Learning for Life

Learning for Life at St Luke’s

At St Luke’s we believe in preparing children to go out into the world as creative, compassionate, well-educated and confident citizens.  Our Learning for Life programme and curriculum is designed to raise children’s aspirations and deepen their understanding of the ever-changing society around us and their place within it. 

Our Learning for Life vision is based on the 4 pillars of education set out in UNESCO's Global Task Force for Education for the 21st Century:

Learning to live together: develop an understanding of others and their history, tradition and spiritual values.

Learning to know: combining a sufficiently broad general education with in-depth work on a selected number of subjects.

Learning to do: acquiring competence to deal with a variety of situations, often unforeseeable, and to work in teams.

Learning to be: develop and exercise greater independence and judgement combined with a stronger sense of personal responsibility for the attainment of common goals.

Learning: The Treasure Within (UNESCO, 1996)

Building children's learning across all four pillars involves delivering our bespoke curriculum as well as teaching, modelling, researching, interacting and reflecting throughout the school day on-going. We adapt our curriculum so it is accessible for every child. Our key strategies enable children to grow to be independent thinkers and learners, equipped with the tools to learn: 

• Growth Mindset - if you believe you can do it, you can.  We teach children that hard work and persistence pay off.  Anyone can get better at something with the right mindset.
• Philosophy For Children (P4C) - in P4C children learn to raise questions and express their ideas about things that really matter to them. Weekly practice in P4C deepens children's caring, creative, collaborative and critical thinking.
• Whole Class Reading - an approach to group reading where in a collaborative shared environment, children predict, clarify, question and summarise what they have read. Children learn from an expert how to organise thoughts, articulate ideas and ask questions to improve understanding; making connections, reviewing and improving on initial understanding and knowledge.  
• Singapore Maths - a highly successful approach to mathematics, using concrete materials and diagrams to support abstract concepts within maths.

Activities which enhance Learning for Life at St Luke’s also include:

• Dreamcatcher assemblies when people from all walks of life come in to answer children’s questions about their working lives and how they got to where they are today. 
• Learning for Life workshops led by community and business volunteers to demonstrate how the skills and knowledge they are learning at school can be used in real-life projects.