Conditions for learning: a Greek story

In one school in Greece the culture has been transformed to create conditions for students' learning and for teachers' learning. This means that the school creates opportunities for teachers and students to reflect on the nature, skills and processes of learning. Teachers meet on a weekly basis to discuss how students learn, to share the problems teachers face and the learning problems their students face.

Creating the conditions for learning of all members of the school community is also the subject of the many formal and informal conversations that teachers have inside school, as well as in seminars organised for other second chance schools. This gives teachers the opportunity to exchange their ideas with their own colleagues and colleagues from other places.

For the students this has meant creating opportunities in the classroom for students to focus not simply on what they are learning but how they are learning and to have access to tools which stimulate thinking and provoke learning conversations. They are encouraged to have an active role in their learning with a new emphasis on the quest of learning rather than passively accepting what is offered to them. Teachers routinely ask students' opinions on their learning and on how they think they can learn better. So students engage in a process of evaluating what is relevant and valuable to them. This requires them to reflect on what they are finding.

The narrative

The second principle follows naturally from the first. If there is to be a focus on learning in a school, there is a need for conditions that nurture this fragile entity and provide opportunities for it to grow and thrive. This in turn implies tools and strategies which teachers and their students can use to help focus on what is important and to avoid being distracted by the unimportant or seduced by the quick fix.

As the first principle holds, students learn when teachers are learners, so conditions for learning applies most profoundly in relation to teachers.

Leadership for learning practice involves creating conditions favourable to learning as an activity in which:

• cultures nurture the learning of everyone

• everyone has opportunities to reflect on the nature, skills and processes of learning

• physical and social spaces stimulate and celebrate learning

• safe and secure environments enable everyone to take risks, cope with failure and respond positively to challenges

• tools and strategies are used to enhance thinking about learning and the practice of teaching.

The story from one Greek school could be told of many of the Carpe Vitam schools in which school staff have taken a more systematic look at the conditions which can inhibit or help learning for teachers and for their students.