We must accept life for what it actually is - a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature. (Robert Louis Stevenson)
The boxes on these pages contain snapshots from schools.
The school offers wide experiences — rich, motivating, exciting and challenging. It strongly promotes the expressive arts for developing young people’s confidence and self esteem, and promoting originality and creative thinking. |
Children are proud of their personal research projects and achievements in sports, environmental activities and the arts — there is a focus on lifelong learning. |
The school provides learning and teaching of a very high quality. It focuses on the needs of each individual pupil, on creating the right learning environment for each individual pupil and on giving each pupil opportunities to develop. |
Returning with ideas from an in-service course, the depute headteacher produced a paper on learning and teaching and shared this with all staff. This resulted in the school engaging children further with their learning. The introduction of Assessment is for Learning, ‘The most sensible thing we’ve seen in a long time’, the development of collaborative learning, the introduction of reflection time and discussing learning outcomes with pupils, have placed learning and teaching at the heart of the school’s discussions and development activities. |
Key features
Dimension 1: Engages young people in the highest quality learning activities
Through education, society hands on knowledge and culture to young people. Through education, young people should develop into rounded human beings, who are active in the pursuit of their own identities and dreams.
For very young children, opportunities to be active, take risks, make mistakes and learn from these are fundamental to their becoming enthusiastic about learning. They need broad and varied experiences which enable them to explore and investigate. Staff working with young children need to have a sound knowledge of child development and to be aware of the ways in which they learn. Young children need thoughtful and reflective staff who actively encourage them to become independent through giving them responsibility for their learning from a very early stage.
Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction. (Martin Luther King)
I like it when the teacher tells you what you’re going to be learning so that you know where you are at the end of the lesson. (P6 pupil)
It is the responsibility for diagnosing educational needs that lifts the teacher’s work out of the category of routine instruction into that of the highly respected professional. (The Primary Memorandum, 1965)
The focus on learning and teaching has become part of the fabric of thinking in all that happens in the school. This ranges from the large scale and obvious, such as engaging with the education authority’s learning and teaching policy, reviewing the S1/S2 curriculum, extending target setting to all stages within the school and introducing a successful programme of study support, to reinforcing recurring, smaller, daily strands. All this was backed up by the powerful signal given by the way that resources were allocated to curriculum needs and developments in learning and teaching. |
The nursery children were keen to learn and co-operated well with staff. Staff interacted skilfully with them to support and extend their learning. The pace and balance of activities was very good. |
Learning as personal development — meaningful in the lives of children and young people
The significance of relationships, emotions and values in learning; purposeful and stimulating work, promoting learners’ motivation and commitment; enjoyable and satisfying learning.
A school is good to the extent that… |
A school is excellent to the extent that… |
Relationships among children and between staff and children are friendly, and staff make efforts to promote agreed school values. |
Relationships are consistently friendly and trusting, within a strong sense of community and shared values. |
Learners enjoy most of their learning experiences, some of which are highly motivating. |
Learning experiences are imaginative, creative, stimulating and challenging. Young people enjoy them and are fully involved. |
Staff are aware and take account of young people’s motivations and emotions. They recognise the importance of these and how they affect young people’s learning — including their need for concentration and hard work. |
Staff understand and develop young people’s motivations and emotions. They build on them and are successful in achieving their sustained attention and commitment to successful learning. |
Staff take steps to encourage independent learning. |
Staff consistently promote curiosity, independence and confidence. They interact skilfully with children to support and extend their learning. |
The best teachers are inspirational and well organised, helpful and approachable. (class teacher) |
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Promotion of active learning
The use of a wide range of learning and teaching approaches; learners’ willingness and confidence as seekers of new knowledge, understanding and skills; the development of the ability to think, linking new knowledge to what learners already know and can do; many opportunities to respond to "open" questions; collaborative learning.
