#18 Attendance and Behaviour

When discussing metacognition within education, it's unusual to consider what goes on in the minds of children and young people outside the bounds of the classroom. We are encouraged to find ways of developing metacognition in our students so that they can reason on the way they are approaching learning, and change their thinking processes in order to get improved results. But how does that relate to attendance, behaviour and engagement?

I choose to focus on whatever's going to improve the educational and life chances of children and young people A change in the education system is high on many people's wish list, but I'm concerned about over 6 million children and young people in the UK alone, who are passing through the system that exists right now. How do we help them not just to survive it, but walk away from their school experience feeling successful.

An increasing number of students feel unable to attend school, for a whole range of reasons, and for those who do attend, they either encounter, or experience, a growing restlessness leading to poor behaviour. Schools are also reporting that even students who were fully engaged in learning pre-covid are now far more reluctant, or less able to do so, and some teachers are choosing to leave a profession that they love because the stress has grown too much.

So is this really a time to be pushing 'metacognition'? Some educators are calling for a reduction in the pressure to make academic progress whilst we focus on children and young people's well being and mental health. I understand their concern, but I don't think this is an either/or situation!

Metacognition is as much the key to well-being as it is to academic progress. Having labelled metacognition in schools as 'thinking about thinking' we have missed the whole reason why it's development is so very important. It's actually part of our decision making process, designed to help us analyse whether we are getting the desired benefits from a given decision, or whether it would be better to change our minds to get a better result.

We 'are' the result of all the cumulative decisions we have taken in life, so being able to think metacognitively is vital to achieving the success we want for ourselves. And what is non-attendance, poor behaviour or lack of engagement in school, but a poor decision made by a mind that is currently unable to appreciate the long term impact because some emotional response, caused by fear is currently stronger. Developing metacognition is a way out of that fear!

So in order to combat these issues we need a whole school approach to metacognition that recognises the value of being able to think differently, both inside and outside of the classroom. For that reason, I will be running a webinar for school leaders this coming Wednesday at 4.00pm entitled ' Metacognition - Key to Attendance, Behaviour and Engagement. I do hope that if you have responsibility of any kind in school, you will consider joining me for an hour of valuable input so that I can help kickstart your school's response to the current crisis.

In the interest of transparency, I know that people often feel nervous about attending a webinar because they fear being sold to. I'm more about results than I am about selling, but at the end of the webinar, you will briefly be offered the chance to join a paid workshop the following week, which has been designed to help you take the topic further, but only if that appeals to you. There's no obligation whatsoever to join the workshop, but it just gives you an affordable chance to find out if you think that working with me further, is something you would like to consider.

Both the webinar and the workshop are packed with valuable information to help you take another look at your school's policy on metacognition whether you want further support from me or not. Both events will have Q&A time afterwards so this provides a good opportunity for you to find out more. I would love to see you there, so why not join me for the free webinar and see how you feel after that?

Warm regards, Liz