Great Teaching Blog
Creating a Positive Learning Culture
Autumn 2024
Jen Little – Teaching and Learning Consultant and Assistant Headteacher and Y6 Teacher
Guy Claxton states:
“Students, who are more confident of their own learning ability, learn faster and learn better. They concentrate more, think harder and find learning more enjoyable. They do better in their tests and external examinations. And they are easier and more satisfying to teach.” (https://www.buildinglearningpower.com/)
How do we create children who are confident in their own learning? In this blog I will share some of the strategies I have found to be effective in my own practice.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a useful place to start. It will be difficult to develop learning behaviours if children's basic needs are not met and if our classrooms do not provide a culture in which children feel safe to experiment, and comfortable to take risks. The children in our classes need to feel emotionally safe, liked, and valued members of the class, and school, community.
When starting a new school year, my priorities are to build positive relationships with every member of my class; to create a safe space; to know what makes each child'tick' and, above all, to develop a level of trust.
“There is a strong evidence base that teacher-pupil relationships are key to good pupil behaviour and that these relationships can affect pupil effort and academic attainment” (Improving Behaviour in Schools: EEF p. 10)
What motivates your children – both in school and out of school? What affects their confidence? What is their favourite book/sport/colour? Be interested! I like to do an ‘All About Me’ book on the first day of a new school year. On the surface it is a book with a page about each child but, in reality, it gives me an insight into their lives. ‘Draw a picture of your family’ may seem like a simple task, but this often opens the door for conversations about who lives where, and how often they see the various members of their family. This means that, when a child says, “I’m going to my dad’s tonight”, I understand the enormity of that statement for that particular child and the possible emotional impact in the build-up to, or following, that visit.
I also make it a point to find out when each child's birthday is so I can wish them a happy birthday. I get everyone in my class a birthday card and write a little message in there, to let them know that they are cared for and thought about. (Most supermarkets do a great range of budget birthday cards). Taking interest, showing care and kindness, having empathy for each child starts to create a culture of trust that is key in the learning process. We know, from research about the brain, that trauma can have a significant impact on child development – cognitively and emotionally. Building trusting relationships with adults in school is paramount if we are to help them progress through Maslow's levels to self-actualisation.
Building positive relationships and creating that trust begins with these initial interactions with children and is vitally important. However, it can sometimes be hard - especially with children who present challenging behaviour. They need to know that you are 'on their side', that this year is perhaps 'a fresh start, a clean page'. That is not to say that we do not have high expectations, boundaries and routines. But consideration of the language we use can have a huge impact on how children respond to these. Using positive phrasing can be a genuine motivator for children. For example instead of “Stop talking!” etc, I find it helpful to rephrase it as, “I'm looking to see who is ready to learn”. 'Catching them being good' is so important, acknowledging and praising the behaviours you want to see. For example, "I can see Bobby is ready to listen to me – that shows good learning,' not only makes that child feel valued but encourages other children to behave in the same way. In fact, using positive, specific praise has the potential to increase on task behaviour significantly.
“Over the two-month study, pupils increased their on-task behaviour by an average of 12 minutes per hour (or an hour per day), while pupils in similar comparison classes did not change their behaviour. This study implies that teachers with disruptive classes could benefit from increasing their positive interactions with pupils.” (Improving Behaviour in Schools: EEF p. 27)
Carol Dweck (a professor at Stanford University) led a study about praise, looking at the differing impacts of praising achievement vs effort. All children in the experiment (400 students from across the USA) were given a very simple IQ test. Half the children who took the test were praised for their intelligence e.g. ‘You must be really smart’. The other half were praised for their effort ‘You must have worked really hard at this’. This seems a subtle difference, but the impact of these subtleties was incredible. All children were told that they had to take another test but this time they were given an option of a) A harder test – a greater opportunity to learn and grow; or b) An easy test – you will surely do well on this one. The results? 67% of the children who were praised for their intelligence chose the easier test whereas 92% of the children who were praised for their effort chose the harder test. An incredible difference, I’m sure that you’ll agree.
