For many in education, pressures put on teachers to meet centralised outcomes have compounded the long-established culture of \u2018ability labelling\u2019 in the UK education system, in which children are categorised as \u2018bright\u2019, \u2018average\u2019 or \u2018less able\u2019, with expectations set on that basis.<\/p>\n In ability-based classrooms, teachers make assumptions about future attainment and educate as if every child\u2019s potential is predictable, which can lead to damaging notions of \u2018fixed ability\u2019, since children often respond to predictions by achieving only what\u2019s expected of them.<\/strong><\/p>\n Believing that ability-based practices in schools, around which debate has raged for decades, set limits on teachers\u2019 capacity to educate all children, a team of researchers based at the Faculty of Education joined forces with a carefully selected group of teachers who had rejected ability labelling in their classrooms in order to explore and develop a viable alternative.<\/p>\n This first study, published in 2004, outlined a number of key principles for a different model of education, based on the idea of \u2018transformability<\/strong>\u2019 \u2013 that all children<\/strong> (not just some) can become more powerful and committed learners given the right conditions and opportunities<\/strong>. This is in direct contrast to what the researchers see as the \u2018fatalism\u2019 inherent in ability labelling, which they argue assumes knowable limits to each child\u2019s learning.<\/p>\n When one of the teachers involved in this study, Alison Peacock, was appointed to the headship of Wroxham primary school in Hertfordshire in 2003, she decided to set the idea of transformability at the heart of whole-school development, working alongside the Cambridge researchers to document the process. The school went from Ofsted\u2019s \u2018special measures\u2019 to being ranked as \u2018outstanding\u2019 three years later.<\/p>\n The researchers and the head teacher present their findings in Creating Learning without Limits<\/em>, published last month by Open University Press. The book describes the remarkable journey taken by the Wroxham staff group, both their struggles and their triumphs, and discusses how other schools might embrace a similar approach.<\/p>\n The book explores what becomes possible when a whole school staff, acting together, commit themselves to creating an environment free from ability labelling. Alison Peacock encouraged her team to focus on the children\u2019s learning as a way into developing and strengthening their teaching and worked with them to put in place new structures \u2013 for example, mixed-age\u00a0 circle group meetings, learning review days, faculty teams \u2013 that would lay foundations for a new way of working together. The research team documented the leadership strategies used to support the development of teachers\u2019 thinking and practice and to build a school wide culture of learning.<\/p>\n Alongside these structures, Wroxham staff increased opportunities for children to participate in \u2018open-ended\u2019 curriculum experiences, where lesson outcomes cannot be predicted, because they invite children to explore, inquire and experiment for themselves. One of the teachers, Jo Turner, gives an example from a Year 5 maths lesson:<\/p>\n \u201cI gave the children sets of dominoes and a series of activities to choose from that encourage them to investigate patterns, test ideas and explore combinations of numbers. The activities included arranging touching dominoes to make specific numbers using addition and subtraction; making small chains of dominoes where touching numbers are alternately odd and even; and creating magic squares where the lines of dominoes all add up to the same number.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cChildren could choose their own starting points and create their own challenges as their confidence and understanding grew.\u201d<\/p>\n Mandy Swann, lead researcher and a lecturer at the Faculty of Education, explains that, when children are engaged in purposeful, challenging open-ended activities such as these, it is unnecessary \u2013 and impossible \u2013 to predict what individuals will take from them. \u201cThe Wroxham teachers trust in every child\u2019s capacity to learn; they trust that the exploration and collaborative working that they build into these open-ended experiences will result in worthwhile learning for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n The authors believe that the book \u2013 described by the University of London\u2019s Professor Michael Fielding as \u201clikely to become one of the most important educational books of the decade\u201d \u2013 offers a genuine alternative to the \u2018standards agenda\u2019 with its reliance on ability-based teaching.<\/p>\n \u201cTo believe in fixed ability is to believe in fixed futures and the limited power of teachers,\u201d says Swann. \u201cInstead of children being constantly compared, ranked and fettered by labels, the rich variety and complexity of each child\u2019s learning should be at the centre of education in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n She adds, \u201cOur research shows that a school can develop into a flourishing and successful learning community without the apparatus that government has put on schools \u2013 the targets, objectives and external pressures. A school where, as at Wroxham, teachers share a commitment to learning without limits and have a sense of their own collective power to make it happen is, almost by definition, a school that is learning, improving, developing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Cambridge press release via Physorg: A new book documents how staff at a primary school built on a previous study by Cambridge researchers to create an… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[45,140,73,19,12,124],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4082"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4087,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions\/4087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/Schoolteacher.jpg\" "\\"classroom\\"")
A new book documents how staff at a primary school built on a previous study by Cambridge researchers to create an inclusive learning environment – driven by a shared belief in teachers\u2019 power to enhance every child\u2019s capacity to learn.<\/strong><\/p>\n