This series of 2 minute reads shares how I've seen teachers use Cooperative Learning to take out each of the 7 deadly difficulties in teaching so neatly summarised by Tom Sherrington. For the first difficulty ("They still don't get it") we will use the absolute simplest of Cooperative Learning Interaction Patterns which is the bread-and-butter... Continue Reading →
Working on the HeppSy+ programme has made me ponder connections between a happy life and the ‘confidence and resilience’ strand also found in the new Character Education framework. [6 minute read] The importance of building confidence and resilience in young adults cannot be overestimated. In a recent mental health survey, the largest ever conducted on... Continue Reading →
We are an enterprise educator and a Cooperative Learning specialist developing a set of ‘confidence and resilience’ building activities for a Higher Education Progression Partnership. This post shares our experiences with putting the concept of "Possible Selves" to work for the Widening Participation agenda. [5 minute read] Since embarking on our work for HeppSY+, Catherine... Continue Reading →
I am partnering with a leading specialist in Enterprise Education to help challenged young people in South Yorkshire progress in HE. The latest success story of Henderson Green Primary Academy (formerly known as “The worst school in Norwich”) achieving 90% combined after only 2 years of sustained application of Cooperative Learning is a reminder that... Continue Reading →
In paraphrase, Sean Harford's second question is: "Wouldn't students learn more if we just spent the last week of term hammering in more subject teaching, instead of this Participatory-nonsense?" The answer is found in the framework. [4 minutes to read] Last week, Ofsted's National Director kindly helped pin down what he foresees as the two... Continue Reading →
A big thank you to the National Director for taking the time to see me yesterday at Ofsted's Birmingham HQ, where he helped formulate the two key challenges to a Participatory Budgeting programme in schools. This is the answer to his first question on the puzzle of mapping PB to the curriculum. [4 minutes to read]... Continue Reading →
The current paradigm perceives schools as machines producing clearly delineated and measurable outcomes. The current paradigm has apparently not met Mrs Humby. [6 min read] Two apparently disconnected events, yesterday’s teachmeet hosted at Ormiston Venture Academy in Great Yarmouth (#IgniteTM) and Monday’s social enterprise conference at Sheffield Hallam University serve to profoundly contextualise Sir David's... Continue Reading →
At Norwich Research School's unmissable Slow-Burn Leadership conference at University of East Anglia, Sir David Carter's speech was ostensibly on "effective collaboration and system leadership in East Anglia." In reality, he spoke of ethical leadership, cultural shifts and courage. As such, he precisely mirrored the points made by big guns in business at the Knowledge... Continue Reading →
By divine providence, yesterday’s education conference #rEdRugby19 flagged up the important, and grossly underreported, work being done on Knowledge Management in education. This interlude on yesterday's education conference in Rugby builds on Knowledge Management: What business can offer education in the year of the Platypus. Although I stand by my comments that education is decades behind... Continue Reading →
I had no doubts the Sheringham SSIF project would succeed when I signed up in 2017. But only when Robert Brewster presented me with the final analysis did I realise just how astounding that success really was. In the excitement of my current forays into the realm of Knowledge Management, Participatory Budgeting and Character Education,... Continue Reading →
cooperativelearning.works 