Cuttings

Fidgeting, doodling and singing approved as 'aids to learning'
By Julie Henry, Education Conference, Daily Telegraph

Pupils are allowed to wander around, listen to music and play with balls in the classroom under new teaching methods endorsed by the Government and school inspectors.

The aim of the approach is to respond to pupils' individual "learning styles" by allowing them to adopt personalised ways of studying.

In some schools, both primary and secondary, children are allowed to spread their work on the floor or sit on beanbags. Other children are advised to sing their written notes to aid memory or are taught with cartoons.

Fidgeting, doodling and moving around in the classroom, once considered signs of poor concentration, are also allowed.

The techniques, which are being adopted by an increasing number of schools and local authorities, were first introduced in America and follow research on brain development, which suggests that children have a variety of "learning styles".

Critics, however, are concerned that the approach is merely a fad that has "low reliability and a negligible impact on learning".

Under the system, children are classified as belonging to one of three groups: auditory, visual and kinaesthetic - they learn best either by listening, by reading and through pictures, or by moving, touching and doing.

The school inspection service, Ofsted, and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which regulates the exam system, have both endorsed the methods, telling schools that they can achieve better results than conventional lessons in which children listen to the teacher and copy from the board.

David Miliband, the schools minister, has also supported the methods, saying that "personalised learning demands that every aspect of teaching is designed around a pupil's needs".

Among the schools that have introduced "personalised learning" is Blacklow Brow primary in Knowsley on Merseyside. Sheila Walmsley, the head teacher, said that it had altered its teaching methods after discovering that 80 per cent of its pupils were "kinaesthetic learners".

She added: "Through questionnaires, observation and speaking to children it became clear that 'chalk and talk' was not meeting their needs."

A traffic light system has been introduced that signals to "visual learners" what type of activity the teacher wants.

When it is on red, pupils work quietly on their own, amber means they can work in groups and green means they can move around the classroom during activities such as art and design.

Julie Peach, the deputy head teacher, added: "Children are up and about in class and we use more dance and drama. A visitor to the classroom might wonder what is going on, but the children know what they are doing and parents have been fully informed."

Janet Wood, the assistant director of education in Knowsley, which is introducing similar methods in all its schools, said that they were "based on good practice" and improved attainment, attendance and pupil engagement.

Cramlington Community High School in Northumberland also uses the approach. It allows pupils to have personal items such as cuddly toys on their desks. Other children who are prone to fidget are given "stress" balls to squeeze and play with, to "aid concentration".

Pupils are allowed to spread their work on the floor and are given cushions to lie on while they study. There are also comfortable chairs and background music.

Since introducing the measures, the number of pupils achieving five GCSEs at grade C or above has risen from 63 per cent to 73 per cent last year.

Cramlington is one of 24 schools that have participated in a three-year project, run by the Campaign for Learning, a Government-supported charity, to investigate the effects of "personalised learning".

The results have been mixed. Seven schools have dropped out, while of the 17 remaining, five have recorded improved examination scores, three have seen a fall, and there has been no significant change at three. The other six were nurseries or infant schools with no test results.

A report by academics at Newcastle University, which was published last week, has cast doubt on the teaching methods, however. Its author, Frank Coffield, a professor of education, said: "Some of these approaches make extravagant claims of success that were not upheld when subjected to scrutiny.

"Furthermore, people who use these methods may come to think in stereotypes, tending to label some students as 'non-reflective', for instance.

"The real danger is that if learners think that they are a 'low auditory, kinaesthetic learner', they might see little point in reading a book or listening to anyone for more than a few minutes," he said.

Nick Seaton, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, a parents' pressure group, said: "Most parents would think that this is a daft new craze that will do nothing to raise standards.

"It sounds like a distraction from the main purpose of schools and teachers, which is to pass on knowledge. In a class of 30 children I don't see how it would work.

"These methods sound like a return to the 'child-centred' orthodoxies that were supposed to have died out in the 1970s. They don't seem to have worked in America, where the education system is nothing to boast about, so why adopt them here?"