The Leweston Learner and Sixth Form

All students are encouraged to develop skills against five key characteristics: 

• Confident
• Inquisitive
• Adventurous
• Resilient
• Creative

The Leweston Learner is a is a learning philosophy, not a curriculum with particular content. Whilst the programme was developed independently, it was been inspired by academic research into ‘High Performance Learning’(HPL). This approach recognises that all students have the potential to achieve good results and emphasises the attitudes and performance characteristics required for this to happen. Effectively we are teaching our students 'how to learn' and providing them with a toolbox they can draw from both at school and in the workplace.

Modern employers increasingly seek out individuals with transferable and 'soft' skills. The Learner programme encourages the development of a number of these including complex problem solving, critical thinking, decision making, adaptability, negotiation and cognitive flexibility. 

Whilst students are encouraged to embrace a multitude of opportunities in order to learn from them, teachers actively look for opportunities to develop these characteristics in their planning and teaching styles. This can include:

• encouraging leadership in group work
• modelling making links between new work and what has already been learnt
• allowing students to 'run with' new lines of thinking which arise from discussion
• encouraging students to take individual approaches to tasks and setting work that could be completed in a range of forms
• not allowing student to avoid tasks they find difficult but providing support they can use independently
• giving regular feedback which the students can respond to
• requiring a balance of independent and collaborative work and peer support
• praising things that didn't work but have supported learning

Reports and rewards focus on the Learner characteristics in order to encourage students to develop these important attributes and to see how and where they are impacting on the learning and behaviour. Students will receive positive feedback for displaying high levels of perseverance; willingness to take a risk and eagerness to seek out challenge, not just for good test results. 

This approach also encourages to follow their curiosities and passions and develop their own ideas. Our aim is not just to teach maths but enable a student to become a 'mathematician'. By making decisions about their own learning students feel more invested in the process and build an understanding of how they, personally, absorb information. They identify their learning style; one student might discover hearing a presentation works better than reading a worksheet; another might find a discussion more effective. Homework offers the opportunity to take a project based approach and take pride in becoming experts in the subjects that interest them. Finally by creating challenges and encouraging trial and error we develop resilient learners who find their own strategies to solve problems.

Does this then create a situation where students learn what they want rather than develop the knowledge and tools they need for public exams?  The answer is no, the main purpose of this approach is to encourage students to invest in their work, understand the success criteria and have a plan to meet them, they just might get there in different ways.