Swinging is because I--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
200 children's voices.
We spoke to 200 children about the ways they like to learn,
and these videos represent a small snapshot
of the voices of these 200 children telling us about that.
We've got a lot more data.
But these represent some of the key ideas and the key things
that children told us about their learning
and their learning preferences.
Probably the most significant for us
was this idea that children are far more competent and capable
than we understand them to be.
And I think we underestimate children
in terms of their interests and their capabilities
and what they bring to the classroom.
Children were very clear that they
like to learn when they're active, when they're engaged,
and when they're motivated to learn.
In particular, they like ways of learning
that creative and challenging and exciting and fun
They were very good at recognising, actually,
what's an appropriate approach for children of their age.
And they also recognised, that when they were engaged in those
approaches, that it was good to collaborate with others,
especially their peers.
Children really like to learn areas of the curriculum, which
quite interestingly are not always
the areas of the curriculum that we give them much time for.
So they talked a lot about science.
They expressed a real desire to engage in the arts.
They really liked learning about technologies like Bee-Bots
and using iPads and so on.
They wanted to learn how to use those.
And they really loved to engage in health and physical
education and sport.
When they experience success, this is a big motivator.
When they experience less success,
they're not so inclined to like those areas of learning.
Many children had quite an extensive vocabulary
to talk about their own learning.
And they told us that they enjoyed
learning that was challenging.
And they enjoyed learning where they got feedback
from the teachers and from peers.
They particularly enjoyed learning that was collaborative
and supported by others.
What surprised us was that they didn't really identify teachers
as the main people that contribute to their learning.
Instead they identified parents, other family members, peers,
and siblings as the people they most readily learn from.
We also noticed that they identified grandparents
and seemed to have a high regard for the knowledge and skills
that grandparents were passing on to them.
When they did talk about teachers,
they also talked about the qualities of a teacher
that they were looking for.
And these were quite significant.
And most of all they wanted their teachers
to have a playfulness, to engage with them in fun ways.
And they didn't like to be taught things that they already
knew how to do.
They expressed a real concern that if they already
knew something, why are we spending time
learning it again?
So they wanted their teachers to be aware
of who they were as learners, and what
they were already capable of.
Children identified largely places outside the classroom
that they liked to learn.
The playground was identified as an important place for them
to learn.
They talked about going on excursions
to the science museum and to other outside school locations.
Well school age children--
so school is being governed by rules and regulations
and that learning took place in very particular ways.
They seemed quite nostalgic about the opportunities
for learning from kindergarten, and many
wanted to transfer that into the school context.
Children are looking for choice.
They're also looking for an opportunity
to have their ideas about learning valued.
Most of the children seem surprised
that we're even asking them about how they like to learn.
And so why don't we go to them more often
to find out what they want?