If I could only choose 5 key characteristics that make a big difference to how well young people learn…
A HBK learner:
Behaves well: even when no one is watching; follows instructions first time; is conscientious and polite – a pleasure to teach; never makes it difficult for anyone else to learn. The best foundation for great learning is great behaviour.
Works really hard: every lesson, every day; thinks hard; maintains concentration; tries to finish all work set; is willing to invest a lot of time in learning; wastes no learning time.
Takes responsibility* for their own learning: knows that how hard they work will affect how well they learn; thinks about how they are doing, and how to improve; acts on feedback; always does their classwork and homework as well as they can.
Persists: is determined; and resilient; keeps at it, even when things are hard, because they understand that learning is meant to be a challenge, and it takes time.
Is positive: can-do; cheerful; optimistic; smiles; is self-motivated and keen to learn; always wants to know more, and improve; often goes above and beyond.
Having a scale enables both teachers and students themselves to assess against the learner characteristics, and it allows for progression in them. This is one kind of scale, using 4 key words:
Emerging. Developing. Secure. Excelling.
Using this scale, each of the 4 key words would have a brief description: ‘Emerging’ for Behaviour might mean that the student’s behaviour is often well below the expected standard, and ‘Excelling’ would mean that their behaviour is typically outstanding etc
Or we can use a numbered scale: 1, 2, 3, 4, where, again, each number has a description, with 1 at the bottom end and 4 at the top.
The advantage of using numbers is that as well as scoring a student for each individual characteristic, we can calculate their average score across the learner characteristics, and their overall score – in this example, 5 characteristics, each marked out of 4, would give a total score out of 20. Numbers make progress easy to track and they allow for comparison.
Learners have many characteristics that may affect their learning, of course, only some of which are mentioned here – a student’s prior attainment in a subject is one I haven’t mentioned, and their general attitude towards school is another – but this blog is an attempt to define 5 key characteristics that can be measured, and that help teachers, students and parents to think about and discuss young people’s learning. Because learning is the thing.
*Also called ‘self-regulation’, but this term can be hard to understand
