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"Learning to love, live and celebrate as we grow in the knowledge and love of Christ"

BLP - Building Learning Powers

At St Thomas More we are committed to building children’s learning power; not just what they are learning, but more importantly learning how to learn. One of the major developments in recent years has been the introduction of Professor Guy Claxton’s pioneering work on helping young people become better independent learners, which suggests that there are four learning dispositions.  We are calling these – Resilience, Resourcefulness, Reflectiveness and Reciprocity.  

  • Resilience – not giving up (the emotional aspects of learning) resilience, managing distractions, absorption, noticing, perseverance
  • Resourcefulness – being able to use a range of learning strategies and knowing what to do when you get stuck (the cognitive aspects of learning)
    thinking, questioning, capitalising, making links, reasoning  
  • Reflectiveness – being able to think about yourself as a learner and how you might be able to do this better (the strategic aspects of learning) managing, planning, revising, distilling, meta-learning
  • Reciprocity – being able to learn with and from others, as well as on your own (the social aspects of learning)
    relating, imitation, interdependence, empathy and listening, collaboration

Just as bodies can become fitter, so too can minds – learning how to learn will prepare the children for the future equipping them to become motivated and enthusiastic life-long learners.