At MBC we believe that “engaged learning” is a partnership between the parent/caregivers, the child, and the school. Over the past two years, this can be seen in the development of our Teaching and Learning Approach “The MBC Learning Star”. At the centre of the star are the words “Our Learning Community Demonstrates”. Our Learning Community encompasses all involved with MBC and when applied to the students learning experience it includes the girl, the teacher, the leadership but most importantly the parents and family of the student in our care. 

To ensure our young people succeed at school we must try and walk in their footprints. We may struggle at times to understand their thoughts or feelings, but we must try to better understand what they are experiencing, feeling, and struggling with. It is important to note that we may not agree with them, yet we need to be able to explore and understand their world so that we can support and guide them to be the best learners they can be.

One way of doing this is to focus on ways of thinking and doing that enable adults to assist in developing hardworking, achieving, curious, and autonomous learners. Hattie (2022) believes there are key ways of thinking or mind frames, and when adopted and lived, enable learners to understand their actions and the impact of these on themselves and others, enabling them to know what is best to do next. 

The 10 Keyways of thinking or mind frames are:

1. Have appropriately high expectations
2. Be reasonable and responsive
3. You are not alone
4. Develop skill, will, and a sense of thrill
5. Develop a love of learning
6. Understand the power of feedback and that success thrives on errors and mistakes
7. Understand my role is the parent and not as a teacher
8. Expose them to language, language, language
9. Appreciate that my child is not perfect nor am I or their teachers
10. Be an evaluator of your impact

1. Have appropriately high expectations

Supporting a child to become a great learner means setting expectations that are high, but appropriately so - they’re not too hard, not too easy, and finally, not too boring. To meet expectations, a child needs to have developed trust. A sense of trust allows a child to make mistakes, learn from them, and develop resilience and agency. A child also needs encouragement, a sense of fairness in how we react to them, and in our direction, learn right from wrong. High expectations help a child to develop autonomy and a sense of competence in themselves, and in turn, their place in the world.

2. Be reasonable and responsive

Being reasonable involves being seen by your child as a great listener, trusted, reliable, dependable, and consistent. It involves challenging where appropriate, but in ways that are respectful, age-appropriate and allows the young person to have a sense of control or autonomy in a trusting environment. Being responsive is playing a critical and positive role in helping children build strategies to cope with the unexpected, unsuccessful, failed/ thwarted expectations. Coping aims to reduce or prevent harm or loss and therefore reduce the stress of the moment or situation.

3. You are not alone

The African proverb “it takes a village to raise a child” is still relevant today. Our villages, or communities are different, and children will live in many throughout their lifetime. The comforting thing though, is that active engagement in communities means we and our children are not alone. Communities provide opportunities for growth, new and challenging experiences, to develop relationships and to understand the causal relationship between action, reaction, and consequence. They also offer care, mentoring and guidance, and when tapped into, provide opportunities to support and shape your child into who they become.

4. Develop skill, will, and a sense of thrill

Children develop three dimensions of learning that they bring to each encounter or interaction; whether it is with you, their teacher, or their learning opportunities. The first of these is skills include prior achievement, cognitive capabilities, working memory, cultural background, values, and their executive functioning ability, or how they think and process information. Secondly, is there will or disposition such as confidence to take on challenges, resilience, resourcefulness, reflectiveness and how they relate to people or situations. Finally, a sense of thrill, or their motivation to engage, persist and complete learning tasks. As adults it is our role to promote, develop and challenge each of these dimensions in our children.

5. Develop a love for learning

Encourage learning of all types, in all aspects of life. From play, to reading, to eating out, to holidays, to visiting art galleries or museums or science centres - the places to learn are limitless. Encourage conversation, questioning and curiosity as these build a young persons learning skills and will. Be sure to challenge their learnings and encourage them to push their knowledge or questioning a little further. They need to be encouraged to have an inquiring mind and creating a love of learning outside the classroom – this helps to develop their learning confidence and in turn their self-confidence when faced with new learning challenges in the classroom.

