselves from it.
Learning history structure
First paragraph
at the beginning
of each section
This sets the scene and
tells you what was
happening at the time
and what’s included
in the section
People’s real
experience expressed
in quotes:
The quotes
are the
data and evidence
upon which the history
is written
Questions to consider
Signposts of left hand
side of the page:
These are to guide
the reader and
captures the essence
of what the quotes
are saying
These are at the end
of each section and
are designed to
provoke discussion
and reflection for the
reader
The elements of the story / history
There’s
nothing newwe are
already doing
this
The quotes
Insights – new
thoughts and new
actions
The questions
Another dimension
to consider that may not be so explicit
The
customer
s
Is the voice of the
customer coming
through enough?
What do you think
they would be
saying?
The unspoken
doubts and
difficulties
The systemic view –
how the parts fit and
work together or don’t
You may notice that some
difficulties have may not
have been talked about
Kolb’s Learning Cycle
Transfer of learning
Into action
Experiencing:
Concrete experience
Reflective observation:
Relating to self and own
experience
Planning
Action and experimentation
Concluding:
Abstract conceptualisation
or theory
Kolb’s Learning Cycle
Concrete
experience
- Activist
Active experimentation Pragmatism
First hand
experience +
finding ways
to use
experience
Being told or
reading about it
+ finding new
ways to use
experience
First hand
experience +
reflection on
experience
Being told or
reading about
it + reflection
on experience
Abstract conceptualisation Theory
Reflective observation
- Reflection
The Learning Cycle
This is based on a cycle of action and reflection the outer circle aims to create increasingly effective
leadership action, the inner triangle indicates the
value of the ability to reflect and review in the
of
midst of action
1. Description
experience and
dilemmas
talking about the issue
5. Action
• what actions should we
consider taking?
• what will be needed to
move forwards?
4. Reflection
reaction and reflection ’
+ discussion to consider how the
feedback loop fits with a new
understanding of the issue
2. Inquiring
questions
• to explore the issue
• to deepen the inquiry
3. Feedback
what you were:
• noticing
• feeling
• thinking
• hypothesising
Pre-work for participants
Pre-work:
Instructions to send out in advance
Read the learning history in advance of the workshop.
As you read the report notice what experience and emotions it
triggers in you either by identification or by a reaction that says ‘this
is nothing like how it was for me’.
Mark the areas in the text that are most powerful for you and identify
one or two of the quotes or questions that stand out most powerfully
for you
Also suspend your judgement – wonder why people said what they
said even if you don’t agree – keep an open mind
Come to the workshop being prepared to learn and explore with
others the implications of what others have said and how you feel
now
We will use your reflections during the workshop so please make
notes
Starting where you are
Identify the most significant time for your locality during
your involvement in Total Place
Identify what your questions are now about Total Place
What affected or inspired you most personally?
What was most difficult or challenging for you
personally?
If it all left you ‘cold’ why do you think that was?
Further information
Questions and more information?
• Website:
www.localleadership.gov.uk/totalplace
• CoP:
www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/1564537/home.do
• Email:
nicky.debeer@localleadership.gov.uk or
holly.wheeler@localleadership.gov.uk