Loading...
Eteach
closeClose Eteach

Candidates keyboard_arrow_down

Jobs
Career Pathways
1
keyboard_arrow_down

Supply Teaching

Register for day-to-day and long-term supply work

Permanent Recruitment

Let our expert find your next role for you

Tutoring Opportunities

Join Education Boutique for online and face-to-face tutoring

International Recruitment

Gain advice and assistance on teaching overseas

Teacher Training

Discover how to get into teaching through approved training providers

ECT Community

Start your career in education as part of a community and receive expert advice

Become an Adviser New

Use your expertise to support schools and colleges

Resources keyboard_arrow_down

CPD

Access valuable resources from our partners to develop your knowledge

Blog

Explore expert advice and tips from your CV to the classroom

FAQs

Find solutions to common questions and concerns quickly and easily

Location Guides

Learn more about what it's like to teach across the globe

Teaching in the UK

Discover what is required to teach in the United Kingdom

Phases

Search jobs by phase

Institution Type

Search jobs by institution type

Curriculum

Understand more about the National Curriculum

Rewards
Sign in

Employers keyboard_arrow_down

Employers Home
Services keyboard_arrow_down

Job Advertising

Advertise teaching jobs, leadership roles and support vacancies to increase your candidate reach

Education Recruitment Software

Manage your hiring process with an applicant tracking system specifically designed for education

Specialist Recruiters

Let our education recruitment consultants search, screen and select the right candidates for you

Education Boutique

Provide in-person and online support for your students with our bespoke tutoring services

Eteach Education Advisers

Receive independent and accredited advice on a wide range of sector-specific areas

Booking System

Search and book vetted, qualified supply teachers using our advanced online booking system

Prices keyboard_arrow_down

Explore Packages

Discover the best solution for your talent management

Instant Job Advert

Pay per vacancy with our instant job advert service for adhoc recruitment

Lite Licence

Access unlimited advertising for a single one-off annual fee

Premium Licence

Utilise the power of our applicant tracking system and unlimited advertising all in one package

Enhancements

Expand your reach through featured job listings, targeted emails and social media campaigns

Advice keyboard_arrow_down

Guides

Benefit from best practice guides on education recruitment and staff retention

Blog

Explore expert advice and tips from leadership to recruitment

Showcases

Find out how we've helped schools like yours succeed

Classroom

Watch free webinars on how to get the most from our products and services

Sign in

About us keyboard_arrow_down

Who we are
Mission and vision
Work for us
Partners
Contact us
MenuMenu
1
search Search
  • account_circleSign in
  • account_circleSign in
  • Jobs
  • Career Pathways 1

    Supply Teaching

    Register for day-to-day and long-term supply work

    Permanent Recruitment

    Let our experts find your next role for you

    Tutoring Opportunities

    Join Education Boutique for online and face-to-face tutoring

    International Recruitment

    Gain advice and assistance on teaching overseas

    Teacher Training

    Discover how to get into teaching through approved training providers

    ECT Community

    Start your career in education as part of a community and receive expert advice

    Become an Adviser New

    Use your expertise to support schools and colleges

  • Resources

    CPD

    Access valuable resources from our partners to develop your knowledge

    Blog

    Explore expert advice and tips from your CV to the classroom

    FAQs

    Find solutions to common questions and concerns quickly and easily

    Location Guides

    Learn more about what it's like to teach across the globe

    Teaching in the UK

    Discover what is required to teach in the United Kingdom

    Phases

    Search jobs by phase

    Institution Type

    Search jobs by institution type

    Curriculum

    Understand more about the National Curriculum

  • Rewards
  • Services

    Job Advertising

    Advertise teaching jobs, leadership roles and support vacancies to increase your candidate reach

    Education Recruitment Software

    Manage your hiring process with an applicant tracking system specifically designed for education

    Specialist Recruiters

    Let our education recruitment consultants search, screen and select the right candidates for you

