Creating Learning without Limits

"'Creating Learning without Limits' takes on one of the most important issues in education today. In the last decade schools in England have taken a path towards putting all children into boxes, attaching a level to their heads and deciding what they are capable of achieving. This book shows the possibility of a different educational path, one in which all students are encouraged to achieve the greatest they can. Importantly the book also documents ways in which courageous teachers can do this - promoting fair and engaging learning environments for all students. This is a must-read for educators, policy makers and parents alike."Jo Boaler, Professor of Mathematics Education, Stanford University, California. Formerly a teacher and researcher at the Universities of London and Sussex."This will undoubtedly turn out to be amongst the most important educational books of the decade. Our capacity to respond, both individually and collectively, to its key insights and messages will profoundly affect not just the quality of our schools, but of our society for years to come. Engagingly and eloquently written, it exposes the intellectual bankruptcy and human destructiveness of widely held concepts of 'ability' and offers a richly textured, practical account of how one school moved from 'failure' to OfSTED 'outstanding' by committing itself to the practicability of a morally inspiring, educationally convincing alternative.If you want to know why 'the standards agenda' must inevitably fail and what we might do instead, read this book."Professor Michael Fielding, Institute of Education, University of London, UK"This is an inspiring and reviving book. It reminds us why people come into education - to make a difference for children. To make a deep difference we have to organize education differently. It describes a school that vibrates with learning in an atmosphere of deep humanity and care. Its practices are light years away from the measuring, labelling, targeting, and testing structures that have become our recent national norm. The school as a whole community transforms people."Anne Watson, Professor of Mathematics Education, University of Oxford, UK"This book provides a grounded demonstration of the importance of educational principles, the most important of which is the understanding that each child's potential for learning is limitless. The authors describe new school and classroom practices through which learning can be transformed. Their argument has influenced government thinking on the review of the National Curriculum in England. I urge you to let it influence your thinking too!"Professor Andrew Pollard, Institute of Education, University of London, UK"This is a brilliant study of a small and very successful primary school in Hertfordshire where the teachers have rejected ideas of fixed innate ability and believe instead in the limitless potential of all young people. At a time when the Ofsted inspection process employs dubious and limited notions

Mandy Swann is a lecturer at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, UK. Alison Peacock, DBE is Headteacher of the school where this research was carried out, and was one of the original participating teachers in Learning without Limits, UK. Susan Hart and Mary Jane Drummond are both former lecturers at the School of Education, University of Cambridge, UK, and are co-authors of Learning without Limits (Open University Press 2004).