13 May

Posted at 08:54h in Uncategorized

Parents can support children in their learning – and this may be in addition to what school provides - or instead of school. We did research on adults to find out how they learned when they were younger. We studied senior leaders in organisations as well as experienced professionals. We asked them initially to identify what made them effective. There were a multitude of different qualities and capabilities that people valued. We then asked them how they had learned these when they were younger. We had examples of learning from reading, from travel, from parents and others in the family, from...

03 May

Posted at 08:42h in Uncategorized

Written by Andrea Hazeldine, Deputy Principal and Head of College, Uckfield Community Technology College Introduction The title is taken from a comment made by a Year 8 student at the College. This article outlines the approach that prompted that comment – and others such as ‘I’ve learned more from these five sessions than in my whole school career’ from a Year 8 boy. The approach is called Self Managed Learning and has been used for the last two and a half years at Uckfield Community Technology College to give selected students the chance to set their own learning goals and work towards them...

01 May

Posted at 08:45h in Uncategorized

It may surprise some parents that research on adults has shown that the best predictor of life satisfaction is wellbeing in childhood and not factors such as academic achievement and exam grades. In fact test results in general, and whether a person is successful in them or not, does not predict later life satisfaction. With this issue is the fact that fear of failure and anxiety around examinations and tests reduces wellbeing in children. Even if the child is successful in academic attainment in school, if that is coupled with stress and anxiety, that has a negative effect on individual...

28 Apr

Posted at 08:59h in Uncategorized

Watch Ian Cunningham's talk on Education to Save the Planet, part of the Summerhill Festival of Childhood. In celebration of Summerhill School’s centenary, the Summerhill Festival of Childhood and IDEC 2021 took place online between the 30th of September and the 5th of October 2021. More than 150 contributors presented, joined community discussions, shared ideas and performed. Here, Ian Cunningham, Chair of Governors for SML College, shares his views on how many of the issues the plant faces is due to faulty education. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0ILmuDnTfk ...

23 Apr

Posted at 08:53h in Uncategorized

Published in RSA COMMENT May 2021. Marcus Rashford has made an enormous impact for a young footballer. Ian Cunningham FRSA argues that Rashford is an exemplar of an effective learner and that there are lessons for the educational world from this. In a tweet posted on 12 May 2021, by Marcus Rashford MBE, he wrote: “I stood on the seat in the Stretford End as a kid and watched that bicycle kick happen in real time. As soon as the game was over, I ran to the park and tried to recreate it. Luckily I’m still here because I landed on my...

22 Apr

Posted at 08:48h in Uncategorized

In conversation with a father he used the old expression: ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover’. He was referring to his daughter, who is profoundly deaf. The daughter is now 40 and running a successful business. However, in her childhood, she was grossly underestimated, because she was defined by her deafness. This made me think about many young people that I’ve worked with, where immediate impressions or labels have been unhelpful. Naïve judgements are often made about a young person from the label given to them. For instance, in working with a secondary school running a Self Managed Learning...