Back to School

As one Head Teacher has put it, ‘we already know that even the most committed learners among our pupils have changed. Almost all that I have met recently are fearful of COVID, especially the younger ones, but some of the older ones have become just too blasé. Some have obviously taken their schoolwork schedules seriously but the majority appear disoriented and in perpetual holiday mood. Others seem to have had a torrid time and can’t wait to escape the mayhem at home’.

So, where do we start when the students are in so many different places mentally?

We have had a number of ZOOM meetings with our panel of practising teachers and they are of one mind … to establish the present state of each individual student’s Learning Power we recommend ELLI, the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory, as the most effective way of determining which learning habits have taken the most battering and, importantly, how responsive our children are currently as students and learners.

The research teams, working in Bristol in the UK and at Penn State University in the USA, found, beyond any reasonable doubt, that there are just 7 basic building blocks, or dimensions, that hold the key to our capacity for learning.

ELLI has 2 more vital attributes … it tracks changes in the student profile as their responsiveness to learning changes AND is highly sensitive to the learning environment. It does not pigeon-hole the student learner because it records changes in the learning profile as the student changes.

ELLI is extremely easy for the teacher to use. It can help to bring learning disciplines back into the classroom …

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ELLI is extremely easy to use and helps to restore learning disciplines…

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So, where do we start when the children are in so many different places mentally? What might constitute ‘a catch-up or recovery curriculum’? What better way than to bring students’ Learning Power back to life by both teacher and student getting a sense of where the student is now. How have their learning dispositions changed? Have they have taken time to reflect on how and what they are learning? Importantly, which learning habits now need work to get the best results?

ELLI is the teaching tool that can tell you where your students are now and will save you the observation and guesswork you would otherwise need to make a judgement! What is more it will enable you to check and track the progress you are making with your interventions.

We have included 4 recent profiles here to show you how powerful ELLI is as a teaching tool ..

	John was in Year 10 when he completed his on-line, self- reported profile and had always been recognised by his teachers to be one of their less skilful learners. John’s profile bears out his teachers’ observations but there is no doubt that he wants to learn, is seeking help from those around him and doing his best to make sense of the content he is being presented with. It is likely that he is frustrated by his lack of progress when he compares his own performance with that of those around him. A possible source of John’s frustration is that he doesn’t know how to ask for help, is scared of making a fool of himself in front of his classmates and because he is yet to be confident enough to ‘find’ his imagination, is hiding a natural resourcefulness, Indicated by a particular strength in Meaning Making. (This is, for that reason, quite an unusual profile)   There is much that can be done to help John but in his case this might be best served by collaborative working between his parents and teachers. In addition, group or team project work within the classroom should begin to improve his confidence.
Scarlett was new to this school, having joined only a few months before she completed her profile. She had been transferred to escape any untoward association with the misdemeanours of her older sister and is in Year 8.   With this profile, Scarlett is likely to have been a model student during lockdown … one of those who would have not wanted to miss out on anything that would allow her ‘to get on’ and progress with her studies. Nonetheless, Scarlett’s profile tells us that she is naturally resourceful whilst still needing to become better at asking questions of her learning, even be fearful of putting a foot wrong. She still has to learn to trust her teachers (probably because she still fears her sister’s shadow) and to understand more of how she learns so that she can establish her own identity and take the ownership she seeks. Scarlett’s resilience is to her credit but care will need to be taken to ensure that her positivity is nurtured and never allowed to become that form of resilience that undermines her present understanding of the opportunities that will emerge from her learning.
	Robert is in the 6th Form and a Maths and Physics student. Robert’s profile is fairly typical for someone who favours the sciences and maths in particular. He knows what he wants and once he understands the theory, prefers to go his own way in solving a problem rather than asking for help. In cases such as Robert’s, resilience and investigative and connectivity skills are often preferred by teachers to the interactivity that strong scores in Learning Relationships would indicate. Robert clearly understands that he can’t be totally independent but is a natural problem-solver and likes to persist in finding his own solutions. Strong Meaning Making and Critical Curiosity scores are usual in those with a scientific bent their resourcefulness rarely extends to creativity … they are much more interested in fact than fiction.
A profile with a major spike at the expense of other dimensional scores is always one of the most difficult to read, especially if that spike is in resilience. This is the profile of a Year 6 student just about to enter Secondary School. It is more than likely that Matthew has decided that he doesn’t want to move on, is more than happy where he is and that the more he finds out about what faces him in the future the less enthusiastic he is. These students often cause their parents worry and concern as the day of reckoning approaches.
ELLI tracks progress and records how successful the These 2 examples record both a positive outcome …	Interventions to make good learning weaknesses have been. and the more negative

To complete the picture … the changes to learning capacity across the dimensions for a group, class or school can be recorded in a bar chart …

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ELLI Pricing

Notes:

• FREE ELLI TRIAL for 2 nominated students
• £1 per registered student buys 2 profiles for every student registered, a ‘starter’ profile AND a ‘follow-up’ profile, post-intervention, and at a time of the teacher’s discretion
• The annual license fee registers the school as an ELLI Licensee priced according to the number of students on the School Roll

Number Students on School Roll	<100	101-250	251-500	501-750	751-1000	1001-1200	1200+
FREE ELLI TRIAL for these nominated students	2	3	3	4	5	5	5
Price per registered studentbuys each student 2 profiles (a ‘starter’ profile with the second and ‘follow-up’ profile at a time of the teacher’s choice)	£1	£1	£1	£1	£1	£1	£1
Annual License Fee	£25	£65	£125	£245	£395	£650	£850