The Learning Success Blog

Every year many children move to a new school.

And as Covid makes working from home more common, prompting parents to relocate away from big cities, even more students may be faced with the challenge of integrating into another school.

Generally, there are three times in a child’s life when they must deal with education-related change: starting pre-school, moving to primary school and moving to secondary school.

When a child is starting school, they are generally with other children who are all new starters too. But if you have relocated to a new area, your child may be the only new student and it can sometimes feel a little overwhelming. Fortunately, there are ways that you can help them.

Here are some tips for settling your child into a new primary school so that they can enjoy the experience and learn successfully. 

Researchers suggest that engagement in risky play provides children an opportunity to navigate and cope with uncertainty, resulting in decreased anxiety, according to a recent Canadian study.

Risky play is defined as a thrilling activity involving challenges that test limits and the possibility of getting injured. Typically, children love trying out new things and, in the process, seek opportunities that allow them to engage in challenging activities or risky play.

While risky play might seem dangerous for kids, it offers many benefits, including improved social, motor, and spatial skills, critical aspects in building student learning capacity. Below are some of the essential roles of risky play in early childhood learning and development.

How should you dress to get the job you want?  Does it even matter much what you wear for a job interview? 

This is an important question for young people making the transition from school or tertiary studies to the workforce. And perhaps going to their first ever job interview.

To get some answers to these questions I spoke with award-winning stylist, Bernadette Payne. 

Bernadette focuses on educating men and women about how their choice of clothes and personal styling can make important contributions to their success.

Her advice may be helpful if your child is attending interviews for jobs or even volunteer positions.

Listen to  our discussion on the Learning Capacity Podcast

Should we concentrate our teaching on trying to improve where students are performing badly, or focus more attention on helping them build on their existing strengths?

It shouldn't be an either /or choice. But according to positive psychology expert, Penny Nesbitt, working on a student's natural strengths will be more rewarding for both the student and their teacher.

Penny spoke to The Learning Capacity Podcast about the movement to positive education and how the strengths approach is being used in classrooms around the world.  She also spoke about the power to two little words:  "NOT YET".

Mike McKay is a retired superintendent of the Surrey County schools district in British Columbia, Canada.

He was a public educator for 35 years. The area he supervised has over 160 languages spoken. 

You can imagine it would be difficult to measure the potential problems with language and reading development in such a large and diverse region. 

But back in 2008 he attended a conference hosted by Scientific Learning Corporation, where he saw the research behind the Fast ForWord programs. 

When he came back, he asked his board to trust him, and give him $300,000 to get started. It was bold pitch. Mike tells the story of how things have panned out in this Learning Capacity podcast episode:

Gabbie Stroud loved her job as a primary school teacher.

Eventually, what she calls the changing nature of teaching led to burn out, and her decision to leave the profession.

In an essay she wrote for the Griffith Review, she talks of her frustrations, but also of a future for education filled with hope and guided by a few dangerous ideas. 

While Gabbie is not in the classroom now, her passion for education remains strong, and she calls for things like profound commitment to teachers, trust, and renewed thinking on things like creativity, imagination and ingenuity.

And she does this for the sake of a student she calls Australia. In her essay she asks, “Who would teach her? How would she learn?" In an episode on the Learning Capacity Podcast, I continue this discussion with Gabbie as we search for the answers to some big questions.

Listen to the discussion:

“The single biggest thing that a parent can give their child is the encouragement to do better, and not give them limiting beliefs about their ability or what they could achieve”.

This is an opinion expressed by David Stanley, former math teacher and now Director of Learning Ecosystems Growth at Learn Fast Australia, in a wide ranging two part interview on the Learning Capacity Podcast.

 In the first part David discussed rote learning of maths tables, how this can improve a student’s learning capacity, the role of parents in helping students set goals, and the educational power of celebrating success.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Recently, educator Colin Klupiec recorded our conversation where he teased out my understanding of how memorising maths tables can help students build learning capacity and the importance of the role played by parents. It is recorded in two parts on the Learning Capacity Podcast with the key points summarised below.

We discussed some findings from the neuroscientists around brain plasticity - the cognitive neuroscience and how it relates to what some people may think is a bit old-fashioned – rote learning, or learning by repetition.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

At a recent neuroscience conference in the USA, I heard Dr Martha Burns give a wide-ranging talk summarising the latest neuroscience research about learning and learning disorders. She related the latest research findings to how the Fast ForWord & Reading Assistant programs improve language skills, reading and learning capacity for many children.

Dr Burns is a neuroscientist, author of over 100 journal articles and multiple books, and a leading expert on how children learn.  Her talk covered topics including autism, attention & listening skills, working memory, self-regulation & cognitive control, dyslexia, intelligent tutoring systems, the neuroscience of learning, goal setting, and what's next for neuroscience. 

"The latest area that neuroscience is exploring is this whole area of self-regulation, cognitive control", said Dr Martha Burns in a recent presentation about these issues and how the Fast ForWord programs help.

Dr Martha Burns is a neuroscientist, author of over 100 journal articles and multiple books, and a leading expert on how children learn. 

Here is a summary of her talk:

"Can a student sit still? Can they listen to the teacher? Can they get through an assignment without getting up and doing 100 other things?