Leigh Central Primary School’s Spiral of Inquiry

The KS1 coordinator carried out a pupil voice survey across KS1-2. Some children did identify an adult with who they had a positive relationship, but this was not consistent across the school. Many learners seemed to lack focus when discussing their learning. They could not verbalise why or where they were going next with their learning.

We wanted to address the learner as the key focus and what drove or inspired them. What were the barriers to a positive learning experience? What were their aspirations?

Our initial thought was that our children lacked clear aspirations. In truth, they had high, but often unrealistic, career based aspirations. Such career aspirations were gender specific and often reinforced gender stereo-types. The children lacked focus when it came to learning, or educational based aspirations. In short, they did not see the reason for learning and school was not a wholly positive experience.

Following on from our initial research, we looked at why children become frustrated with learning and the school experience, in general. Current research indicates that when children lack the key knowledge and procedural methods within their long term memory they resort to using their working memory to cope with school work/ learning. This easily becomes overloaded and children result in being frustrated with learning.

We are to redesign our whole school curriculum for September 2019. It will be aspirational, with opportunities for children to set aspirational targets. Metacognition skills will give children ownership and place them in the centre. Teaching methods are to be tweaked, taking into account the recent research and staff training on memory retention and reducing cognitive load.

The PASS reports will be revisited in December 2019 to see if pupil responses have improved. Pupil, parent and staff questionnaires will canvass the views from all stakeholders. Data will be closely analysed to see if the changes have had an impact upon progress.

Do not set a predestined path. Follow the advice of Bilbo from The Hobbit, “it’s a dangerous business going out of your front door, you step out on the path and if you don’t keep your feet, who knows where you may be swept off to.”
Be prepared to be swept off to somewhere unexpected !