Step 2

Principle 1: Vision for learning

An engaging vision for 21st Century education based on social, economic, moral and personal learning imperatives guides the school and its community.

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1.1. A new vision for education.

This progression of indicators is about how the school grows and uses a vision for the empowerment of learning.

1.1b. The school is investigating social, economic, moral and personal reasons for revising the school’s vision for and of learning

1.1s. The school’s vision for learning is based on core values of learner empowerment, the expandability of intelligence and the strengthening of learning character.

1.1g. The school’s vision for learning is embedded in its culture and guides the school’s improvement plan.

1.2. Spreading understanding.

This progression of indicators is about how understanding of and support for the vision for learning is spreading through the school and community.

1.2b. The emerging understanding of the need to review the school’s vision for learning is spreading throughout the school.

1.2s. Understanding of the school’s vision for learning is spreading throughout the school and its internal community.

1.2g. School governors, staff, students, parents and the community support the school’s learning ambitions.

Principle 3: A Language for Learning

A rich language of learning recognising its emotional, cognitive, social and strategic dimensions, permeates learning across the school and its community.

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3.1. A language for learning.

This progression of indicators concerns the extent to which the school’s language for learning is used throughout the school.

3.1b. Some teachers use an emergent language of learning between themselves and with their students.

3.1s. A shared language for learning, stemming from the school’s Learning Framework, and further exemplified in the school’s L&T policy, permeates professional discourse and some classroom practice.

3.1g. A deep and evolving language for learning is embedded in professional and classroom discourse and in many other aspects of school life.

3.2. Impact of the language for learning.

This progression of indicators is about how the extent to which students use and profit from the language for learning.

3.2b. Some students are beginning to detect and use an ’emergent’ language for learning.

3.2s. Students are becoming familiar with the language of learning and some use it effectively to improve their learning.

3.2g. Students are confident and fluent in using the language of learning to describe and understand themselves as learners in a wide range of contexts.

Principle 4: Leading innovation in learning

Leadership for learning throughout the school supports innovation, experimentation and risk taking, building individual independence and responsibility

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4.1. Dialogue.

This progression of indicators is about how leaders create a dialogue about learning and innovation.

4.1b. School leaders initiate debate on how current practice might be re-formed to accommodate a focus on learning.

4.1s. There are open debates about what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ teaching and learning through the lens of building students’ learning habits.

4.1g. Staff and students are engaged in dialogues to develop learning across the school.

4.2. Enabling Exploration.

This progression of indicators is about the extent to which leaders enable people to seek and try out creative and innovative ways of working.

4.2b. Teachers feel able to embrace experimentation in the classroom with confidence.

4.2s. Practitioners actively seek creative solutions to overcome any barriers to the school’s development agenda for learning.

4.2g. Staff act with a spirit of self confidence and generate their own creative solutions.

4.3. Monitoring practice.

This progression of indicators concerns the extent to which leaders monitor and enable others to monitor, reflect on and develop their practice.

4.3b. The school has a monitoring system to investigate, guide and confirm improvements.

4.3s. Teams monitor their own practice and reach their own judgments against agreed criteria of teaching and learning.

4.3g. Self monitoring of practice is undertaken naturally as an act of discovery in order to improve practice.

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5.1. Aligning CPD to the school vision.

This progression of indicators is concerned with linking school, team and individual needs for development.

5.1b. Professional learning, through small scale enquiries, which are shared with the wider staff body, increasingly focus on understanding learning and growing students as independent learners.

5.1s. CPD programmes align school, team and individual needs based on the school’s vision and framework of learning.

5.1g. Staff learning through learning enquiries and reconnaissance activity is used to refine the school’s vision and framework for learning.

5.2. Professional Learning Communities.

How and the extent to which the school supports communities of learning enquiry to develop and reform teaching & learning practice.

5.2b. Lead teachers and others are coming together to discuss and explore issues around learning and teaching.

5.2s. The school supports practitioners to form and sustain professional learning communities to share and deepen changes in teaching habits aligned with the learning framework.

5.2g. The professional learning communities have the knowledge, expertise and the authority to develop and extend the learning reforms over time.

5.3. Coaching Learning.

This progression of indicators is about the extent to which coaching partnerships are used to support professional development.

5.3b. CPD for school and team leaders develops the leadership and coaching skills required to support cultural changes.

5.3s. CPD for practitioners develops coaching skills as required in classroom practice.

5.3g. Most staff are well-versed in coaching strategies that deepen learning behaviours in others.

5.4. Review of Learning.

This progression of indicators shows how undertaking reviews of learning both engages staff and provides valuable evaluative data on which to build future development.

5.4b. Senior staff conduct learning walks across the school to gather and act on quantitative and qualitative data on how students are learning.

5.4s. Key staff are trained in and conduct learning reviews across the school to gather and use quantitative and qualitative data on how students are learning in order to improve practice.

5.4g. Senior, curriculum, pastoral and phase teams together with students conduct annual learning reviews across the school to gather and act on quantitative and qualitative data on how students are learning.

Principle 6: Curriculum Design

The curriculum is effective in cultivating and progressing a set of generic learning habits and attitudes

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6.1. Adapting the taught curriculum.

This progression of indicators considers how the taught curriculum is being adapted to cultivate and build progress in the development of learning habits.

6.1b. The school is exploring adapting its curriculum to accommodate the systematic development of students’ learning habits.

6.1s. Schemes of learning in a broad range of curriculum areas / subjects / phases / are being adapted to include coverage and, in some areas, progression of learning habits.

6.1g. Innovative use of time allocation for subject areas, cross curricular projects and curriculum pathways are designed to ensure progressive cultivation of learning habits.

6.2. Maximising the use of the wider curriculum.

This progression of indicators considers how various aspects of the wider curriculum are being used to contribute to the cultivation and development of learning habits.

6.2b. The school is examining how enrichment activities have the potential to develop learning behaviours.

6.2s. School routines, including enrichment activities, are used purposefully to develop dimensions of learning habits that are more difficult to attain through classroom activities.

6.2g. Learning habits are brought to life in real settings (work experience etc) and these opportunities are designed to contribute to the development of learning habits.

Principle 7: Teaching for a Learning Culture

Teaching for a learning culture: how teachers make learning visible in order to develop effective learning habits and enhance content acquisition.

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7.1. Relating for Learning.

This progression of indicators considers how staff gradually devolve responsibility for learning to learners, how they model themselves as learners, and how, by adopting a coaching approach, they enable learners to take ownership of their learning.

7.1b. Lead teachers are exploring giving students increased responsibility for their learning. They build curiosity using a coaching approach and demonstrate how they are learners too.

7.1s. Most learning is characterised by a range of collaborative learning strategies to deepen teamwork behaviour. Students’ interests and questions increasingly influence what and how they learn.

7.1g. Most practitioners, as skilled coaches, resist offering solutions, enabling students to confront and engage with challenge. The classroom has become a learning community where everyone learns from each other.

7.2. Talking for Learning.

This progression of indicators is concerned with the ways in which teachers use an agreed and growing language for learning to explain the process of learning and nudge it forward.

7.2b. Lead teachers are beginning to talk about learning and how it works. They use the school’s emerging language for learning and encourage students to use it to talk about their learning.

7.2s. Talk about the learning process- verbal and feedback – is embedded in the everyday conversations of many classrooms and alerts students to the learning behaviours they are using and improving.

7.2g. Most practitioners use a language for learning fluently to help cultivate and improve students’ understanding of their growth as learners. Use of the school’s map of progression in learning behaviours keeps the language fresh and useful.

7.3. Constructing Learning.

This progression of indicators considers how staff link curriculum content with learning behaviours within a model for learning that has reflection at its core.

7.3b. Lead teachers are beginning to make conscious choices about which learning behaviours to introduce and couple with content to make learning interesting and challenging.

7.3s. Most learning opportunities are designed to ensure students learn at the edge of their comfort zone, reflect on the learning process and stretch their learning behaviours.

7.3g. Skilfully orchestrated, challenging, dual focused, open ended learning activities are used, and routinely monitored and evaluated by students, across the school.

7.4. Celebrating Learning.

This progression of indicators considers how staff communicate and enact the school’s beliefs about learning friendly cultures.

7.4b. Displays and talk in some classrooms show a positive learning centred attitude to overcoming mistakes, errors and being stuck and building students’ perseverance.

7.4s. Most learning environments are set up to reinforce positive messages about learning with an emphasis on growth as a learner.

7.4g. Positive learning messages reflecting the school’s learning values about the growth of learning habits permeate the school’s physical environment and reflect the school’s map of progression in learning.

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8.1. Learning relationships.

This progression of indicators considers how learners respond to gradually being given greater responsibility for their own learning.

8.1b. Students of lead teachers feel welcome in classroom, are involved in decision making processes and take an active part in learning.

8.1s. Most learners understand and act on their responsibility as learners, they learn constructively with their peers and with their teachers

8.1g. Students feel empowered to learn independently and have a rich view of themselves as a learner.

8.2. Talking for Learning.

This progression of indicators is concerned with how learners absorb the language of learning, using this to understand themselves as a developing learner.

