Woodard Centre for Independent Learning led by Lancing College

Inspiration, Illumination, Independence

The centre will provide the following, central to the college’s vision:

• A professional network:
  Faculty Leaders – faculty leaders will develop specific curriculums for Creative Arts, Humanities, STEM, Languages and Social Sciences with subject leaders in each of these areas across the Woodard Schools.
  Support staff – conferences for librarians and Directors of ICT on supporting independent learning.
• Development of a multi-stage independent learning curriculum, for accreditation by a national examination board.
• Development of teaching resources and a MOOC for the delivery of the Woodard Certificate of Independent Learning.
• Opportunities for funded postgraduate research in independent learning and working in partnership with HE on action research in this area.
• Resources, articles and ideas shared in a teaching and learning portal including discussion forums and webinars.

Lancing College is the senior school of the Woodard Corporation and has long held a reputation for educational excellence and innovation. We organise all facets of the college around our central tenets of inspiration, illumination and independence:

Inspired by Christian principles our vision is ethically grounded, tolerant and ambitious for all. We challenge and support each individual in the community.

We seek to go beyond mere instruction, illuminating our pupils’ lives so that excellent teaching, learning and pastoral care are embedded in all we do.

This is a community that values independence of mind and spirit. We exercise stewardship and care of all our resources, developing a sense of responsibility, resilience and adventure as Lancing pupils move beyond our beautiful surroundings to lead their own lives.
The Woodard Centre for Independent Learning seeks to bring Lancing’s central values to the construction of a network of professionals across Woodard schools, exploring in partnership how we can develop free and rigorous thought and learning from our students.

Lancing College is one of the leading schools in the country in terms of one to one mobile device adoption and we are proud of our high-speed fully wireless campus and the skill with which our staff and pupils use their iPads to add impact and independence to their learning. We are firm believers in ‘deep learning’ and that inculcating the skills and value of independent thought across the curriculum are key to a richer and more fulfilling education than ‘teaching to the test’. We believe that, in line with boosting bottom-line academic achievement this approach adds value to all of our students’ success and we share with our fellow training hub leaders in maintaining a student centred approach to learning.

We are keen to work with partner schools in developing a rigorous curriculum for the delivery of the skills of meta-cognition and exploring how to engrain independence of thought both as a discrete skill and one embedded across schools’ curriculums and culture. We are not embarking on this project with a pre-conceived notion of how to achieve these aims but wish to develop a community of good practice, learning from the experience of our partners.