Learning Platform

The Learning Platform is the fifth competency in our Competency Based Curriculum and I have to confess to a little artistic licence. 'Learning Platform' really stands for personal organisation but we needed something to begin with 'L' so that we could spell out the word 'CIRCLE' with our six competencies.
So... personal organisation - not startling or innovative or different; but solid, fundamental and focused particularly on the type of learner who naturally finds engagement in education difficult. Pre-adolescent learners in particular find themselves 'acting out' their reluctance to engage with school by sub-consciously (though sometimes consciously) forgetting their books and equipment. Not only that but they fail to organise their time or energy so that they are constantly tired or rushed, working behind themselves and constantly trying to play catch up.
By giving personal organisation a place amongst the six competencies and giving it another name with the word 'learning' in it, we are acknowledging the real importance this aspect of school life has. So many great and imaginative lesson plans have been recked by the lack of the right equipment in the pupils' bags; so many teachers have become genuinely disheartened by the lack of reprecocity from pupils in remembering to bring their books. It's: 'Let's have a Desert Island Disks lesson tomorrow' only to find that fewer than half the pupils bring a CD.
Though the expression Learning Platform needs a modicum of explanation it is a useful expression.