Learning Nutrition – Main Course: Part 1
Having dithered for several days, tried various elements of learning nutrition with several groups, in no particular order, I have finally decided to try 3 nutrients on 3 different classes.

Year 7 – Control, Shift of responsibility
From the very beginning of their time at Culverhay, our Year 7 pupils have learned to respect the fact that all pupils are at different stages of their learning journeys (and at different stages in the various cogs e.g. the physically developed pupil may be less socially developed and vice versa). With this in mind, pupils have been encouraged to adapt tasks to suit their own learning needs and set appropriate levels of challenge which they think will maximise their learning. This had a major impact with one particular pupil who was identified by his primary school as being a pupil ‘to keep an eye on’ and ‘expect the unexpected’. What I didn’t expect was the fact that he intentionally makes every task more challenging for himself so that he can make more progress in a lesson, and he also suggests changes in challenge (increase and decrease) for other pupils in the class. I suspect if I taught him 5 years ago, I would have had to keep an eye on him and he would have struggled to learn in not just PE but in many other lessons.

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This is an article by Stephen Pritchard from his blog http://www.gingercoaching.com. The original version of this article can be found at http://www.gingercoaching.com/?p=65

In Learning Nutrition parlance, “Minerals” as a nutrient equates to the idea of shifting control of and responsibility for learning to the learners themselves.

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Last Wednesday, I lead an hour long discussion with my colleagues Greig and Tom at Culverhay School about the Learning Nutrition Project. We identified many aspects of the draft that we already implement in lessons, and acknowledge the positive impact it can have on teaching and learning. There were many aspects that were new to us, but we could immediately see that they could have a similar impact.

Each of us had a particular favourite or perceived strength, one that we rely on more than others. The proposed 7 Essential Learning Nutrients are: (more…)

Create  Development  is working with a group a of open-minded innovative practitioners in the field to put together an ongoing experiment to see whether just small focused changes to our planning and delivery can make massive differences to young people’s learning.

Our hypothesis is that ‘Some things are simply just more important than others.’ We have together come up with a suggested diet menu which we are going to call ‘Learning Nutrients’. The practitioners will attempt to steadily increase the amount of the 7 groups of learning nutrients the young people will receive in their sessions and report back on this blog the impact they are having on their learning.

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