The Chronicle, Summer 2019

10 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Tell us a bit about your approach to Learning Development? I’ve always known that young people can do amazing things. Here at Teddies, pupils regularly join us with a learning profile that might suggest that they will find academic work really challenging. Through our very deliberate and carefully planned Learning Development programme, all of these young people are encouraged to discover coping strategies to help them overcome these challenges. We actively manage against what I call ‘learned helplessness’. Taking a pupil out of lessons for one-to-one support is something many families expect if they have experienced it elsewhere. This is not how we do things here at Teddies. All our teachers are skilled at meeting the needs of all the pupils in their classroom, whatever their challenges. Our approach is very different to that of other schools in our sector. We never have Learning Support lessons – we don’t need to: we have good tutoring and good teaching. Parents are often surprised initially, but we have a conversation and they generally understand and support

what are you going to do for my child? After our conversation, they understand that we will be helping their daughter or son to find their own strategies and to be resilient. Once they leave school, they won’t have a Learning Development team to fall back on, and we want to make sure they go out into the world ready to embrace all that it has to offer. We’re not teaching our pupils how to cope – but how to thrive. Our approach is much more about the pupil’s approach to his or her learning than about perceived difficulties. I work with Special Educational Needs Coordinators at our feeder schools – we explain our model, and we demonstrate that it is working. Since we stopped taking pupils out of lessons for one-to-one support some five years ago, our results have gone up, not down. Is the coaching culture important in this context? It’s absolutely vital. It’s another area I manage, and it’s the forum for so much that is important about our culture. It’s where relationships are formed, where productive and supportive conversations happen and where advice and guidance can be tailored exactly to the needs of the individual pupil.

In general, coaching means having conversations that encourage the individual pupil (or member of staff) to think through their own workload and challenges, and to find solutions for themselves. What went well in your test and what didn’t go well? How could you have done things differently? What steps are you going to put in place this week to work towards a different outcome next time? These are the kind of conversations, full of open questions and active listening, that prompt young people to be self-aware and to make the right decisions. It’s not always easy, but they are surrounded by people who can help them at every stage. A pupil came to me recently ahead of the end-of-year exams and said, ‘Miss, I don’t know how to revise.’ I asked lots of questions and it became clear that in fact, she did know how to revise. So then we moved on to working out what was stopping her from revising. In her case, it emerged that anxiety about exams was having a paralysing effect on her work. We worked out a practical, day-by-day programme to ensure that she started to Can you give us some examples of what you mean?

our culture. Some parents start the conversation with a challenge to us:

Will Griffiths

Appointed after a rigorous selection process, Peer Listeners for 2019/20 are: Niyaz Kanayev, Katya Jacobs, Billy Sallitt, Charlie Woodall, Mfon Awak-Essien, Samuel Newman, Hamish Smart, Olivia Heath, Aimée Joubert, Bunny Lytle, Phoebe Forbes and Alexandra Herrtage