A school is good to the extent that… |
A school is excellent to the extent that… |
Learners experience different approaches to learning and teaching. |
Learners experience a wide range of learning and teaching approaches. Contexts for learning are challenging and enjoyable, and include creative and investigative activities. Young people engage confidently in such activities, and are prepared to risk making mistakes because they understand that they can learn from them. |
Teachers’ explanations of new topics make appropriate links with previous learning. |
Teachers’ explanations of new topics and the skills pupils will learn are very clear. They fully demonstrate the links with previous learning across the curriculum and real-life situations and make new learning meaningful. |
Children are encouraged to explain key ideas in their own words. Tasks and activities involve them in learning through thinking and doing, rather than by rote. |
Children often demonstrate or explain information, ideas, processes and skills to the teacher and to other learners. They understand that excellent learning means being able to show or explain it clearly to others in their own words, orally or in writing or pictures. Young children will be involved in ‘hands on’ learning. |
Teachers’ questions focus on key learning aims and they invite learners to think about them. |
Staff questioning is skilled and young people’s responses are always listened to and used to enhance their learning. By being regularly asked open questions, they learn to give considered answers from a personal viewpoint. Children get time to think and reflect before responding and they all expect to be invited to do so. Their answers lead to further questioning and dialogue which form coherent lines of enquiry. |
The best teacher explains things really well and helps you when you need it. (P3 pupil) |
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A school is good to the extent that… |
A school is excellent to the extent that… |
Class discussions involve an appropriate range of pupils within the class. |
All pupils understand that their individual responses will be valued. Children as well as teachers ask questions — of each other and of the teacher. Those who are not involved in discussion participate actively by listening, thinking and reflecting. The size of the discussion group, and other contextual features, is planned to meet the children’s needs. Discussions with very young children, and with less confident older children, often take place in small groups. |
Teachers are well organised, ensure that resources are of good quality and focus on the key learning aims. |
Teachers spend significant amounts of time actively teaching. They deliver learning personally to individual pupils and groups according to their needs, rather than relying on working only through textbooks. Teachers present material actively in a structured way. They continuously monitor the development of pupils’ understanding, tackle difficult concepts in small steps, elaborate, enhance and exemplify. |
Copying off the board is not learning. (former pupil) |
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Meeting children’s learning needs
An appropriate pace of work; appropriately challenging tasks; support and feedback based on teachers having a thorough knowledge of the understanding and learning needs of individual learners; learners discussing their own ways of learning and their success and progress.
A school is good to the extent that… |
A school is excellent to the extent that… |
Teachers recognise the importance of providing learning experiences appropriate to the stage of development which young people have reached. |
Teachers have a comprehensive understanding of children’s learning and development and provide feedback personalised for each learner. They observe learners closely, track their progress and use the information to plan their future progress. They strive to ensure continuity of learning approaches and experiences at transition stages |
Some co-operative learning and group discussion takes place. |
Young people often engage in co-operative learning and discussion with other learners. These activities are designed so that independent thinking by each learner contributes to the group’s work. Young people build on each other’s contributions to reach a common understanding while respecting minority viewpoints. |
Most lessons, activities and episodes of learning proceed at a steady pace, adjusted as appropriate to children’s needs. Allocations of time and deadlines are clear. Staff establish routines to ensure time is not lost on administration or behaviour issues. |
Children consistently work at a brisk pace, but are also given sufficient time to develop and make sense of their learning, particularly in the early years. Teachers allocate appropriate time to instruction, signalling changes of focus in lessons, activities and episodes of learning. Time is not wasted or spent on non-progressive tasks. Where activities are repeated, this is done judiciously and with the stated aim of consolidating previous learning. |
Being allowed to discuss things helps you to understand. (P6 pupil) |
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A school is good to the extent that… |
A school is excellent to the extent that… |
Teachers design or modify tasks and necessary support, taking account of the rates of progress and needs of broad groups of learners. They state objectives, outline the content of the lesson and point to the main ideas and the need to review them. Teachers give clear detailed instructions and explanations and provide active practice. |
Learning is flexible and adapted to take account of learners’ interests. Children become more confident in their learning by being given appropriate support and challenge. Teachers take full account of the understanding and learning needs of all learners. Lessons and episodes of learning are well structured, with challenging goals and use of organisers. New knowledge is linked to prior learning. Ideas are linked and contextualised. Materials are presented in stages. Structured curriculum areas are taught in structured ways. Learners master basic concepts before moving on to the next steps so that they develop confidence in their abilities. Teachers interact sensitively with young people, as appropriate to their stage of development. |
Pupils should get to choose topics. I want to be good at things. (pupil) |
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