    Education Boutique

    Provide in-person and online support for your students with our bespoke tutoring services

    Eteach Education Advisers

    Receive independent and accredited advice on a wide range of sector-specific areas

    Booking System

    Search and book vetted, qualified supply teachers using our advanced online booking system

  • Prices

    Explore Packages

    Discover the best solution for your talent management

    Instant Job Advert

    Pay per vacancy with our instant job advert service for adhoc recruitment

    Lite Licence

    Access unlimited advertising for a single one-off annual fee

    Premium Licence

    Utilise the power of our applicant tracking system and unlimited advertising all in one package

    Enhancements

    Expand your reach through featured job listings, targeted emails and social media campaigns

  • Advice

    Guides

    Benefit from best practice guides on education recruitment and staff retention

    Blog

    Explore expert advice and tips from leadership to recruitment

    Showcases

    Find out how we've helped schools like yours succeed

    Classroom

    Watch free webinars on how to get the most from our products and services

  • Search jobssearch

    Search jobs

    Job title
    Mic icon
    close icon
        location
        close
        arrow_drop_down
        search
        Search
      • Candidates
      • Employers
      • account_circleSign in
      • account_circleSign in
      • INSTANT JOB ADVERT

        • Post your vacancy on the UK's leading education job site and start receiving applications today!
        Post a vacancy

        RECRUITMENT SOLUTIONS

        • Want to know more about our recruitment solutions for schools?
        Recruit with Eteach

        WE'LL DO IT FOR YOU

        • Free advertising! Pay per candidate placed and only pay on success.

        Call us: 0845 226 1906

      Job title
      Mic icon
      close icon
          location
          close
          arrow_drop_down

          Learning to learn

          Classroom advice
            May 16, 2022

          Written by Elizabeth Holmes

          • ALL
          • classroom advice
          • career path
          • nqt and graduate advice
          • recruitment advice
          • cv and interview tips
          • in the news
          • wellbeing
          • product updates
          • leadership
          • teaching overseas
          • ect and graduate advice
          < Back to blog

          Do we land in school, equipped and ready to learn at the age of four or five, or do we need to learn how to learn? And if we must learn how to learn, is this something we do once and are then forever equipped for the learning challenges ahead of us? Or do we need to hone our learning skills as we travel through the curriculum year by year? If we are to offer children the very best chances of success in their school careers, we really need to be able to answer these questions.

          Unsurprisingly, there seem to be no clear-cut answers. For some the notion of “learning to learn” is a fiction to be consigned to the bin alongside the teaching of critical thinking. For others, learning to learn is a core element of excellent teaching and learning to be focused on throughout a child’s life at school. But is it not obvious that, as teachers, we need to think about learning how to learn, and we need to encourage our students to think about learning how to learn? Do we not need to understand tenacity and commitment and not giving up?

          In his recent book, The Joy of Not Knowing, (Routledge) Marcelo Staricoff writes of developing a whole school “joy of not knowing” culture for learning. He identifies six key areas of influence which together make up the school’s culture for learning. These six ways of being are as follows:

          • Values: Being safe by being thoughtful, caring, understanding, empathetic and respectful with each other.
          • Vision: Being aspirational and feeling that the school’s vision makes anything and everything possible for every individual.
          • Children’s rights: Being responsible for ourselves and being aware of how our actions contribute to everyone’s rights to be met.
          • Lifelong learning dispositions: Being intrinsically motivated by feeling equipped with all the characteristics associated with effective thinking and learning.
          • Global sustainability: Being environmentally aware and conscious of the impact of our actions on our world now for future generations.
          • Community links: Being socially connected and feeling that we can all function successfully as individuals and as members of the home, family, local, national and international communities. (P. 25)

          At the heart of the six ways of being are the lifelong learning dispositions. As Staricoff explains in his book, “The explicit teaching of how to learn is the most precious gift that schools can give.” For Staricoff, developing a joy of not knowing can lead to an intrinsic motivation for wanting to know. He writes, “Once learners become intrinsically motivated to want to know and learn, it is very important for them to feel that they know how to learn what they know they want to learn. Knowing how to learn therefore needs to be taught.

