Have you been using the LTA Toolkit in your school or setting? Support continued development of the toolkit by sharing your feedback.

Learner Participation & Ownership

Theme Overview Activity Suggestion

It is recommended that teams discuss the theme overview together prior to completing self-evaluations to ensure robustness of data. Use this activity to build a shared understanding of high-quality practice within Learner Participation and Ownership of Learning with your team.

Learner Participation

What does this look like in a high-quality experience?

“Learner participation in schools and early years settings includes all the ways in which children and young people engage in practices and dialogue with educational staff, parents, carers, and community members to create positive outcomes and changes…. Learner participation must not be considered as an ‘add-on’ but be experienced as intrinsic to everyday ways of working.” Learner Participation in Educational Settings

All learners have opportunities to influence and participate in decisions about approaches relating to how they learn, are taught, and assessed -eg. topics, content, timetabling, learning environment, etc.
Through participation, learners exercise a key role in their learning through on-going dialogue with teachers and others.
Learners demonstrate increasing confidence in taking responsibility for their learning, including learning independently and leading aspects of their learning
Learners have opportunities for personalisation and choice, influencing what and how they learn.
Learners develop and become confident in the use of vocabulary to describe their learning
Practitioners and learners make use of a range of learning and teaching approaches such as collaborative learning to enable learners to develop important skills such as communication, teamwork and problem solving. This also builds capacity for meaningful learner participation within the life of the school and community
Through dialogue with adults, learners can influence a variety of important decisions.
Opportunities for personal achievement can be shaped, designed or initiated by learners themselves or may be provided in collaboration with practitioners and/or wider partners

Real-life examples from different stages or sectors (click to expand)

Highly effective practice would show:

Learner Participation is embedded in each of the 4 arenas of learning including: learning, teaching, and assessment; personal achievement; decision making groups and wider community.

Early Years examples:

Practitioners examine the environment from the learner perspective and encourage learners to make adjustments to their environment when appropriate.
Learners select learning activities, resources and equipment to follow their interests and aspirations.

Primary examples:

Practitioners and learners work together to ensure a supportive, inclusive and safe learning environment where all learners feel valued and empowered to contribute to the 4 arenas of participation.
Practitioners use a variety of assessment approaches to facilitate all learners to demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and skills in different contexts across the curriculum. Assessment approaches are matched to the needs of learners and are used to support them to demonstrate where they are in their learning and what they can do.

Secondary examples:

The learning environment is a space for learners to make mistakes, productively struggle and ask questions to deepen their learning. The learning environment enables learners to develop informed views, which are valued and acted upon.
Teaching and learning is underpinned by the shared vision and values and high expectations for all. Adults across the school have a shared understanding of variety roles they play, such as leading learning, facilitating and co-facilitating learning. They have a shared understanding of what learner participation involves, the benefit in areas such as learning and teaching, attainment, relationships and culture and ethos. Consequently, learners are eager and active participants who are fully engaged, resilient and highly motivated.

Ownership of Learning

What does this look like in a high quality experience?

Practitioners and learners work together to ensure a supportive, inclusive and safe learning environment where all learners feel valued and empowered to contribute.
All learners engage in planned and unplanned opportunities to reflect on their own learning, which helps them to develop a deep understanding of themselves as learners and enables them to identify their areas of strength and areas for development.
Learners are skilled in self and peer assessment, with routines and structures in place to give and receive feedback. This supports learners to evaluate evidence of their own learning and make informed decisions about their next steps.
Practitioners support learners to become more reflective and as a result, learners are becoming more self-directed and able to set learning targets for themselves.

Real-life examples from different stages or sectors (click to expand)

Highly effective practice would show:

“Student engagement is exemplified through doing and understanding. Student ownership is when teachers and students co-facilitate the learning. When students are owning their learning, they are doing more than just engaging: They are actively taking a role in leading their learning. When this happens, the teacher serves more as a guide for students to take them further.” Learners can articulate what they are learning, why they are learning, strategies that support their learning, and how they will use these strategies in the future” National Institute for Excellence in Teaching.

Early Years example:

Practitioners facilitate learner ownership by intentionally planning for activating prior learning. They provide provocations to develop curiosity and wonder, use skilled questioning and wait time to provide opportunities for learners to make powerful connections, develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills to deepen and express their understanding.

Primary examples:

Teachers facilitate student ownership, communicating to learners what they are learning, why they are learning it, and how it relates to the world of work. They have high expectations, demonstrate how to be successful through modelling and co-constructing learning intentions and success criteria. Teachers, provide learners with high-quality feedback against success criteria, to effectively inform progress in, and ownership of learning. Learners have regular opportunities to reflect and discuss feedback on their learning with adults and peers and time to process and act on it.
Teachers employ a range of pedagogies e.g. play, IDL, gradual release of responsibility for learners to take ownership of their learning and facilitate opportunities to collaborate.
Learners design how they will share their learning to an audience based on make, do say, write, developing skills for learning life and work.
Learners are taught the skills of self-regulation and meta-cognition and can monitor their own engagement levels increasing learner confidence in taking ownership of their learning.

Secondary examples:

Learning is appropriately challenging, enjoyable and well matched to the needs and interests of learners informed by robust data. Learners exercise personalisation and choice, planning where, what, and how they learn, including the use of digital technology with increasing ownership as they become more independent in their learning.
The language of learning is embedded. Learners can clearly articulate what they are learning, why they are learning it and co-construct success criteria to demonstrate how they will be successful. They are skilled in self and peer assessment, with routines and structures in place to give and receive feedback.
All learners engage in planned and unplanned opportunities to reflect on their own and their peers’ learning and achievements, which helps them to develop a deep understanding of themselves as learners, identify their areas of strength, and areas for development. As a result, learners take ownership of their profiles which capture their progress and achievements supporting learners reporting progress.