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Primary education: listening and observing
Primary education: listening and observing

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6 Sketch your learning life story

Have a go and start to construct your own learning life narrative.

Activity _unit9.6.1 Activity 2 Developing your profile

Timing: Allow about 25 minutes

Thinking about what you have read and seen so far, answer the following questions. Please note that some of the questions refer to a ‘workplace’, but these questions can equally apply to what you do in your home or in your community.

Now write a short paragraph about your learning life. Where did you learn, when, why and how? Describe your journey. What have you noticed? What are the key elements of your ‘plot’?

  • How does your current role influence the ways in which you create or access opportunities for your own learning and development?
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  • What prior skills, knowledge and understanding do you have in your current role that you could bring to a primary school?
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  • How does your thinking and behaviour influence the life of your home, your current workplace or your community?
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  • How does the home, workplace or community (people, ways of working, relationships) influence how you see yourself?
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Discussion

Use these notes to create, or add to, your LinkedIn or your Facebook profile, or your CV.

A lot of professional learning happens informally, although there can be a complementary relationship between formal and informal learning.

When you apply for a voluntary role or a job in a primary school, you do your best to present your experiences and skills and how these are relevant to the primary school. You would talk about your formal and informal learning, where and how this happened, and what you gained from it.

Once you are in a primary school, in addition to the experience and skills that the headteacher and other staff know about, you might start to bring more of your ‘self’ and talents to shape the way you work or volunteer. If this helps increase your motivation to do a job and enables you to do it more effectively, this personal expression is an important aspect of effective working.