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Head’s blog

Helping our children ‘learn how to learn’

Following the exciting launch of our new topic, this week we introduced the children to a whole new way of visualising and understanding their learning skills. Our ‘Learning Friends’ are soft, cuddly and appealing toys, each of whom represents a vital skill in learning or a ‘learning super power’. In our assembly at the start of the week we introduced each learning friend to the children along with a story that put their learning power into context.

Tommy the Tortoise told us about his race with the Hare and how his resilience allowed him to win the race, despite not being the fastest.

We watched a clip of Klara the kitten talking about what curiosity means and how she has so many questions about things! Her curiosity about the dustbin ended up with her falling in and emerging with a banana skin on her head! Well, sometimes discovery means getting messy too.

We watched a fascinating clip of Sid the spider weaving a real silk web, making connections between the threads and creating a beautiful masterpiece. Bertie the Bee introduced us to all his friends and demonstrated how it takes a whole team of people to work together in the hive.

Ursula the unicorn was most put out when I suggested she might not be real – ‘Use your imagination’! Was her brilliant retort.

In order for children to engage and associate with the learning skills we want them to develop, they need visual and experiential representations of these rather abstract ideas. We hope our learning friends are beginning to do this – and with a set in every classroom we have no doubt they will become regular features in every lesson.