Parental Reflections on Learning

I met with a parent today and we talked about learning in the modern context and how we as a school and a learning community are moving to address and develop learning.

As an English National Curriculum school, we have undertaken the transition to a new Early Years and Primary curriculum and this has been further enhanced by the direction given to us by the UAE National Agenda to meet the 2021 Vision for the UAE. In our interpretation, these elements have empowered schools to refine their teaching process and build an enhanced learning model to underpin the delivery of learning and develop learning capacity in students.
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When I spoke with the parent she reflected to me without knowing the details of the work we are undertaking that learning felt like it was built more around each student and following their needs. While the old model of learning felt more like a march from one point to another hitting the learning objectives along the way but not stopping to support those that might need more time in certain ways or who have interests in another direction, that might slow down this march to fulfil the curriculum objectives.

We believe that there is a way to move learning that meets the students’ needs while addressing the objectives and the curriculum.

This was further reinforced when interviewing for new teachers and asking them about their beliefs for learning. Most of them talked about structured lesson plans and meeting the objectives of the curriculum in sequence. Rather than the magic moment that can happen in the learning process, driven by the shared passions of the learner and teacher and how the expertise of the teacher can then match this to the curriculum objectives that they need to meet.

Education has been in a revolution for the last few years and as an educator, the model of learning that we are building to empower both teachers and students is the most exciting thing that I have been a part of in my educational journey to date and we are enjoying riding the wave of change.