WHAT  IS  BUILDING  LEARNING  POWER?

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At Greystones Primary School, we aim to ensure that all our children are given the opportunity to develop the skills to become global citizens of the future. In an ever changing world, with jobs that have not been yet created for our young children, we need more than ever as practitioners to nurture and cultivate good habits and attitudes to learning, which will enable our pupils to face challenges and difficulties, with confidence. As a way of helping our children gain the skills they need to become lifelong learners capable of overcoming difficulties and knowing how to find solutions, we have been implementing BLP for the last few years.

The BLP approach was created by Professor Guy Claxton and is based on the idea that everyone has a personal 'disposition' (habits and attitudes) towards learning and we are all capable of becoming better learners. It is not an instant programme but it takes root and develops over time. How well you learn is not a matter of how bright you are. It is a matter of experience and good coaching. Being a good real-life learner means knowing what is worth learning, what you are good (or not so good) at learning, who can help, how to face confusion without getting upset and what is the best learning tool for the job at hand.

 

Through regular use of BLP we hope that children will:

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• Be more confident in their own ability

• Have strategies to face difficulty

• Learn faster and better

• Concentrate more

• Develop a personal positive attitude towards learning

• Know how they learn – know their strengths

• Know how to work independently or socially

• Know what can help them learn – using resources or known information.

• Be prepared for a lifetime of learning

 

 

BLP is built around the 4Rs, or dispositions, which are:

 

RESILIENCE

 

REFLECTIVENESS

 

RESOURCEFULNESS

 

RECIPROCITY

 

These are further broken down into a further 17 ‘learning muscles’

 

 

Resilience

being ready, willing and able to
LOCK ON TO LEARNING

Absorption: you become engrossed in what you are doing; you are unaware of time passing
Managing Distractions: you know what distracts you, you try to minimise distractions, you settle back quickly after an interruption
Noticing: you notice how things look, what they are made of, or how they behave, you can identify significant detail
Perseverance: you are not put off by being stuck, you keep on going despite difficulties and find ways to overcome them, you recognise that learning can be a struggle.

 

 

Reflectiveness

being ready, willing and able to become
MORE STRATEGIC ABOUT LEARNING

Planning: you think about what you want to get out of learning, you plan the steps you might take, you access resources you may need
Revising: you are ready to revise your plans as you go along, monitor how things are going, change your plans when you have had a better idea
Distilling: you mull over experiences, draw out useful lessons from experiences, think about where else you might use these lessons
Meta-Learning: you are interested in how you learn as an individual, know your strengths and weaknesses as a learner, are interested in becoming a better learner.

 

 

 

Resourcefulness

being ready, willing and able to

LEARN IN DIFFERENT WAYS

Questioning: you are curious about things and people, you often wonder why, you play with ideas, asking "How come?" and "What if?"

Making Links: you look for connections between experiences or ideas, you find pleasure in seeing how things fit together, you make patterns

Imagining: you picture how things might look, sound, feel, be; you let your mind explore and play with possibilities and ideas

Reasoning: you create logical arguments, you deduce what might happen and you look for evidence

 

 

Reciprocity

being ready, willing and able to

LEARN ALONE AND WITH OTHERS

Interdependence: you know how much interaction you need with others to assist your learning, you make informed choices about working on your own or with others

Collaboration: you manage your feelings when working with others, you understand the ground rules of team work, you are able to work effectively as part of a pair or team

Empathy and Listening: you put yourself in other people's shoes to see the world from their point of view, show you are listening by eye contact and body language, hear feelings and thoughts behind someone's words

Imitation: you are ready to learn from others, notice the approach and detail of how others do things. 

 

How can you help at home?

Draw attention to, and model, positive learning habits
 

Resilience
• Demonstrate/model sticking at things even if they are difficult.
• Talk about how you feel when you are taking on challenges.
• Praise your child when they persevere but also encourage them to take
  a break when they have had enough.
• Help them to find interests and activities that are really absorbing.
• Talk with them about what helps them to concentrate and manage 
  distractions.
 

Resourcefulness
• Encourage questions.
• Demonstrate making links between different ideas.
• Don’t allow your child’s imagination to shrivel up!
• Help them to find ways of using resources such as reference books,
   dictionaries, the Internet.
 

Reflectiveness
• Encourage them to take responsibility for preparing for school.
• Ask what they learned at school.
• Help them to think about, and plan, activities.
• Encourage flexibility and the ability to change a plan if necessary.
 

Reciprocity
• Demonstrate/model being a good learner.
• Work, play and learn alongside your children, enabling them to pick
   up good habits through imitation
• Make expectations of turn-taking and cooperation clear.