My slides from the researchED conference at Capital City Academy, London, Sept 10th 2016. Outlining an innovative, whole-school approach to Learning to Learn which led to an increase in standards and a closing of the Pupil Premium attainment gap, from the bottom up.

1. RETHINKING LEARNING TO LEARN AS A COMPLEX
INTERVENTION: RAISING THE BAR, CLOSING THE GAP
James Mannion (and Kate McAllister!)
PhD student (Learning to Learn)
LCLL Associate, UCL Institute of Education
Tutor, SMLC (Self Managed Learning College, Brighton)
Senior trainer, Pivotal Education (Behaviour Specialists)
Director, Mind the Gap (Learning Skills, Praxis)
learning-skills.org | praxis-education.com
Twitter: @pedagog_machine
Email: jwm43@cam.ac.uk

4. “Learning to Learn. It isn’t even a thing.
We’ve been hoaxed. Again!”
“The hipsters are selling snake oil on this
one, whether they know it or not.”
‘Learning to Learn to Learn to Learn…’

8. The story of L2L at Sea View
Kate McAllister

9. A (very) brief history of L2L
John Flavell
Metacognition:
“thinking about thinking”
“the monitoring, regulation and
carrying out of cognitive
processes, usually in service
of a concrete goal or objective”
(1976)

10. Literature on ‘learning about learning’ (Watkins, 2010)
A ‘metacognitive movement’?

11. A ‘metacognitive movement’?

12. 3 recent large-scale UK-based evaluations
Campaign for Learning
(Higgins et al, 2001-6)
Learning How to Learn
(James et al, 2001-5)
Building Learning Power
(Claxton et al, 2002-11)
• Durham, Newcastle, IoE
• 32 schools (1° & 2°) / 3 LAs
• 85 case studies – typically 3G
• Cambridge, KCL, Reading, OU
• 43 schools (1° &2°) / 5 LAs
• Narrow focus – AfL / autonomy
• ‘Building Learning Power (2002)
• ‘The Learning Powered School
(2011) – review of 18 schools
“Over 3 years… no clear
evidence for L2L having a
general effect… on GCSE
results.”
“Similarly… no clear evidence of
L2L having a significant impact
on national test results at KS2”
“Has the project observed
improvements in [attainment]?
As might be expected, the answer
was ‘Yes and No’.”
“Pupils’… performance varied
between… schools. These results
need to be treated with caution…”
• Some evidence of
improvements at KS2 and 4
• Not yet published in a peer-
reviewed journal (“But we are
working on it!”)
– AGAIN –
“…what is needed is not just a
matter of changing teaching
technique, or tinkering
with the timetable, but rather a
change in culture at the level of
the whole school, and habit
change by everyone who works
there.”
– BUT –
“where either whole school or
majority of classes involved in
L2L… results… were consistently
above those expected.”
– BUT –
“Three of the four schools with the
highest value added
had high levels of engagement with
the project”

13. • Piloted year 2000
• > 200 UK schools
• “there are insufficient empirical studies…
to be able to state clearly whether OM
generates better attainment or other
outcomes than other approaches”
(Aynsley et al., 2012)

14. So… what’s going on?
• Much L2L practice happened between 2000-12 – a time
when VAK, Brain Gym et al – now widely discredited – were
widespread
• Issues of implementation – whole-school
• Issues of scale – studies v large, inconsistent, patchy
• Issues of interpretation – L2L interventions often focus on a
single idea (e.g. AfL, or project-based learning)

15. L2L @ Sea View: 5-year impact evaluation
• Secondary comp.
• Competitive selection process  team of 5 committed people
• Combined approach
• Taught explicitly through L2L lessons (Y7  8  9)
• Embedded throughout the school (tutor time, lessons, rewards, CPD)
• Decided against “buying in” an existing programme / materials
• Instead, reasoning from first principles…

16. Complex interventions
• Defined as “interventions that
contain several interacting
components”
• Widely used in medicine,
psychotherapy
• But – rare in education. *
* So far!

17. Component of L2L at Sea View Supporting literature
Y7, 8
Self-regulation
(project-based learning)
Barron & Darling-Hammond (2008);
Dignath et al (2008); Hung (2008)
Y7, 8
Collaboration (paired  group,
familiar  unfamiliar)
Howe (2009, 2010) ; Slavin (2010);
Laughlin, Hatch, Silver & Boh (2006)
Y7, 8, 9
Oracy (paired talk, P4C, formal
debates, public speaking…)
Littleton & Mercer (2013); Gorard et al (2015);
Topping & Trickey (2007a, 2007b);
Y7, 8, 9
Formative assessment
(comment-based feedback)
Black & Wiliam (1998); Fuchs & Fuchs (1986);
Hattie (1992); Higgins, Kokotsaki & Coe (2012)
Y7, 8, 9
Metacognition (language of
learning, plenaries, journals)
Chiu (1998); Haller, Child & Wahlberg (1988);
Whitebread & Pino Pasternak (2010)
Y8
Personal effectiveness
(organisational skills)
Harrison, James & Last (2012)
Y9
Thinking & reasoning skills
(critical thinking, debating)
Halpern (1998); Moseley et al. (2005)
Whole-school
Growth mindset (shared
language of learning)
Claxton et al. (2011); Dweck (2006); Perkins (1995)
Whole-school Transfer (managed approach) Engle (2006); Hipkins & Cowie (2014)
Whole-school
Action Research as CPD
(collaborative inquiry)
Bell et al (2010); Crippin et al. (2010);
Joyce & Showers (2002); Timperley et al. (2007)

