Ab Fab! 

In the TES My Best Teacher slot last week, Joanna Lumley remembered her eccentric English teacher, Miss Hortin-Smith, nicknamed Hooter. Her appearance and unexpected teaching methods were memorable as was her love of her subject. "She was also perceptive and terribly kind. She never snubbed our ideas or belittled us," Lumley says. She enjoyed her school days where there was "...no real pressure to pass exams; other things seemed to be more important, such as becoming a rounded person." 
 

If Joanna Lumley is anything to go by, a school developing rounded people is an approach well worth following.

A fresh approach to education
  

Many schools still have a two pronged approach to their management of Education - the academic and the pastoral. This traditionally strong divide is being increasingly questioned by educationalists who, influenced by the findings of recent neuroscience, are aware of the importance of incorporating our new understanding of brain development into the curriculum. Teacher training and schools continue to be predominantly subject based at present; particularly in secondary schools. Their concern is subject expertise; teaching and modelling emotional intelligence is bolted on by the pastoral people, like band aids.

In a new (very slim) book, The Triple Focus; A New Approach to Education, Daniel Goleman and Peter Senge argue the case for moving from the traditional education system designed to create factory workers, to one where self-awareness, empathy, and systems thinking (how we collectively interact) are an integral part of education, and used as the foundation skills for learning. Students would be taught these skills as the starting point from which to develop their learning. They would not be bolt on skills but the key to enabling students to become the best they can be. "Evidence tells us that these skills work in sync: stimulating one will also develop the others. Together they are a powerful predictor of academic success and personal wellbeing," says one reviewer.

WholeEducation

We continue our work with Whole education. Last week we participated in a webinar they organized called "Student wellbeing inside and outside the classroom". We were panellists with 3 other organisations, including The Place2b. It was interesting hearing different ideas and to see that there was much common ground. 
  

We will be contributing to the WholeEducation newsletter. If you want to see what we are up to and what the WholeEducation organization is all about, check out www.wholeeducation.org after 19 March.