Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Final Primary Review interim report highlights benefits of learner voice.
The last of the 32 Primary Review interim reports was published this month, with the final report due in Spring 2009.
One of the three final Primary Review reports is a survey of all the work of the TLRP which is relevant to the primary phase of education, in total 19 projects. The survey was conducted by the Director and Assistant Director of TLRP, which in itself is the biggest ever programme of research into teaching and learning in the UK.
The survey report concludes that children who had been involved in learning thinking skills in primary education benefited from improvements in their understanding and use of strategies and also that teachers reported changes "in their classroom practices, their perceptions of children’s thinking and in their images of themselves as teachers."
The survey also found success when Assessment for Learning Strategies were used by teachers. A dependence on specific literature listed in AfL guidance however, correlated with less creative and imaginative development of practice by teachers. More training for teachers seems likely to help with this, making the £150 million government funding for CPD on personalised learning and AfL over the next three years timely.
The TLRP report concludes "consulting learners about their learning and giving them a voice is both an expectation and a right". Click here for the TLRP report