Developing Learning-Centred Classrooms and Schools

This chapter examines the issues and processes in developing more explicit focus on learning in classrooms and schools. It brings together the author’s experience of development projects in England and international research. It starts by examining the major forces which have kept classrooms teacher centred for 5000 years, moves on to suggest some important starting points for the journey from teacher-centred to learner-centred classrooms, and then identifies the sort of language for learning which will go on to develop learning-centred classrooms. Also considered are the ways in which teachers can be learners themselves, and how the culture of a learning-centred school is created and maintained. Positive effects on pupils’ engagement, motivation and attainment are summarised.

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