ABSTRACT
The New Learning Initiative has set out to redefine concepts of ability and, through certain curricular activities, teaching styles and open and interactive learning methods, to expand and develop what counts for attainment in schools. This chapter aims to set out the nature of the problems for pupils' learning that Oxfordshire's response to the LAP Programme—the New Learning Initiative—intended to address, and the viewpoints about teaching and learning on which it is founded. It focuses on the question of pupils' thinking and understanding, and the teaching of specific thinking skills courses, such as Reuven Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment and the Oxfordshire Skills Programme. The chapter is concerned with the need for more interactive approaches to learning, to emphasis the centrality of pupils' own thinking and understanding and the need for more use of fundamental concept-forming processes in learning. The three main curricular activities through which open and interactive learning are substantially promoted are: school community links; residential education; and instrumental enrichment.
