Life Based Learning ™
Delivering subject content through nine life themes
Offering young people hope
Most young people in Great Britain apparently believe that they will be worse off than their parents. If true, it ought to give pause for thought. We tend to take the idea of progress over time – that life is ‘better’ now than it was for our parents’ generation, and that life was better for them than for their parents’ generation and so on – as a given. But many young lives have been profoundly damaged in recent years, suggests the children’s charity Barnardo’s in its latest report, by everything from the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis to cycles of disadvantage and chronic underfunding of public services. It is an indication, perhaps, of young people’s innate sense of optimism that 70% of respondents to Barnardo’s survey were still hopeful about the future. Nevertheless, whether it is the numbers seeking mental health support, or persistently absent from school, or increasingly drawn to extremist ideas, the evidence that we are failing a significant proportion of the next generation is mounting up. We need to do more not just to support young people in the here and now but also to offer them hope for a healthy, bright and happy future. Education has a crucial role to play because it is all about setting young people up for life.
Barnardo’s new report – Changing childhoods, changing lives – highlights some of the biggest challenges facing children and young people today. The charity’s CEO says that children are on “a burning platform”.
The report is part of the launch of a three-year strategy to help the charity “meet the changing needs of children and young people”. It includes details of a YouGov poll of 1,001 children aged 14–17 across Great Britain. The children were asked to imagine themselves aged 30 and answer a set of questions about what their lives would be like at that age.
- 55% of children responding believe that their generation will not be as well off as their parents
- 34% think their own children will be even worse off than they are
- 61% don’t think they’ll own their own house (24% think they’ll still be at home with their parents and 10% in shared accommodation)
- 19% don’t think they will have enough money to live comfortably.
Children in the lowest socio-economic groups were less likely than their less-disadvantaged peers to believe that they will feel safe at the age of 30 and that they will have enough money to live comfortably. They were also less likely to think that they will have a job that they enjoy.
Life-Based Learning
We wrote this in our recent blog on the need to improve school attendance:
Many of the ideas that have been put forward by politicians and others – for example to expand opportunities to take part in sport and physical activity – are of course to be applauded. And at a time when mental health services, particularly for young people, are in meltdown, proposals relating to mental health support are especially welcome. It is also important to recognise structural factors that impact on attendance – above all, poverty.
from our blog School attendance
But in many of the discussions about school attendance there are some very basic questions that are not always being addressed, certainly not directly – such questions as: Do children find school worthwhile and beneficial? Does it inspire them? Does it make them happy? Do they see the point of coming to school? Does school prepare them for the future?
Physical health and wellbeing. Mental and cognitive health. Economic dynamism and flexibility. Cultural vibrancy and community cohesion. The environment and sustainability. All of these are important priorities for the coming years and decades. They are central to LBL, a fresh approach to education and development for children and young people.
LBL is a bold and imaginative vision for children’s learning. It aims to bring greater meaning to learning, particularly subject learning, by making life itself the primary purpose – and focus – of learning.
The animating forces underpinning LBL are agency and empowerment, helping children and young people develop the knowledge, skills and practices to be happy and successful throughout life, including in the world of work.
The purpose of LBL is to make sure that children are ready for life beyond the school gates by better preparing them for the challenges of tomorrow – including but not limited to the world of work.
We want children to:
- be fitter and healthier
- have greater emotional resilience to meet the stresses and strains of modern-day living
- develop enquiring and learning minds
- acquire improved communication, relationship and workplace skills
- take their place in vibrant and caring communities, accepting of all races and creeds
Life-Based Learning also aims to ensure that we better look after the physical environment, improving the long-term prospects for us all.
Image at the head of this article by StockSnap from Pixabay.
