Learner Profile
At Merchants’ Academy, we recognise that the move from primary to secondary education is a big step, so we try to do all we can to help new students to settle in comfortably.
As well as getting used to a new environment and making new friends, secondary education also requires students to become familiar with a more autonomous style of learning than they might have been used to at primary school.
To help Year 7 students acquire the skills they need to become independent learners, Merchants’ Academy has developed a visual Learner Profile, which encourages students to be inquirers, creative thinkers, communicators, open-minded, risk takers and reflective thinkers.
The Academy runs lessons on each of these competencies, which are given a colour-coded character and set of defining skills, to help students understand the attributes that make up a successful learner:
- An Inquirer is curious and asks plenty of questions.
- A Creative Thinker generates and explores new ideas.
- A Good Communicator understands and expresses ideas confidently and creatively.
- An Open-Minded student is open to the perspectives, values and traditions of other.
- A Risk-Taker is not fearful of any uncertainty and enjoys taking themselves out of their comfort zone.
- A Reflective Thinker is able to evaluate recent experiences with a view to improving them.
Students are then given a Learner Profile Passport to help them think about their own learning. In this booklet, they are encouraged to give examples of ways in which they have demonstrated particular skills and then discuss these with their personal tutor. The tutor can then help the student to evaluate their progress and identify whether there are particular areas on which they need to work.
Students will use these skills throughout their academic life, in co-curricular activities and in their lives outside of the Academy.