8.2b. Students of lead teachers are being enabled to talk about the process of learning using the school’s emerging language.

8.2s. Many students are able to describe their learning strengths and weaknesses using the school’s language for learning.

8.2g. Most students have a sophisticated language with which to discuss the learning process, view themselves positively as learners and can describe how their learning is improving.

8.3 Constructing Learning.

This progression of indicators is about the extent to which the rich model of learning in the classroom is enabling learners to become managers of their own learning.

8.3b. Students of lead teachers are able to identify, with some degree of precision, the learning behaviours they are using in the classroom.

8.3s. Many students are aware of and reflect on their learning behaviours and can select which ones are likely to lead to success in overcoming challenge.

8.3g. Most students are reflective learners, able to think for themselves, take responsible risks and manage their own learning.

8.4. Celebrating Learning.

This progression of indicators considers how learners perceive and respond to experiencing the school’s agreed learning values everyday in classrooms.

8.4b. Students of lead teachers react positively to the learning culture. Students show a practical understanding of making effective use of failure, mistakes or effort.

8.4s. Most students have sensed the school’s commitment to growing learning habits and are taking an interest in their own growth as a learner.

8.4g. Most students learn with confident uncertainty, anticipating making mistakes and learning from them. They are interested in their own development as a learner.

Principle 9: Learner Engagement 

Young people actively co-participate in the design, management and evaluation of learning and contribute to the powerful learning culture

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9.1. Student voice.

This progression of indicators is concerned with how students are involved is the development of learning strategy.

9.1b. The school uses the analysis of learners’ feedback on their experiences of small scale learning enquiries to improve practice.

9.1s. A representative group of students provide learner insights and evidence of their experience of learning and their growth as independent learners.

9.1g. Representative student voice group(s) actively research and report on their experiences of and needs for learning. These insights are used to inform the development of learning.

9.2. Students as designers of learning.

This progression of indicators is about how students are increasingly involved in the design & facilitation of learning.

9.2b. Some teachers invite students’ ideas that are fed into the design of projects and investigations.

9.2s. Students are offered increasing opportunities to co-design and co-deliver aspects of learning in some areas of the curriculum.

9.2g. Students relish the many opportunities they are offered to be designers of their own learning across the curriculum.

Principle 10: Parents, Governors and Community

The school works in partnership with parents and carers to develop learning dispositions

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10.1. Informed and contributing parents.

This progression of indicators is about how parents are informed of and contribute to the school’s learning strategy.

10.1b. Parents are made aware of the school’s approach to deepening learning.

10.1s. An accessible version of the school’s learning framework is shared with, and used to steer the school’s relationship with parents, carers and the community.

10.1g. The views of the parents, carers and the community are sought and used to inform learning developments across the school.

10.2. Building parent power.

This progression of indicators concerns how parents are kept informed and helped to contribute to their child’s development as a learner.

10.2b. School leaders are evaluating how emerging practice on deepening learning behaviours might best be reflected in reports to parents.

10.2s. Parents are kept informed effectively of their child’s progress in developing learning habits.

10.2g. The school offers guidelines and examples of how parents can best support the development of their child’s learning habits in everyday life.

Principle 11: Evaluating the impact

Tracking and authenticating the growth of learning dispositions (with regard to when, where and how well they are used ) builds learners’ motivation and informs learning design.

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11.1. Tracking progression.

How the school tracks and authenticates growth in learning dispositions.

11.1b. Lead staff are debating how to tackle the assessment of students’ growth as confident learners.

11.1s. The school is testing a variety of formative methods of assessing, recording and reporting progression in learning habits.

11.1g. The school’s assessment recording and reporting system blends progression in learning habits with assessment of progress, attainment and other key indicators of pupil performance.

11.2. Using progression to refine practice.

How an understanding of progression in learning habits is increasingly used to refine practice.

11.2b. The school is considering the nature of skill progression in their current approach to improving learning.

11.2s. The school has developed a broad map of progression in the development of learning dispositions in line with its framework for learning and L&T policy.

11.2g. The map of progression in learning habits is used in the design of learning opportunities and subject to annual review based on improving classroom practice.

11.3. Building self-reflective learners.

How students come to understand themselves as growing learners through supported self-reflection.

11.3b. Teachers and students in small scale learning enquiries are exploring the possible nature and use of personal learning to learn targets.

11.3s. Some students are reflecting on themselves as learners using the school’s (newly created) progression map to record and set personal targets for improvement.

11.3g. Students are able to articulate their growth as independent learners and link this to their curriculum progress and attainment.