Learning muscles and habits
At Fairholme, we're passionate about developing children's learning skills, helping them to become better learners, and preparing them for a lifetime of learning. We help children understand what it takes to be a good learner, develop their appetite and ability to learn in different ways, engage teachers and children together in the learning process, and develop 'learning muscles'.
Our approach has been developed from work done by Professor Guy Claxton on Building Learning Power. We have adapted and built on these ideas to create a set of 12 learning muscles (or habits/skills), through which we aim to build resilience and resourcefulness in all our children, and get them ready for life beyond school, 'not just for a life of tests, but for the tests of life'. Our 12 learning muscles fall into three broad aspects of learning and we exercise them regularly in the classroom!
Building respectful relationships - learning is a social activity |
Collaboration |
Being curious and aspiring to learn more |
Noticing, editing and improving Questioning and curiosity Making connections Imagining |
Becoming independent |
Perseverance and resilience (including strategies for being stuck) Reasoning Managing distractions Planning Resourcefulness |