Grampian Primary School

Research Project

Aims of the ProjectWe are endeavouring to build an 'ASK' Curriculum (Attitudes - Skills - Knowledge), with our highest values and best learning efforts focused on key attitudes and learning dispositions.

• Connect with highly effective people across a wide range of disciplines and life experiences to identify dispositions behind exceptional achievement and translate them into a planned, incremental, attitudinal, curriculum framework couched in child-friendly terms;

• Develop a pedagogy for teaching, assessing and nurturing these attitudes within ourlearning model based on Bloom's Revised Taxonomy.

Identification of a set of key attitudes / dispositions behind exceptional achievement.

A framework of detailed, child-friendly, progressive (Nursery to Year 6) attitudinal objectives based upon our 6 ‘Rocks’ in a form that we could assess against.

A secure teaching methodology to nurture these attitudes through the use of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy.

Key Outcomes

Grampian Research and Development team recruited- Applications for the team were invited from pupils

following work on the attitudes and skills that would be required from members of such a team. Following a selection process the team members were appointed. Specific roles and responsibilities were discussed, negotiated and agreed with the team.

- The team followed this up by defining the criteria of ‘achievement’. It was agreed that candidates for interview should have recognisably excelled at the highest levels in their field or in terms of life experience.

- Work then began on drawing up our ‘wish-list’ of high profile, ‘high-achievers’ against the agreed criteria and on devising a strategy for making contact with potential interviewees. Letters of introduction and invitation were drafted and refined whilst the team began researching potential candidates and finding contact details.

Early stages

Howard Ebison – Apprentice candidate/Local business man. Donna Kellogg MBE – England badminton player/SportsBrian Treguna – Derbyshire Chief Fire Officer /Public

service Richard Reid – National Role Model Programme Lord Professor Robert Winston – Science/Technology Cliff Lewer – Former Managing Director , Alida Holdings

(largest UK plastic bag manufacturer)/Business Andrew Lewer – Derbyshire County Council Leader/Politics

Interviewee Details

Donna Kellogg MBE

Richard Reid

Brian Treguna

Lord Professor Robert Winston

Identification of key dispositions which were evident throughout interviews.

Outcome of interviews

Ambitious Initiative Open minded Critical Reflective Driven ResourcefulRespectfulConstructive

EmpatheticConfident Decisive Aspiring Creative Resilient Brave Ardent Inquisitive

These were then mapped against our existing ‘rocks’ to form a framework to assess against.

Our Rocks

Aim High

Ambitious

Driven Aspiring

Our Rocks

Dare to be different

Inquisitive

Brave Creative

Our Rocks

Thinking for

myself

Initiative

Resourceful Decisive

Our Rocks

I can do it

Ardent

Resilient Confi dent

Our Rocks

More than just me

Open minded

Respectful Empathetic

Our Rocks

How well did we do

Critical

Refl ective Constructive

Initially focused on key messages from the interviews linking these into the rocks.

Wanted to create progression from Nursery into Year 6 to build upon these attitudes each year and put these at the centre of our curriculum.

Research team encouraged to be involved in writing these statements using what they had learnt from the interviews.

Attitude Framework

Aim High – Driven

FS1 I know what I want to do and how to do it.

FS2 I know what I want to do and concentrate on it until it is finished.

1 I know what I need to do and what to do to achieve it.

2I know what I need to do and stay focussed on the task until it is finished.

3I can work towards what I need to do and understand that there may be problems along the way.

4I can overcome setbacks whilst maintaining a focus to achieve my goal.

5I can overcome setbacks whilst maintaining a focus to achieve my goal and understand what others are thinking.

6I overcome setbacks and maintain the necessary focus in order to achieve my goal whilst getting other people on board with my thinking.

Dare to be Different - Inquisitive

FS1 I look for new things to do in and around Nursery.

FS2I enjoy finding out about new things and ask questions about them.

1 I am interested in finding out more about what I have learnt.

2I am interested in finding out more and know some way to find the answers.

3I can think of a question about my learning and know some ways to find the answer.

4I can ask relevant questions about my learning and know different ways to find my answer.

5I can ask imaginative and appropriate questions to extend my learning and know different ways to find an answer.

6I show a desire to learn by asking imaginative and appropriate questions and understand that not all my questions can be answered.

FS1 I will go back to things I enjoy doing.

FS2I can choose something I like to do and enjoy spending time doing it.

1 I can concentrate on an activity of my choosing until it’s finished.

2 I understand what interests me and why.

3 I take on opportunities that interest me and stick at them.

4I look for opportunities to follow my interests and enthusiastically work towards an outcome.

5I look for opportunities to follow my interests and enthusiastically maintain my attention despite other distractions

6I enthusiastically work at something by maintaining my attention and drive until a desired outcome is achieved.

I Can Do It – Ardent

Interactive teaching and learning policy that

gathers together the best examples of constructivist approach to learning for staff to share and learn from.

Follows 4 key principles - Readiness for learning - Attitudes to learning ‘6

rocks’- Problem based learning - Scaffolding learning

through Blooms Revised Taxonomy

The Grampian Way

Foundation – Looking at and creating cars.

Examples of Our Practice

The children in the first part of the session had to focus on the remembering and understanding stage of blooms by looking at the three different types of car and investigating how they were different and where similar parts were. The second stage of the problem set to the children required them to work creatively to construct a car from various materials and by doing this they were analysing and evaluating their progress and creating throughout the activity. At this age level the blooms work flow seems even more mixed and joined together and all the stages of blooms in this activity were cycled throughout.

Year 4 – Egypt News Report The children found the Egyptian scroll and brought it back to class and we photographed it and enlarged the image on the whiteboard for the children to look at. As a group we agreed that the symbols looked Egyptian and we decided to use a decoder sheet from an Egyptian stamp book that we had in class to work out what the sheet said. After this message was decoded the class decided to make a documentary style video about Egypt over the next 3 weeks.

Fully embed the new framework of attitude objectives in our curriculum from Sept 2010.

Consider the development of a parallel framework for out of school activities (school and home led), including outdoor and adventurous activities, sports, field work, team building, problem solving activities, children’s own interests and hobbies.

Disseminate project outcomes to Derby City schools through Heads’ briefing meetings and AST network.

Next Steps