Dweck goes on to conclude that the “The child (praised for intelligence) hears ‘Oh you think I’m brilliant and talented. That’s why you admire me…I'd better not do anything that will disprove this evaluation”. As a result, Dweck says that these children are likely to “enter a fixed mindset, they play it safe in the future and they limit the growth of their talent.” In contrast to this, focussing on the effort that you put in and the chance to grow ‘they don’t feel that if they make a mistake that you won’t think that they are talented. Instead, these children think ‘if I don’t take on hard things and stick to them, I’m not going to grow.’ This is a strong indicator of the type of feedback we need to be giving to our children whether verbal or written and where, as adults in the classroom, we should focus our praise. (https://teaching.temple.edu/sites/teaching/files/resource/pdf/Dweck-Perils%20%26%20Promises%20of%20Praise.pdf)
Another aspect of developing a culture for learning is to use the language of 'learning' rather than 'doing'. I endeavour to be a facilitator of learning – teaching children to take responsibility for their own learning - often through open-ended questions and learning activities. Children are celebrated for their approaches to learning not just their successes in learning. These subtle shifts help to change how the children feel about themselves as learners - which can only be beneficial in the future.
Sharing with the children how we learn is another key to creating an effective culture for learning. In fact, the EEF study into metacognition finds that metacognitive learning and self-regulation have the potential to add an additional 7 months progress a year (https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit) . For me, part of this process is sharing with the children the cognitive psychology about changing and growing their schemata and talking to the children about what makes a good learner, the behaviours that they will need to grow their learning and praising them for practising these behaviours. Some schools attribute learning behaviours to animal characters (e.g., resilience = tortoise) or some schools create learning superheroes (resilience = The Hulk). However this is approached, it needs to be consistent throughout school and the learning behaviours need to be explicitly taught. It is then important to ‘catch' the children displaying these behaviours and draw their attention to this. E.g. ‘I really like the way that you made a connection between x and y. Good learners make connections.’ ‘I could see that you struggled with this calculation at first but you kept on going and used your hundred square to help you – that shows resilience and learning choices.’
Colleagues in EYFS are very skillful in identifying and creating activities which promote the characteristics of effective learning but, so often, these types of learning opportunities are limited to the Early Years.
Giving children regular opportunities to flex these learning muscles throughout school is key to them developing life-long learning behaviours and habits. (A future article will explore explicit teaching of learning behaviours more fully.)
Another key part of the 'settling in' process, is the establishment of expectations and routines. This can range from where we put the scissors when we are finished with them, to where the hundred squares live, to how I expect a piece of work to be set out, to how we line up etc. Showing the children explicitly how I want this to be done is vital, in my opinion, to the calm and smooth day to day running of the classroom. Consistency, in my experience, is crucial, ensuring that my expectations are in line with other teachers in school and then sticking to them. Forgetting to underline the date, or leaving a pen without its lid on, may seem inconsequential, however the children need to know that I expect these things to happen every time. And that does not mean that I berate the child who has forgotten to do one of these things, it is a reminder and then a ‘Thank you’ for carrying out the required action.
The DFE Guidance 'Behaviour in schools: Advice for headteachers and school staff' states,
'Routines should be used to teach and reinforce the behaviours expected of all pupils. Repeated practices promote the values of the school, positive behavioural norms, and certainty on the consequences of unacceptable behaviour.
Any aspect of behaviour expected from pupils should be made into a commonly understood routine, for example, entering class or clearing tables at lunchtime. These routines should be simple for everyone to understand and follow.'
Consistency and predictability are often cited as crucial for developing positive behaviour for learning, however, the DFE guidance also recognises that,
' Adjustments can be made to routines for pupils with additional needs, where appropriate and reasonable, to ensure all pupils can meet behavioural expectations.' (p. 11 points 20-21)
In Paul Dix’s book “When Adults Change, Everything Changes", he quotes Haim Ginott (a school teacher, a child psychologist, a psychotherapist and a parent educator) who says,
“I have come to the frightening conclusion. I am the decisive element in the classroom”.
In my opinion, no truer word has been spoken. We are so often the masters of our own destinies and influencers of those of the children in our classes. Our expectations; the relationships we build; the models we present; the routines we establish; the language we use; the ways in which we act, and react, impact hugely on the learning culture within our classrooms and, ultimately, on the learning and progress of the children in our classes. This is the time to be 'investing' in all of the above to ensure a happy classroom culture for learning is established and maintained throughout the academic year.