The UFA is a national education charity. Founded in Birmingham in 1996 by Professor Tim Brighouse, we now work with over 50 Local Authorities and other partners across the UK.
‘Giving young people more time to do more of the same, in the same way, with the same people is not going to raise standards of achievement dramatically upward – we need to do something radically different.’ Prof. Tim Brighouse
The UFA is committed to working in innovative and creative ways with Local Authorities, schools, organisations, communities and individuals to enrich and extend learning for young people aged 5 to 25. Raising young people’s aspirations and achievements by improving confidence and self-belief through exciting and memorable educational experiences is at the heart of what we do. Young people are supported through the UFA to become role models and leaders who develop and lead learning opportunities for others in their communities.
The UFA explores imaginative approaches to training in order to engage teachers and other professionals, parents, carers, community organisations and businesses in transforming their own learning practice. From this training we create learning teams of the adults and young people with whom we work.
Underpinning the UFA are a set of ideas about what we value in learning and a set of five Core Principles that help us to deliver our vision. To learn more about UFA nationally, click here:
The Northampton Fellowship
Learning should be fun so the UFA supports adults and young people to understand their own learning, to take an holistic view of learning and to make their learning experiences as fun and beneficial as possible.
UFA Northamptonshire is an integral part of the Study Support team within Northamptonshire County Council.
Who benefits?
· Young people of all ages and abilities
· Their parents/carers and families
· Local communities
· Teachers, school staff and schools
For more information click here
Cedar Road ‘Learning to Learn’
The First session: Positive Learning Enviornments
We started with a brain training ice-breaker whereby children had to shout out the colour, not the words, of colour words. Sounds confusing, it was! But the year 5’s coped brilliantly. They got quicker as they went along and found it easier to read the actual words rather than the colours.
The class used a colourful powerpoint as a starting point and held a group discussion to address these questions:
‘What is a learning environment?’
‘Why are learning environments important?’
‘What factors influence the learning environment?’
Ideas, opinions and answers were put on the board in a mind map. All children contributed to this and there was a lively (!) discusssion about how they like to learn and what variables they can change.
They completed a questionnaire (see attached) which helped them think about what helps them learn or not in their current learning environments. A lot of emphasis was placed on noise levels, the people in the group/class around them, what position they sat in and how comfortable the chairs are. Children could write the answers, circle words or tick the options.
how-do-you-learn-best-questionnaire
Next, the children were put into groups through solving jigsaws which when solved, made up brain posters detailing facts about the brain and how it is influenced by learning environments.
After Anna talked about how she likes to learn and showed an example, the groups were asked to design their ideal learning environment. They used all kinds of stationary and paper to do so and soon the ideas were flowing freely. The weird and wonderful ideas the groups came up with were all incorporated into the huge posters they worked on, and Anna helped to focus their creativity by asking why they were including certain things and how this helped them learn.
create-your-ideal-learning-environment1
click below to hear what the children said.
The second session:
warm-up: “The Power of the mind over body” guided imagery. Anna read out a text describing tasting, smelling, feeling a lemon. Most of the children could almost ‘taste’ the visualised lemon, demonstrating that the mind has great power over the body.
the-power-of-the-brain-over-the-body
To continue the work on positive learning environments, children were asked in partners to match up cards describing aspects of a ‘brain briendly classroom’ and ‘brain unfriendly classroom’. (reference: “Creating Brain Friendly Classrooms” L Biller, http://xnet.rrc.mb.ca/glenh/newpage124.htm)
Some cards were easier to pair up than others, as the positive and negative sentences were clearer. Then each set of partners chose the positive card that they thought were the most important to them when considering a positive learning environment. They reported back to the class why they had chosen them and why it is important to them. It was interesting that the same themes came up several times.
- Teacher does not use threats
- Learning can be done in groups
- Learning can be done with noise, activity, talk and music
- Learning is fun, easy, creative
- Stimulate the brain through music, sights, smells, movement
Next, they worked together to produce a poster with 2 sides: 1 side illustrating the positive ‘brain friendly’ side of the chosen card and 1 side for the corresponding ‘brain unfriendly’ negative side. They used pictures, colours and text to get their ideas across. When the class reformed, everyone explained their posters.
Multiple Intelligences
Mr Gillet had previously done some work with the year 5 students about the 8 different intelligences or different ways of being ’smart’. The classes started with a mind-map of their ideas of what intelligence is. Answers included: cleverness, ‘nerdy’, science, sports, music, bright, people-smart/social, getting along with people, thinking your ideas through, studying, brainy, working with others.
After recapping on the 8 intelligences and choosing which ones suited them best, the groups were asked to rate celebrities in their intelligence from 1-8, 1 being the most intelligent, 8 being the least. These were: David Beckham, Gordon Brown, Girls Aloud, David Attenborough, a teacher, Shakespeare, Lisa Simpson, Katie Price/Jordan. This led to a lively debate as to who was more intelligent and why. Using the notes and the 8 intelligences, pupils could explain their opinions about why Gordon Brown is ‘people smart’ and why Shakespeare is ‘word smart’. Girls Aloud and a teacher caused the most disagreement as some people thought a teacher needed to have all 8 intelligences at once. Other argues that Girls Aloud were not ‘music smart’ or ‘word smart’ as they don’t write their own songs. Instead, they were ‘people smart’ and ‘numbers smart’ as they are good at projecting and selling their image.
multiple-intelligences-and-celebrities
To find out which intelligences you best fit, take the test!
Evaluation
What worked
· Special lessons as it was something different for the children from the usual PfS sports orientated work.
· The children really engaged with the lessons and took part enthusiastically. They enjoyed doing something different, in a different way and the chance to do something more creative than normal.
· They came up with lots of ideas and were thrilled with the freedom they had to use them. They would ask ‘Can I do this?’ and always the answer was yes.
· It was a great follow up to previous work done in school along the lines of ‘learn to learn’. I talked to the deputy head and looked at the children’s work so I had a good idea of what they had done and what would follow on well, enabling consistency for the children. This is a good example of partnership working. It made me aware of what language and terminology the children were used to using.
· I was also able to borrow the deputy head’s resources for future use. I can adapt them for future lessons and also learn how to make UFA content and terminology ‘child-friendly’.
· Using the recommended reading was helpful as it led me onto ‘Brain friendly Classroom’ ideas by L.Biller, which was an extension of ‘Positive Learning Environments.’ The websites led me to discover and research new concepts and subjects.
· It was valuable to have done some of the activities with the UFA practitioner Natasha and have her demonstrate them, as I had an idea of what I expected the children to do, as well as take the ideas and expand upon them.
