Accelerated Learning newsletter, June 2005

A study claims to have found the secret to that magical quality, charisma, and apparently it can be learned. Follow this link to find out how.

• Posture: use open body posture, hands away from face when talking, stand up straight, relax, hands apart with palms forwards or upwards
• Interact positively: let people know they matter and you enjoy being around them, develop a genuine smile, nod when they talk, briefly touch them on the upper arm, and maintain eye contact
• Lead: be comfortable as leader, move around to appear enthusiastic, lean slightly forward and look at all parts of the group
• Have a message: move beyond the status quo and make a difference, be controversial, new, simple to understand, counter-intuitive
• Speak up: be clear, fluent, forceful and articulate; evoke imagery, use an upbeat tempo, occasionally slow for tension or emphasis

But don't despair if you haven't got these qualities because you can learn them. Psychology Professor Richard Wiseman estimates charisma is 50% innate and 50% trained. So there we have it! Look out world, here we come!

Professor Richard Wiseman carried out a study involving more than 200 people taking part in FameLab, a national competition to find the new "faces of science". The ones who scored highest in a questionnaire about how much they seem to transmit their emotions to others also progressed the furthest in the competition, when they used their personalities to impress a panel of judges.

Researchers say having an infectious personality induces others to copy your body language and facial expressions. "When you see someone else who has charisma, without realising it, you're mimicking their posture and their facial expressions," says Professor Wiseman, a psychologist. "An obvious example is when someone smiles at you and you smile back. And how you hold yourself influences your emotions." You're unaware you're mimicking this person, although you know they make you feel happy, he says.

A charismatic person has three attributes, says Professor Wiseman:

• they feel emotions themselves quite strongly;
• they induce them in others;
• and they are impervious to the influences of other charismatic people.

A modest prize will be available to the person suggesting the best content for a Charisma GCSE. We suggest you start by trialling with those ‘hoodies’ hanging out in the corner of the park.

Oli Sparks was a Science teacher for 11 years during which she held the responsibilities of Head of Science, Head of Upper School and Assistant Headteacher. She is currently studying for an Msc in Sport Psychology at Bangor University. Here she shares information from her research project ‘Is there a correlation between transformational leadership behaviours and team climate in sport?’

Transformational leaders are defined as those who inspire and motivate individuals to achieve results that exceed expectations. They empower followers, and care for the needs of each individual. Research has found that transformational leadership can have a positive effect on behaviour and attitude in business and sport. This could indicate that teachers who are transformational leaders may have this effect on pupils in their classroom too.

Read these seven habits used in transformational leadership and decide whether you are or could be a transformational leader in the classroom…

1. Inspirational motivation: developing, articulating and inspiring others in a vision.

Do pupils in your classroom feel inspired by a vision of their results and achievements? Are they motivated by the vision of where these accomplishments may lead?

2. Individual consideration: a respect for the followers and concern for personal needs.

Do pupils in your classroom sense a mutual respect between you and them? Do they feel cared for as individuals and a concern for their needs?

3. Intellectual stimulation: behaviour that challenges followers to re-examine their assumptions about their work and re-think how it can be performed.

Do pupils in your classroom feel empowered in their learning? Do they question ideas and challenge ways of thinking?

4. Providing an appropriate role model: behaviour that sets an example for people to follow that is consistent with the vision and values of the organisation.

Do pupils in your classroom feel you are leading by example in terms of expectations and that what they are learning is related to their vision. Is this message consistent throughout the school?

5. High performance expectations: the pursuit of maximum performance

Do pupils in your classroom apply maximum effort to every classroom situation, be it written work, oral contribution or group work? Do you challenge them at the start of the lesson to do their best. Do you evaluate with them at the end of the lesson, whether they have achieved their full potential?

6. Fostering of group goals: behaviour aimed at promoting cooperation amongst followers and getting them to work together towards common goals

Do pupils in your classroom feel encouraged to work within groups. Is their a sense of cohesion within the class and does the class have clear goals to work to?

7. Contingent reward: positive reinforcement for an appropriate performance

Do pupils in your classroom receive regular, positive feedback. Are they encouraged to praise each other?

If the answer to most of the above questions is ‘yes’, You are a transformational leader. Research suggests that you are making a difference to your pupils’ motivation and attitude. If there are a few ‘no’s, why not try some of the suggestions in your classroom…

The definitions for the transformational leadership behaviours were taken from research by Hardy, L., Shariff, A., Munnoch, K. & Allsopp, A.J. (2004). Can leadership development positively influence the psychological environment of military recruit training? Institute of Naval Medicine / institute for the Psychology of Elite Performance, University of Wales, Bangor (Restricted access).

The results of a recent five year study reveal that young children can learn more if they are allowed to play in the sand at school, rather than sitting still in formal lessons.

Five-year-olds found it difficult to adapt to the formal curriculum and the time spent sitting still should be reduced says the National Foundation for Educational Research. The report argues for more access to "play-based" learning and suggests that schools should "allocate resources to enable children to experience some play-based activities that give access to opportunities such as sand and water, role play, construction and outdoor learning".

The research looked at the experience of children in the first year of formal education - who in nursery school and in reception had been used to more opportunities to play. It found that young children struggled with the literacy and numeracy strategies - which are designed to ensure that children in primary school get a thorough grounding in the basics of reading, writing and maths.

