Powering Up Children by Guy Claxton

Author:Guy Claxton [Guy Claxton and Becky Carlzon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785833823
Publisher: Crown House Publishing
Published: 2019-01-12T16:00:00+00:00

This understanding has been embedded through involving the children in continuous discussion about and reflection on collaboration and resourcefulness. When children know themselves as learners like this, and know they have permission to collaborate, you will be freed up to give support where it’s needed most.

Collaboration develops social and oracy skills

We cannot emphasise the importance of this enough. You can’t expect children to develop social skills if you don’t put them in situations in which they have to be sociable. Equally, you can’t expect children to improve their oracy skills if you don’t find ways to structure their talk and give them opportunities to practise. This is all the more important for children who, for whatever reason, have limited opportunities to develop these skills at home.

When you first invite the children to collaborate, you could come across some resistance or anxiety, especially if they are not used to doing it. But the children who are the most resistant are generally the ones who need to develop their collaboration skills the most. By avoiding this situation, or by pretending the issue doesn’t exist, we are doing these children a disservice. We need to plan to develop their social and collaboration skills in order to give them the best life chances – both now, when they need to build strong working relationships with their peers, and in the future, when they will get jobs and need to work with a whole range of different people.

Developing collaboration skills can take time and patience. Becky once taught a child on the autistic spectrum who, to begin with, would only collaborate with one friend. But with gentle and persistent encouragement and understanding, he was able to collaborate with a small circle of trusted peers by the end of the year. When writing their end-of-year reports, Becky asked the class what had helped them to learn most. This child replied, “I know that I can collaborate because if I am stuck my friends will help me.” This was a huge step for him. Not only had he learned the value of collaboration, he had taken strides in his understanding that he didn’t need to remain stuck – that he could find ways to move forward and that his friends were one of those resources.

If you persist – gently, supportively, and despite the resistance – you will almost certainly see the most fantastic effects on the children and their attitudes to school and to learning. New friendships will develop that you may never have expected – because you will be providing a wealth of opportunities for the children to learn with others. The children’s confidence will skyrocket because they will widen their circle of friends and realise that they are liked and valued by their classmates. Have you ever had children in your class who struggle when their best mate is off sick? Say goodbye to that because they will soon have a whole class full of friends they can rely on.

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