ABSTRACT
This part of the book has focused on the transmission of knowledge through the curriculum: the selection and organisation of content to be learnt by society through government, and by teachers for their pupils. The danger is that discussions of the curriculum can lose sight of the way people learn and the learners’ own perceptions of the curriculum being offered to them. How far is it possible to involve learners themselves, even in the primary years, in the planning and assessment of their learning? ‘Consultations’ with individual pupils on their work have become an increasingly popular part of teacher assessment. (See, for example, the primary learning record produced by the Centre for Language in Primary Education.) This chapter explores one way in which learners might be supported in taking more responsibility for their own learning, while at the same time coming to understand more explicitly their teachers’ plans and expectations in setting learning tasks for them.