The report says, "some were worried by the workload expected in Year 1, found writing difficult and were bored by the requirement to sit and listen to the teacher." It adds later, "The amount of time children in Year 1 spend sitting still and listening to the teacher should be reduced. Teachers should be encouraged to increase opportunities for active, independent learning and learning through play." Isn’t this what we have said at Alite for years?

How useful does assessment seem to you? What’s the point of marking, for example? A tick might esteem, a cross will probably demotivate, yet both are equally barren in terms of effective learning for the individual. Well, at least the parents know you’re looking at the work… Cranford Park Primary and Seven Kings High School help us to consider whether that is what assessment is supposed to be about.

Two London schools – one a primary, the other a secondary – know exactly how useful assessment can be. Both attribute much of their success to it and both start with the child at the centre of the experience.

Cranford Park Primary makes the point that schools should be made to fit the children, not the other way around. That’s why a school-wide, systematic, coherent and comprehensive approach to assessment has been implemented that personalises the education experience for every child. Assessment is an integral part of the learning process. Little wonder, then, that this large (760 pupil) primary with 36% of the children eligible for free school meals and 82% with EAL, on average, achieves over the national average in KS2 SATs results.

But they believe it’s about every child achieving and that’s what they set out to facilitate. Ask the Headteacher and he’ll tell you that ‘feedback loops’ form the foundation to successful assessment for all his pupils. These are embedded as ongoing commentaries about the learning that is taking place and not bolt-on extras reserved for the end of a lesson or a series of lessons. Sometimes, they take the form of one-to-one conversations, asking questions of the children about what they are doing and why, or observing them whilst they are on task and watching how they work with each other. And, yes, marking their finished work is considered important too; it’s how it’s done that makes the difference. The key to all the feedback is that it should always be clear and specific. Every child is told exactly what is good about his/her work and what specifically they can do to improve further.

Formative comments feature highly in the approach at Seven Kings High School as well. They know well the results of research carried out by Dylan Wiliam and Paul Black from Kings College London, whose work suggests that giving grades can demotivate many learners and, even with constructive comments written alongside, it is the grade that often takes precedence for the student. Because of this, grades are no longer given at Seven Kings. Instead of simply measuring the individual, suggestions are made for further growth.

When teachers mark the work they only note grades for their own information and give the students the formative comments on their own. This simple strategy shifts the emphasis from performance and inappropriate comparisons between students to achievement and learning.

Seven Kings is a large, 11-18 mixed comprehensive, with a student population of 75% EAL speakers and an entitlement to free school meals above the national average. Yet in 2004 85% of students achieved five A*-C grades at GCSE, up from 29% several years earlier. In the last five years only three students have left the school without achieving at least five GCSE passes.

The key way in which they involve learners at the school is by listening to the student voice. Through taking notice of what the learners have to say, teachers are able to find out what is/isn’t working or will/won’t have the desired effect for every individual. This can be done in a number of ways. Early in Year 7, for example, students record their experiences of lessons in Learning Logs. The school’s structured student interview, at least once a term from Year 7 to Year 13, is another way in which the school puts students at the centre of the assessment process. Together with a designated member of staff, they review their progress, discuss what has been easy and difficult in their learning that term and what needs to be done to move them forward. As a result of these formal discussions, students are no longer recipients of what the teacher decrees is best for them, but equal partners, discussing their own learning needs and setting themselves goals for improvement.

Both schools have experienced the benefits of assessment as part of the learning process and still have plenty more to share. Find out why Cranford Park teachers can be considered the children’s personal cartographers, what specific techniques they use to assess and how staff organisation has aided this process. Find out how Seven Kings applies and optimises its approach to assessment across the largest NLC in England.

Join us for Alite’s 2005 conference, Personalising Learning: Creative Approaches, at the Café Royal on 24th June. Book online

Find out how wearing red can help you perform better.

Analysis of combat events in last year's Olympic Games in Athens suggests that wearing a scarlet outfit can give a competitor that vital edge. In four of these events (boxing, tae kwon do, Greco-Roman wrestling and freestyle wrestling) combatants are randomly assigned either blue or red outfits.

Those wearing red won 55% of all competitions, report Russell Hill and Robert Barton of the University of Durham, UK. In bouts deemed to be evenly matched, the bearers of red did even better, winning more than 60% of the time.

The reasons for this red advantage are unclear. A red face is commonly associated with anger and aggression, so a bright red shirt or headgear may intimidate an opponent, suggests Hill, who unveils his results in this week's Nature. Alternatively, red clothes could actually boost the wearer's testosterone levels, he says: "Maybe you get a surge when you pull on that red shirt."

Elsewhere in the animal kingdom, red coloration is a marker of high testosterone and superior physical fitness. This has led to some strange effects in studies of animal behaviour, says Hill: some male birds given brightly-coloured leg bands for identification in long-term experiments have found themselves catapulted to the top of the mating ranks, he says.

Hill and Barton also suggest that red makes teams perform better. They looked at last year's Euro 2004 soccer tournament in Portugal, and in particular at the five teams that wore two different colours, one of them red, in different games during the competition.

Those teams tended to perform better when wearing red as opposed to their other colours, they claim. "We were surprised at how consistent the effect seems to be," Hill says.

Tell that to Brazil…