Visible Learning @ LNPS

At LNPS our collective and collaborative approaches towards student learning has seen us become a school leading educational innovations and initiatives. For so long in education we seem to have been on the hunt for the next best thing. As a result we have embarked on a professional learning journey by further embedding practices that are backed by evidence and research.

John Hattie of the University of Melbourne, Australia, has long researched performance indicators and evaluation in education. The result is Visible Learning: a mindset shift and a movement. Professor John Hattie's research and meta-studies have had a global impact since 2008.

This research makes us stop and think about the vast amount we already know and evaluate what really does make the difference in student learning.

At LNPS we have implemented and embedded the visible learning strategies for over a decade. Our new three year learning journey is about further consolidating and strengthening our current approaches as evaluators of our own teaching and leading.

What is Visible Learning?

Visible Learning means that students know what they need to learn, how to learn it, and how to evaluate their own progress.

Using the Visible Learning approach, teachers and leaders become evaluators of their own impact on student learning. The combination causes students to drive their own learning.

"Students who have high levels of awareness, control or strategic choice of multiple strategies are often referred to as 'self-regulated' or having high levels of metacognition" (Hattie, 2009).

The central theme of Visible Learning is “Know Thy Impact” in a nutshell:

Almost everything educators do in schools works to improve student achievement.
In order to make the most impact, educators need to focus on what works best in improving student outcomes.
The key is for teachers, school leaders, and system to know the impact they are having on the learning lives of students and to work from this.

Our professional learning journey

At LNPS our focus has continuously been around ensuring our students are assessment-capable and visible learners. On Monday 21st March we had our first, in a series of professional learning opportunities.

At the core of the day's learning was the narrative of Professor John Hattie’s Visible Learning research, which has been distilled into five key strands.