          In order to address this need, Staricoff proposes a Learning to Learn Week which is designed to:

          • Place the processes of thinking, learning and knowing at the heart of the teaching and learning process
          • Create an inspirational and motivational learning to learn culture in the classroom
          • Equip all learners with the tools, skills and dispositions of successful lifelong learners and creative and critical thinkers from the outset of the academic year
          • Provide the practitioner with the opportunity to gain an in-depth knowledge of each child in the class as an individual, learner and creative thinker. (P. 74)

          By focusing on these learning aptitudes before the main work of the year begins, children gain confidence in their ability to learn and to navigate their way through the learning challenges that may lie ahead. Learning to learn may also help to instill the notion that learning does not stop at school. The inquisitiveness and questioning that we all need in order to make sense of our world and our lives does not and should not stop at the school gates.

          As children grow older and move on through school, learning to learn will become more sophisticated. They may learn about the retrieval of what we read and digest, spacing and repeating learning, testing and quizzing, and how best to learn in a remote environment. If children are learning to learn throughout their school careers, they are becoming more sophisticated as young academics and may even find exams less stressful and demanding.

          Moving children on in their learning, helping them to become more independent and to love the very act of learning is a key part of the “job” of schools. Whether we do this through specific and targeted days or weeks, such as Staricoff’s “Learning to Learn Week”, or on an ongoing basis throughout the school year, or a combination of the two, we need to ensure that all children acquire the skills they need to be successful life-long learners, inquisitive, questioning and thinking critically.

          Find out more…

          Marcelo Staricoff’s book, The Joy of Not Knowing published by Routledge, can be found here: The Joy of Not Knowing: A Philosophy of Education Transforming Teaching (routledge.com)
          Search jobs

          About the author

          Elizabeth Holmes

          After graduating with a degree in Politics and International Relations from the University of Reading, Elizabeth Holmes completed her PGCE at the Institute of Education, University of London. She then taught humanities and social sciences in schools in London, Oxfordshire and West Sussex, where she ran the history department in a challenging comprehensive. Elizabeth specialises in education but also writes on many other issues and themes. As well as her regular blogs for Eteach and FEjobs, her books have been published by a variety of publishers and translated around the world. Elizabeth has also taught on education courses in HE and presented at national and international conferences.

          Share :

           
          Jobseekers
          • Browse jobs
          • Career advice
          • Direct recruiters
          • Blog
          Schools
          • Our services
          • Packages
          • Recruitment advice
          • Case studies
          Eteach
          • About us
          • Contact us
          • Careers
          • Our partners

          About Eteach

          The Eteach Group is an EdTech software and services company, dedicated to providing education recruitment solutions for teachers and support staff to connect directly with schools online and find the latest jobs and opportunities available. To find out more about our mission, visit the About Us page.

          Eteach

          • Who we are
          • Contact us
          • Mission and vision
          • Work for us
          • Partners

          Legal

          • Terms and conditions
          • Privacy policy
          • Cookies
          • Accessibility
          • Carbon reduction plan

          Connect with us

          • Facebook
          • Twitter
          • Instagram
          • tiktok
          • LinkedIn
          • call 0845 226 1906
          • email Send us a message
          • location_on 1 Arlington Square, Bracknell, Berkshire RG12 1WA
          • location_on 33-35 Cathedral Road, Cardiff CF11 9HB
          Education Today

          Legal

          • Terms and conditions
          • Privacy policy
          • Cookies
          • Accessibility
          • Carbon reduction plan
          Education Today

          © Copyright and database rights Eteach UK Limited 2025

          Jobsaware ISO logo Cyber-Essentials-logo
          TOP
          Loading...