Opening Minds
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The 2008 Opening Minds Conference will be on Tuesday 13 May 2008, 11am – 3.15pm
Book now for the Opening Minds Conference
The RSA recently launched its new Opening Minds DVD and Booklet at its Impact Conference. The package is an inspiring introduction to Opening Minds, containing accounts of students and teachers from two schools using an Opening Minds Curriculum. For more information, please visit Resources and Publications.
The New Curriculum
Building on the success of the RSA's Opening Minds initiative, the project now aims to change the way learning is organised in schools in order to make it more relevant to the demands placed on it by life in the 21st century.
The RSA's competence-based curriculum is now available for implementation. For more information please visit Resources and Publications.
Opening Minds
Opening Minds sprang from a conviction that the way young people are being educated was becoming increasingly distanced from their real needs.
The National Curriculum is information-driven and struggles to cope with the competing demands of subjects and the rapidly increasing volume of information. Meanwhile, it is neglecting the broad range of skills for life including skills for learning, the ability to manage people and situations well, and good citizenship.
Opening Minds argues that these life-skills need to be taught directly and specifically. It starts from a competence framework that aims to meet the individual's needs in the personal, social and employment worlds.
Following the successful completion of a 3-year pilot study, the schools involved have experienced some quite stunning improvements in both student and teacher motivation and solid gains in student performance. The benefits seen included:
- less low-level disruption in the classroom
- students are more mature and more motivated, ready to learn
- students and teachers enjoy the Opening Minds lessons
There are now over 135 schools using the Opening Minds framework of competences.
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