18. Passion
Determination
Team work
Creativity
Problem
solving
Risk
taking
Listen
Consider
others
Persuade
Don’t give up
Discuss
Empathise
Negotiate
Take
responsibility
Adapt
Collaborate
Agree
Make links
Explore
Explain
Question
Evaluate
Imagine
Analyse
Notice
problems
Present
Plan
Identify
Consider
Argue
Debate
Self-manage
Memorise
Illustrate
Think
together
Set
targets
Manage distractions
Celebrate
Practise
Simplify
Change
your
mind
Hypothesise
Become
absorbed
Notice
Suggest
Experiment
Model
Challenge

19. Assessing L2L
• Difficult to meaningfully
assess ‘ability to learn’
• You can assess it by proxy:
• Project-based work (self, peer, teacher – Fail/Pass/Merit/Distinction)
• Oral communication (observations of paired talk – oracy assessment toolkit)
• Reflective learning journal entries (formative, dialogic feedback)
• Primary outcome measure: academic attainment across all subjects
• Also interviews (students & teachers), questionnaires, observations, journals

20. The golden thread
1. What is learning?
• Acquisition of knowledge and skills
• A change in Long Term Memory
2. What is learning to learn?
• The process of becoming a more effective learner
• A taught course, and an approach to whole-school T&L
3. What is transfer?
• A vital ingredient in ensuring that skills and dispositions do not remain ‘context-bound’
• A combination of transfer out (of L2L) and transfer in (to other subjects)
4. How will this lead to improved outcomes?
• More effective learners should be able to access higher grades in subject assessments
• If subject learning doesn’t improve, L2L obviously isn’t achieving what it set out to do

21. L2L @ Sea View:
outcomes
After 1 year:
• Gains in CAT scores
(pre vs post year 7)
• Fewer behaviour points
(vs. previous cohort)
• Curriculum expanded  Y8
After 3 years:
• Improved attainment
(all subjects combined)
• Closing of the Pupil Premium
gap (from the bottom up)

22. Gains in academic learning (all subjects combined; 3 year outcomes)

23. Closing of the Pupil Premium gap (3 year outcomes)

24. L2L @ Sea View: findings
5-year outcomes
• Best set of GCSE results in the school’s history
• By far the greatest PP reduction of any school in the city
(in a year when the gap increased across the city as a whole)
Also a range of qualitative measures:
• Student questionnaires: (gains in personal growth, curiosity and exploration)
• Students’ Reflective Learning Journal entries
• Interviews (students, staff, parents, governors)
• Ofsted reports, HMI feedback

25. Reflective Learning Journals

26. Interview excerpts
“In Key Stage 3, there’s contribution from all students… they don’t
seem as scared of getting things wrong. They’re much more
forthcoming, they give it a go and they are more prepared to be critical
of each other. I definitely think L2L has been a big influence in that.”
(Caroline, Head of PE)
“When I first heard we wouldn’t have L2L lessons this year, I
was really upset. And then I thought back over everything
we did in year 7, and I realised: it’s a part of me now.
I can take it forward into whatever I go on to do.”
(Zena, a Y7 L2L student in 2012-13, speaking in 2014)

27. LIMITATIONS
• Caution not to over-claim credit(!)
• Alternative explanations for improvements:
• School in special measures
• History of declining results  “regression to the mean”?
• PhD evaluation  unusual level of commitment to the programme?
• Issues of reproducibility in different contexts
• Scaling up effective practices  many problems!

28. Next steps
• Cautiously beginning to work with other schools, to develop
this approach more widely
• Approach depends on the school – every school is different
• Twilights, INSETS, resources
• Developing a shared language of learning
• Embedding metacognition / self-reg across the curriculum
• Teaching through oracy – how to run effective group work
• Professional development through action research
• Annual packages
• Impact evaluations
• If people are interested – possible whole-day event in Nov/Dec
• Q&A

29. RETHINKING LEARNING TO LEARN AS A COMPLEX
INTERVENTION: RAISING THE BAR, CLOSING THE GAP
James Mannion (and Kate McAllister!)
PhD student (Learning to Learn)
LCLL Associate, UCL Institute of Education
Tutor, SMLC (Self Managed Learning College, Brighton)
Senior trainer, Pivotal Education (Behaviour Specialists)
Director, Mind the Gap (Learning Skills, Praxis)
learning-skills.org | praxis-education.com
Twitter: @pedagog_machine
Email: jwm43@cam.ac.uk