06 Aug

Posted at 08:58h in Uncategorized

(Published in LibEd journal, Summer 2014, online journal) In the summer of 2014 there was a national conference on ‘Student Voice’ held in London to which schools (teachers and students) were invited. The idea was to explore ways for young people to have more of a voice in decisions in school. There has been a longstanding interest in this with a growing literature praising the value of giving students more of a voice. I chair the Governing Body of Self Managed Learning (SML) College in Brighton. Given our role in providing a place where students manage their own learning it seemed useful...

14 Apr

Posted at 09:11h in Uncategorized

(Published in Lorimer, D. and Robinson, O. (2010) The New Renaissance, Floris Books, Edinburgh) IAN CUNNINGHAM bio. Ian Cunningham BSc, MA, PhD, FIoD, FRSA, Chartered FCIPD, FCMI is Visiting Professor at Middlesex University; chair of Strategic Developments International Ltd and chair of the Centre for Self Managed Learning. Previous positions have included Chief Executive of Roffey Park Institute; Senior Research Fellow in International Leadership at Ashridge Management College; Visiting Professor in Education Management in the Graduate School of Education, University of Utah; Visiting Fellow in Innovation in Education at the University of Sussex. He has published seven books and over one hundred...

04 Jul

Posted at 09:28h in Uncategorized

The title of this review is the title of Rose Luckin’s latest book and Rose delivered our Presidential Lecture on July 8 at SML College on this topic. Her chair at UCL Institute of Education is in Learner Centred Design. It’s in that capacity that we have worked together in the past and in her latest book she does make reference to research that she did with our students in SML College. So I can’t suggest that this review is a totally independent and unbiased piece. We have both been totally committed to the notion of learner centred design in terms...

28 Jun

Posted at 09:29h in Uncategorized

My name is Esther Russo and I work as a Vocational and Education Training teacher in the CIFP (El Centro Integrado de Formación Profesional) of Lorca in Murcia, Spain. In recent years my interest on new approaches to learning has grown, especially seeing the results that we have in our classrooms: lack of motivation, problems with managing time and goals, stress, abandonment of the courses, lack of social skills. I can see those even among my students, who are over 16 years old and many times over 18 or 20, are supposed to be really engaged, as they have chosen...

25 May

Posted at 09:33h in Uncategorized

It was common in my school, and I believe still is, for teachers to chide pupils who were not working. Working meant working at a prescribed task from the teacher. Also in modern parlance, there is reference to having pupils ‘on task’. If you are not working at a prescribed problem or task, then it is assumed that you were not learning. Recently a parent asked me what we would do if a student is not working. I indicated that we may do nothing since it’s not apparent that it’s a problem. Often when I was criticised in school for not...

20 Dec

Posted at 09:32h in Uncategorized

At the end of November I attended the International Democratic Education Conference in Bangalore India. As part of the presentation that I made I explored the notion of empowerment. I used the model shown below which summarises the way in which we think about empowerment in Self Managed Learning College. It uses the idea of traffic lights to highlight the difference between non-negotiable, negotiable and empowered activity. Like any organisation we have some non-negotiable elements. These include that we start the day with our community meeting. However what people say in the community meetings is up to the individual. They are...