6. Understand the power of feedback and that success thrives on errors and mistakes

Feedback is a powerful tool if it is used appropriately. The important thing about feedback is not what feedback is given, but how that feedback is received. We often give children lots of feedback, but they only digest a few seconds of it. Therefore, the issue is how can one increase the reception of the feedback by the child to ensure improved learning. A key is to focus on how feedback is being heard, understood, and actioned by the child. Children build skills to interpret feedback, to ignore it, or perhaps develop selective listening, or to act on it to improve. Sometimes a child can hear and understand the feedback but not know how to action it and may need further feedback to improve their activation strategies.  Including a significant amount of praise in the feedback can delete the effectiveness of it. A suggested strategy is to ‘sandwich’ the feedback an item of praise, followed by constructive criticism (or something to improve), followed by praise. It is important to wait for a day or two and then revisit the feedback conversation to ascertain what they heard, understood and if they have a plan to put the feedback received into action.

7. Understand my role is the parent and not as a teacher

The role of a parent is to support their children in the job of learning, but not to play the role of a teacher. There are several ways as a parent you can provide this support, most importantly by promoting the language of learning, that is, helping your child to see what is involved in being a successful learner. For example, helping your child see ‘struggle’ as a positive term, and ‘failures’ as a learner's best friend. Promote feedback conversations as a desirable skill. Set expectations that are not too high and not to low, but just right for your child's learning. Clearly show your child what success looks like before they immerse themselves in the learning process or activity. An example could be clearly stating your expectations for a clean room such as: “in cleaning your room there should be nothing left on the floor, everything is put away in the drawers, and your bed and desk is tidy” these are commonly referred to as success criteria and they not only help to make the nature of a task clearer, but they also provide a benchmark for when good is good enough, and a clear goal for them to evaluate their success. Encourage moments of joy, curiosity, and spontaneity in their learning at home.

8. Expose them to language, language, language

Learning is very much the function of language – talking, listening and speaking are core features in the classroom. Promoting these at home enable a child, in a trusted space, to develop the necessary skills needed to participate fully in classroom life at school. Find ways to promote language and reading in the home. Create fun and welcoming situations or occasions where there are high and multiple opportunities for age-appropriate language interaction, such as reading, talking, listening, reasoning, and explaining, as these are the building blocks of learning at all levels of schooling.

9. Appreciate that my child is not perfect, nor am I or their teachers

There is no perfection in teaching or parenting and no child is perfect - the world has not only dangers, but also opportunities, it has not only risks and different people, but also wonderful potential friends and allies. As adults we need to guard against being overly protective. Children and young people need skills to evaluate situations and people, and to evaluate and mitigate risk. This requires parenting that teaches children the dignity of risks (responsible risk, shared thinking and decision making and the processing of choices and next steps), and the skills of when, why and how to say no.

10. Be an evaluator of your impact

In this context, ‘impact’ means having a positive effect on a child's learning, such that the young person develops multiple learning strategies, knows their current levels of understanding, and are clear about where they're going and how they could be successful in their learning. It means developing children who are confident to take on challenges and can select tools to guide their learning. It also means children who seek, understand, and use feedback; they recognise errors as opportunities to learn; can monitor progress, adjust their learning as needed, and can interact with others positively.

To develop these attributes or ways of thinking as adults we need to be open to learning ourselves, engage in collective problem solving, welcome failure, and ensure that we set challenges for ourselves and our young people that are not too hard, not to easy, and not too boring, but just right. So that each of them can develop the attributes of our MBC Learning Star and become agents of their own learning.

Bibliography

Curwin, R., Mendler, A., & Mendler, B. (2018). Discipline with Dignity - How to build responsibility, relationships, and respect in your classroom. Alexandria, USA: ASCD.

Hattie, J., & Hattie, K. (2022). 10 Steps to Develop Great Learners. Aningdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Hattie, J., & Zierer, K. (2018). 10 mindframes for visible learning. Aningdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Jenkins, L. (2015). Optimize your school: It's all about the strategy. California: Corwin press.