Janet’s Story

Only when the head and other adults model being active learners will a school truly become a thinking school

Personal journey and beliefs.
As a head I became increasingly concerned about the narrowing of the curriculum that was taking place in our school because of the time needed to implement in full the literacy, and to some lesser extent, the numeracy strategies. This was contrary to my long held belief that children need a range of experiences to aid learning and time to reflect upon them.

Earlier in my career I studied for a qualification as an Associate of the Drama Board (ADB Ed.) and later worked as an advisory teacher and school curriculum industry project (SCIP) coordinator, facilitating curriculum development projects using experiential learning strategies and involving colleagues from the business world. These two ‘strands’ had many similarities and had convinced me of the value of engaging children in activities which had a meaning and purpose for them and which developed them both cognitively and emotionally.

Context of the school.
Heathfield Junior School is a three form entry school with 320 children on roll, 18 teaching staff and 10 part time teaching assistants. It serves a very mixed catchment area in an affluent London Borough. We have 28% free school meals and 20% of our children have English as an additional language, a significant proportion of whom have arrived in the area as refugees. Varying cohorts have between 30% and 50% children with special educational needs which make ‘average’ achievement in literacy very difficult for them. Our SATs results reflected this. Our perceived need to raise achievement, both for the future life chances of the children and to show our school as ‘successful, led us to listen carefully to advice given by external agencies.

By the year 2000 it had become apparent that doing ‘more of the same’ was not a successful strategy. Pupils who experienced difficulty in these areas did not do better but instead became increasingly alienated because subjects such as physical education, music, art, drama and design and technology in which they did well and therefore raised their self esteem now seemed to be less important and less valued.

I therefore embarked upon my own journey of discovery to find out how we could change our curriculum in a way which recognised all talents, developed self esteem and also which encouraged joy in learning and teaching; something that seemed to be endangered. I also believed that by empowering pupils we would, in the longer term, raise standards as measured externally in a way which we were unable to do using our present strategies.

Since 2000 there have been many developments and publications related to ‘learning to learn’ or the development of ‘thinking skills’ which were not widely available at that time and this has evolved so that by 2004 the emphasis is now on creativity in its widest sense.

How we did it
In 2001 I investigated possible alterative curriculum models and wrote a paper entitled ‘Beyond the Hamster Wheel’ setting out my findings as part of my masters degree. I also instigated a major curriculum development project which has involved pupils, staff, parents and governors and which is still growing in 2004.

As part of this I arranged for all staff to be involved in professional development including training on areas such as ‘accelerated learning’, ‘mind mapping’, and ‘assessment for learning’, all of which have influenced curriculum planning and delivery.

However it was two particular training sessions that had the most significant impact upon teachers and teaching assistants. Both were related to ‘thinking’ and this became the centre of our programme. One was a session in 2002 in which Robert Fisher discussed the teaching of thinking skills and the other was in 2003 when Karin Murris also worked with us on philosophy for children.
We had managed to retain occasional topic, arts and story weeks but we are now developing our foundation subject areas as opportunities for thinking and creativity. All classes have philosophy lessons each week and children and adults use thinking tools such as de Bono’s ‘thinking hats’ to focus thinking and solve problems. This has added to our long tradition of school and class councils and a collegiate style of leadership and governance. As I write the primary strategy training is promised which seems to follow the path we, and many other schools, have had to discover for ourselves.

Having grown to know each other and gained insight into our motivations, attributes and leadership styles, we needed to decide upon the structure of the research we were to follow. At this point it was important to find a methodology that not only melded with our ethos but also with the needs of our schools.

Janet French
Headteacher, Heathfield Junior School, Twickenham