Blog posts June 2011

Aung San Suu Kyi's Reith Lecture and the Write Team: Finding a voice, creative writing, and social media

Alec Patton
Thursday, 30 June 2011 - 10:37am

Yesterday I sat on a panel at the conclusion of the Write Team conference, speaking on the theme of engaging students through creative writing (I’d been invited for my knowledge of student engagement through Learning Futures, not because I know anything about teaching creative writing).

On the way into work this morning, I listened to a podcast of Aung San Suu Kyi’s first Reith...

Checking out a student-made cycling website and cookbook at Cramlington's exhibition of learning

Alec Patton
Monday, 27 June 2011 - 1:30pm

Last weekend, a Learning Futures delegation (David Price and I) went up to Northumberland to see Cramlington Learning Village’s Exhbition of Learning, where students presented the work they’d created during the previous ‘project week’, which they’d spent off timetable.

I went up because Cramlington’s work is informing the guide to project-based learning that I’m writing as part of Learning Futures (version 1.0 coming out in September, reserve your copy now!), and I saw a lot of exciting stuff, but there’s two projects that I want to...

Gross National Happiness - the economic and social benefits of happy citizens

Gareth Wynne
Monday, 20 June 2011 - 10:31am

Whilst doing some research on the benefits of teaching Positive Psychology for a school, I came across The Happiness Institute which is led by a Chief Happiness Officer and based in Australia.

Their website contains an array of fascinating and thought-provoking findings around the benefits of happiness. Some are specifically relevant for schools e.g.:

  • Happy teenagers go on to earn substantially more income fifteen years later than less happy teenagers, equating for income, grades, and other obvious factors.
  • ...