Month: February 2015

As SURN Director, Jan Rozzelle, and Assistant Director, Jenny Hindman, travel through the United Kingdom to visit schools they may visit for the 2016 Study Tour, they have been building relationships with school leaders. They are learning about how these schools are using research and practices

Jan and Jenny engaged in conversation with Jill Harland and Jo Davies, co head teachers at Brudenell Primary School in Leeds England. Their passion for seeking out research and placing it into tactile is evident. For the past 5 years teachers at Brudenell have engaged children in P4c (Philosophy for Children). When asked what p4c helped them do, the year 3 and 4 students in Mrs. Acton’s class said, it “warms my thinking” “I like p4c because there are millions of answers,” and ” it helps us reason and think fast,”

We saw evidence of the growth mindset (Carol Dweck‘s work) and Will Ord‘s mindfulness. Every space in the school communicated care and learning. Like the schools we visited in Berwick-upon-Tweed students questions and work covered walls making the values and learning in the school evident.

The action research being conducted by teachers and support staff on questions of interest in their context was especially interesting to us. We sought to know more about this school wide job-embedded professional development by talking with faculty members and the co-head teachers.

James Nottingham identified this school as one for SURN to visit and we hope to include it on the 2016 study tour we are planning

As SURN Director and Assistant Director, Jan Rozzelle and Jenny Hindman travel through the United Kingdom to visit schools they may visit for the 2016 Study Tour, they have been building relationships with school leaders. They are learning about how these schools are using research and practices

Jan and Jenny traveled to see two schools in Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located on the east coast of England near the Scottish border. Both schools start at Reception (kindergarten) and continue through upper elementary. They have approximately 150 students.

At Holy Trinity Primary School, we had the honor of listening to students in Mary- Rose Blythe’s class engage in a p4c experience. P4c stands for Philosophy for Children. The students made observations about a stimulus material in this case a painting. Then they generated words and questions. The class voted on a question and engaged in rich dialogue about it. In the process they agreed, clarified, disagreed, and refined their thoughts. A fish bowl strategy was used. The students on the outside made their thinking visible using a map.

At Tweedmouth West Primary students filled every space and their teachers invited students to think through multiple ways of approaching content. For example in Anne Robertson’s classroom students were to work graphing data. Her students shared different ways to display data including Carroll charts, bar graphs, and others – we left before seeing students collect their chocolate data.

In another room we heard students practicing violin. The violin teacher works with students in both schools. The rhythm of music has impact in other subjects such as reading.

James Nottingham, 2014 SURN Leadership Academy speaker, recommended both of these schools to us.