What We Learn

Big Wide Talk began life as the Playing with Words Method of Working. As such it was an attempt to unite several strands of activity known to enhance outcomes for children. There were many obvious principles but the central question that shaped our work was how these principles could be actively united in everyday practice. Was good practice primarily dependent on the professionalism of the workers involved or were there more complex relationships at work, most importantly the roles of children and their families? To answer these and many other questions we set up a network of 'local groups' and initiated a process of participative action research to explore the relationships as they played out at the local level. Theatres of Learning and the tools that support them are the result of this work.

Theatre's of Learning encapsulate the principles we started out with and provide a common agenda for children, parents and schools within definable places and communities. They are at once open-ended and rigorous offering almost limitless freedom for everyone to discover their own skills whilst taking collective responsibility for outputs, impacts and outcomes.

We have worked with more than 20,000 children, 200 primary schools and engaged with parents and practitioners in 30 research groups across England.

Along the way we have created a unique archive of film showing children taking part in Theatres of Learning carefully edited into episodes of learning. There are some 38,000 individual clips within this collection all edited and stored within a database system that enables myriad categories to be used to explore a chosen aspect of learning or interaction.

The 'What we've Learned' section will illustrate how these archived clips can be examined from different expert perspectives. A few categories have been identified which cut across personal and professional boundaries in that they simply describe an immediate visual reference to what the children are doing. Our aim in offering access to our archive is to highlight the multifarious, multi-perspectival nature of learning. And what can be learned in Theatres of Learning. We very much want people everywhere to comment.