Learning tools from the Primary Strategy

A new set of learning and teaching continuing professional development (CPD) materials will be made available to teachers from September. The materials, Excellence and Enjoyment: Learning and Teaching in the Primary Years, have been designed to provide support and guidance for all schools on the integration of high standards in learning and teaching within a broad and rich curriculum.

Produced by the Primary National Strategy in consultation with Ofsted and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the materials form part of the continuing support available to schools under Excellence and Enjoyment: A strategy for primary schools. They are a key part of the Primary National Strategy's commitment to developing a framework for learning and teaching which will help raise standards further and improve pupil performance at foundation stage and Key Stages 1 and 2.

Sharing success

Many primary schools throughout the UK already use effective models of CPD to enable staff to reflect on how to improve learning for all children.

One such school, included as a CPD case study in the new materials, is Westbury Park Primary School in Bristol. Westbury Park's effective CPD programme is successfully helping staff at the school deliver excellent teaching and learning across the curriculum. A history project offered to the school's Year 5 pupils is one illustration of this.

David Millington, the teacher responsible for the history project, says that project lessons are based on learning-centred objectives as well as subject-centred ones. "This makes children more independent in their learning," he says. "They take more care, demonstrate more ownership of their work, pay more attention and are more motivated as learners."

As Alan Rees, headteacher at Westbury Park, explains, "The learning approach David is using in his class is part of a whole-school approach that links new initiatives which we, as teachers, have adopted and found to have a positive impact on the classroom and on children's learning. These initiatives have been drawn together as part of staff in-service training to produce a coherent map of the school's educational provision." 

CPD in your school

Excellence and Enjoyment: Learning and Teaching in the Primary Years comprises six booklets on themes including planning for learning, assessment for learning, creating a learning culture and understanding how learning develops. A video is also included. The materials have been designed for flexible use and schools will be able to decide for themselves how they want to use them according to their own school improvement priorities.

There will be events and activities in the autumn term, organised by LEAs and aimed at deputy headteachers and literacy and mathematics co-ordinators, to disseminate the new learning and teaching framework. Schools which may identify learning and teaching as an issue for development and would want to commit whole staff time are very much encouraged to take part.

Funding to support CPD around the materials is included within the school development grant for 2004-05, which schools can spend on any activities aimed at raising standards and promoting inclusion. 

Introductory guides

In May, two introductory guides explaining Excellence and Enjoyment: Learning and Teaching in the Primary Years, along with a companion CD-rom and video, were sent out to all primary schools. The guides explain the focus and objectives of the materials and offer a wealth of information that can be used by school leadership teams during the summer term to plan how to embed the materials as part of whole-school improvement priorities.

Introductory Guide: Supporting School Improvement aims to help schools look at best practice, agree priorities for action, define success criteria and regularly monitor progress. This first guide offers suggestions on how leadership teams can identify their priorities for development in learning and teaching and invites them to involve staff in self-review and action planning around the key aspects of learning and teaching identified as priorities.

The second guide, Introductory Guide: Continuing Professional Development, focuses on the characteristics of effective CPD and includes case studies showing how an effective model of CPD was developed within two schools. 

Further information

To order a copy of Excellence and Enjoyment: Learning and Teaching in the Primary Years, call Prolog on 0845 602 2260 after 1 September and quote reference DFES/0518/2004

To order the introductory pack including Introductory Guide: Supporting School Improvement and Introductory Guide: Continuing Professional Development, visit www.teachernet.gov.uk/publications

LEARNING AND TEACHING IN THE PRIMARY YEARS: THE NUTS AND BOLTS

Excellence and Enjoyment: Learning and Teaching in the Primary Years will be available from September. The set of materials comprises six individual booklets on the following themes:

1. planning for learning
2. assessment for learning
3. creating a learning culture: community, collaborative and personalised learning
4. creating a learning culture: the conditions for learning
5. understanding how learning develops: progression in aspects of learning
6. understanding how learning develops: learning and teaching across the curriculum
   
   A video is also included.

This content was published in July 2004 and may not reflect current policy