Marcelo Staricoff

Assistant Professor in Primary Education in the Department of Education and Social Work at the University of Sussex

Workshop Information:

An interactive session full of very easy to implement practical ideas that will enable you to design and implement your own bespoke 'Learning to Learn Week' as a way of launching the academic year with five days of really exciting activities that enable you to establish a very special democratically and children’s rights-led culture for learning in the classroom and that also equips all the children with all the values, skills and dispositions of effective learners and creative thinkers before they start to learn. 

The Learning to Learn provides all children with a toolbox of strategies that enables them all to feel that that they are able to thrive during the year, even if things are hard, as they feel that they have all they need to be able to access the learning and work within the social, cultural and academic culture of the classroom and school. 

The Learning to Learn Week introduces children to the purpose of education, to the wonders of seeing that knowledge is only useful if accompanied by a deep understanding of that knowledge and then the wisdom with which to use that understanding to be able to add cultural capital to society and enabling all children to feel as active participants and contributors to their local, national and global communities.

Session Outcomes:

We will see why a Headteacher from Norfolk recently reported that his staff told him that launching the academic year with a Learning to Learn Week was really enjoyable and reminded them why we do this job in the first place!

Biography:

Marcelo is an Assistant Professor in Primary Education in the Department of Education and Social Work at the University of Sussex- Course Leader Masters in Education, Lecturer BA Primary and Early Years Course  QTS and the author of ‘The Joy of Not Knowing’ (Routledge, 2021; China Youth Press, Chinese Translation, 2024) and 'Start Thinking' (Imaginative Minds, 2005) and he is a former research scientist and Primary School Headteacher.

Marcelo is the Departmental lead for the visiting Bolashak Scholars who join us every year from Kazakhstan. Marcelo is also the University of Sussex Representative on the UK-Uzbekistan Education Forum and the External Examiner for the BA in Primary Education Course with QTS at the University of Durham.

Marcelo has recently worked on behalf of UNICEF alongside policy makers, educators and textbook writers, drawing on the philosophy that underpins The Joy of Not Knowing approach, to help the Ministry of Education in Uzbekistan to introduce a reformed Primary and Secondary National Curriculum. Marcelo also works for Coram Life Education, the children’s charity, runs courses, acts as an advisor to a number of schools and educational organisations and speaks regularly at national and international events on the principles that underpin the Joy of Not Knowing’s philosophy of education and educational leadership.

Marcelo has published widely in the fields of creative, critical, multilingual, multicultural and philosophical thinking and learning in the classroom. Marcelo is a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Education (APPG) and of the Steering Committee of the International Academic Forum (IAFOR) organisation. Marcelo also works closely with the EDGE Foundation and acts as the Chair of the Global Empathy Conference Annual Conferences, an initiative led by Virtual School Australia.

Marcelo's work and contributions were recognised in 2019 when he was named as a Founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching and in 2023 when he was awarded Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.