How We Learn

At Woodlands School we aim for every child to be engaged and excited by learning, to become an effective learner and to begin to understand how they learn best. Our learning and teaching policy is at the heart of all we do. It sets out clear expectations, provides a standard uniform approach, a minimum entitlement for every pupil and can be easily monitored ensuring equal opportunity for all our pupils.

As a school we are moving from a focus on the question, “Am I teaching well?” to “Are the children learning well?”

Aims of Our Policy

· We aim for every class at Woodlands to be an effective learning community where our young people will begin their journey as lifelong learners.

· We aim to ensure that the children at our school are provided with high quality learning experiences that lead to a consistently high level of pupil progress and achievement.

Through the application of our learning and teaching policy we aim to achieve the following outcomes for our young people:

What capacities do we want to develop in our young people?

· Confident and resilient youngsters

· Successful in their learning

· Contributing effectively to the school and community

· Being a responsible citizen within them

We want our young people to develop strong values that relate to:

· themselves, as individuals capable of spiritual, moral, social, intellectual and physical growth and development

· their relationships, as fundamental to the development and fulfillment of happy and healthy lives, and to the good of the community

· their society, which is shaped by the contributions of a diverse range of people, cultures and heritages

· their environment, as the basis of life and a source of wonder and inspiration that needs to be protected

What skills will our young people need for life in the 21st Century?

· Communication Skills

· Thinking skills

· An understanding of their body

· An understanding of their world

· An understanding of their community

· Creative skills

What are the beliefs and values that underpin learning and teaching in Woodlands School

We recognise that we learn best when:

· We can relate to, feel comfortable with, like and feel liked by the person we are learning from

· We can make learning our own by relating it to our own experience and understanding

· We feel included and active in the process and not just a recipient

· We see a need and a reason for learning something – what’s in it for me?

In our school we learn to express feelings clearly and appropriately and to make sense of the role that feelings play in decision making and taking action.

We believe that children learn best when their self esteem is high and they feel a sense of belonging and inclusion. We make every effort to know children as individuals, understanding where they come from and who is part of their family. We also encourage pupils with praise. This is the responsibility of every adult in the school and we do this at all times in order to maintain and boost pupil morale.

The positive behaviour of everyone in the school will promote good learning. Children will follow the model of adults. We believe that a calm and purposeful learning environment is best and all staff will use supportive, quiet and purposeful voices and avoid shouting.

We encourage pupils and adults to see things from different perspectives and view points.