Learning Without Limits

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Not only is this an accessible and highly readable book; it is also an exemplary research project. (…) Vivid accounts are given of the teachers' day-to-day practice and the reasoning behind their very individual approaches is explored in depth and detail. ( Forum) As clear patterns emerged in the choices of structures and strategies introduced to support and foster this process, it became apparent that they promoted a particular kind of professional learning, recognising colleagues as active thinkers in their own right, who can and must do their own thinking if worthwhile learning is to take place. Strategies were chosen for their capacity to nurture key dispositions, for example openness, questioning, empathy and inventiveness, that feed and sustain autonomous professional judgement and enable people to do the kinds of thinking upon which teaching for learning without limits depends. The same principles apply Since the original study was carried out, we have identified a fourth principle*, which had been implicit in the other three. We now consider that ‘unpredictability’ needs to be recognised as a distinctive principle in its own right because it enables teachers to follow through into practice their belief in the power of the present to affect the future, their awareness that the future is in the making in the present. Present attainments tell us something about the past, about children’s prior educational experiences; they do not and cannot predict the future. There is no way of knowing how children’s learning capacity might yet flourish if teachers can find ways to oppose and lift limits that have hindered development thus far, and create learning conditions that children find more enabling. So, in their decision-making, the teachers actively avoided practices that might foster and sustain self-fulfilling prophecies. Young people were seen, not as ‘types’ of learner, but as unique, complex individuals, who are constantly growing and changing in unpredictable ways. The teachers avoided pre-selecting children to undertake tasks with reduced expectations, preferring to offer an invitation to learn that was open, accessible and challenging for all young people. Guided by the three preceding principles, they understood that outcomes cannot be specified in advance because learning depends upon what learners bring, think and do when engaging in classroom activities and this cannot be predicted.The teachers trusted and expected young people to surprise them; they always kept an open mind, were constantly striving to offer new experiences and to expand learners’ horizons, and were consciously working to create conditions in which surprises were more likely to happen. Working together We shape conversations about what's possible and for each individual we find the right route into the world of work - from apprenticeships after GCSEs, right through to a degree or post-graduate qualifications.

Hargreaves, D. (2005) Personalising Learning: learning to learn and the new technologies, The Specialist Schools Trust. (Chapter 4: Learning without Limits). An alternative approach to school development: the children are the evidence. FORUM for Promoting 3-19 Comprehensive e ducation, Vol 55 No 1 (2013) These same patterns also provided extensive confirmation of the head teacher's initial conviction that the pedagogical principles (co-agency, trust, everybody), derived from the original study, applied just as much to staff's learning as to children's learning. Strategies were chosen to enable colleagues to stay in control of their learning and develop their practices in their own time and in their own way (co-agency). They demonstrated the head teacher's belief in people's capacity to learn independently - and from each other - without being told what to do (trust). They provided significant opportunities for every member of the teaching team to participate in on-going discussions about learning, to share expertise and learn from each other (everybody). Harnessing the power of the collective Armstrong, M. (2013) The Brian Simon Memorial Lecture 2012. Education as reconstruction: another way of looking at primary education. FORUM for Promoting 3-19 Comprehensive Education, Vol 55 (1) pp 9-29 When we studied the practices of the nine teachers in the LWL project, we found that they were working to transform learning capacity in two ways ( Diagram 2: The core purposes of teaching).Teachers whose practice is guided by the idea of transformability, on the other hand, are convinced that the present does and must play a pivotal role in determining the path of future development. The future is unknowable and unpredictable because it is being actively created in the present. Everything that happens has an effect, for better or worse, on young people’s learning capacity. By understanding the forces that shape and limit capacity to learn in the present, and through the choices they make, teachers can exploit the possibilities available to them for enabling all young people to become better learners. The concept of learning capacity

Situated in North-West Leicester, we are a larger than average secondary school proudly serving students from across the city. We support many schools locally, nationally and internationally and are proud that we have seven members of staff that are accredited as Specialist Leaders of Education. Graded as `outstanding' by Ofsted at our last inspection, we feel that we have continued on a trajectory of improvement since the inspection,celebrating significant improvements in outcomes, particularly over the last three years. Whilst we are very proud of these awards and achievements, what makes us most proud are our amazing students and their achievements. Our students leave Babington with the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to thrive in a challenging and ever-changing world. The first research study was set up in 1999 at the School of Education, University of Cambridge. It was funded by the Wallenberg Foundation for the Improvement of Education, and also by the Faculty of Education Research and Development Fund. We identified three pedagogical principles that were common to all nine teachers, despite their very different contexts and approaches. These principles were the filter for their classroom decision-making, the means by which they ensured that choices made before, during and after work with young people in the classroom, were best able to fulfil the core purposes outlined above. Co-agency

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Why does this matter? What is wrong with children judging their performance against others? The deep-rooted problem is a belief that intelligence is fixed and that education should focus on accelerating the progress of the "gifted" and supporting the "less able". As a school we work very hard to counter the view that each child's future attainment can be reliably predicted; as part of this approach, we do not group children by ability. It includes internal resources and states of mind in addition to the purely cognitive-intellectual. The capacity to learn in any situation is affected, for example, by emotional states such as fear or excitement or by young people’s sense of social acceptance and belonging in the school or class group.

At Babington we are driven by a moral commitment to ensure that we make a profound positive difference to all who come through the school gates, andto ensurethat our students and staff reach their full potential. We work tirelessly to educate, support andinspire our community, thereby ensuringthat everyone aspires to and,indeed,achieves success.We are very proud of our diverse and inclusive school. Creating Learning without Limits provides a welcome tonic that can help to offset the beleaguering effects of a performativity and standards agenda that reinforces the ability based practices so pervasive in schools today. Building on the compelling pedagogy fi rst presented in ‘Learning without Limits’, this inspiring book shows how an alternative school improvement agenda can produce high academic attainment and enhanced capacity to learn for everybody. A classic for our time, it should be read by all who seek approaches to teaching and learning that are free from externally imposed views of ability and potential.” The principle of co-agency leads teachers to choose classroom activities and experiences for their potential to increase scope for children to influence and shape the direction of learning, to make choices and take responsibility for their own learning, to learn with and from one another rather than relying mainly on the teacher’s direction and input. Unlike ability-based teaching, where the onus is essentially upon the teacher to plan for differentiation of tasks, resources and outcomes, teaching informed by the principle of co-agency recognises that diversity in learning is achieved by what both teachers and young people contribute to the learning process. What young people will learn from any particular set of tasks or activities cannot be tightly pre-specified because it will reflect not just what the teacher has prepared and anticipated for their learning but also what they put in, what they bring and what they make of the learning opportunities that the teacher provides. Opportunities for sustained, purposeful dialogue between teacher and learners, and between learners themselves, are also of crucial importance, for it is through talk that young people have the chance to elaborate and develop their thinking and make ideas meaningful in their own terms. EverybodyThis month sees the publication of " Creating Learning without Limits", a book which is the result of many years work on a partnership research project with colleagues from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge.