Personalising Learning (6)

What is Personalising Learning?

At The Hills Lower School we are continually reviewing planning to make it as cross curricular as possible. We aim to co-create with pupils a curriculum rich with interesting challenges, investigations and problem solving experiences. This prepares children for life in the world outside the classroom, developing essential skills for lifelong learning.

These skills include communication and presentation skills, organization and time management skills, research and inquiry skills, self-assessment and reflection skills, group participation and leadership skills.

This curriculum reflects the shift from delivering a body of knowledge and facts and is more responsive to the interests and ideas of pupils and staff. We hope this will nurture engaged learners who become increasingly responsible for their own learning, who find excitement and pleasure in discovering or exploring and so are highly motivated. We want to help pupils become better problem solvers and self-directed learners more able to integrate acquired knowledge to formulate solutions to new problems.

The role of teacher is shifting from that of factual lesson delivery to that of activity/project facilitator, guide and co-learner; the role of pupil is explorer. Although occasionally explicit skills instruction is requested by the pupils (for example how to insert film clips in to a PowerPoint).

By including pupils in the planning and organisational decision making we enable pupils to reflect upon their own ideas and opinions, make decisions that affect the outcome of their project and fully participate in processes of learning and leadership.

FS and KS 1 classes use mini challenges to applying personalising learning in their classes eg: producing a picture frame which they had designed and made. At KS2 personalising learning responds to high levels of pupil interest in an area eg: producing PowerPoints about the Roman army or Roman homes including film clips of them presenting new facts they had discovered