The Working With Others Approach quite naturally and seamlessly helps and supports the delivery of a wide range of Educational and Governmental initiatives.

Through promoting effective group work, curriculum development, pupil attainment, inclusion, social relationships, staff team development, transition, citizenship, extended schools and network based learning, WWO has already helped many schools to achieve essential targets within:

• The National Curriculum
• Assessment for Learning
• Excellence and Enjoyment
• Healthy Schools Scheme
• Every Child Matters
• SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning)
• Developing Pupil Voice
• The New Literacy Strategy
• Speaking and Listening
• The Creative Curriculum
• Leading in Learning
• Opening Minds
• Skills Based Learning
• The Early Years Foundation Stage

The National Curriculum

Setting out the stages and core subjects that each child between the ages of 5 to 16 will be taught during their time at school, the National Curriculum framework is there to ensure that teaching and learning in schools is balanced and consistent.

Highlighting the subjects taught, the knowledge, skills and understanding required in each subject and the required standards or attainment targets in each subject, schools are able to plan and organise their teaching and learning in the way that best meets the needs of their pupils.

The WWO programme is very effective in:

• Supporting the National Curriculum by providing practical strategies for pupils to develop key skills needed for collaborative and cooperative group work.
• Building independent active learners in all curriculum areas.
• Raising attainment by developing effective group work skills and enabling pupils to reflect on and develop their own learning.

Assessment for Learning
Developed as part of the whole-school improvement strategy and building on existing strategies and support materials Assessment for Learning is based on the principle that pupils will learn more quickly if they are clear about what they are aiming for in their learning, where they are in relation to that objective and how they can close the gap in their knowledge.

QCA (link) details the principles and characteristics, provides an overall checklist and resources for each subject.

WWO can help your school to meet these aims by:

• Building trust so that pupils can feedback honestly and sensitively to each other.
• Cultivating communication and problem skills.
• Establishing a shared vocabulary to support Self and Peer Assessment.
• Emphasising the importance of enabling pupils to find a voice as part of a learning partnership in the classroom.
• Developing independent learners.
• Creating a learning culture and conditions for learning which encompass the classroom as a community where collaborative and personalised learning takes place.
• Making both the academic and the social success criteria explicit through the use of the WWO pre- and de-briefing process.
• Helping pupils become directly involved in the learning process through reflection and conversation so that they can critically evaluate their work and identify ways of improving their learning with the support of their peers.

Excellence and Enjoyment
This Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 strategy recognises how a rich, varied and exciting curriculum helps to develop children in a broad and balanced way. Understanding the need for high standards in literacy and numeracy, it is also emphasises fun, enjoyment and creativity and recognises that primary school children also need to learn about a wide range of other things in stimulating and different ways.

The strategy helps and encourages practitioners to build on their existing skills, capacities and professionalism to become even better teachers.

WWO adds to this strategy by:

• Supporting reflective practitioners
• Supporting learning aims in all areas of the curriculum by focusing on the process as well as the content of learning.
• Developing trusting relationships in class so that all pupils can feel valued and included and thus achieve their potential through this building of empathy and peer support.
• Offering fun and motivating activities which stimulate the pupils' imagination.

Healthy Schools Scheme
This is a long term initiative that helps young people and their schools to be healthy and reach their potential by building on a solid foundation of health to do better in learning and in life. Not just about physical health, the programme considers health and happiness inside and out and across the whole school community, including parents, governors and school staff.

WWO can add to this by

• Promoting and building cohesive and inclusive staff teams and thus reducing stress levels.
• Helping pupils (and adults) to develop empathy with others, inclusion, self-esteem and to experience the feeling of being a valued member of a school community.
• Providing engaging and interactive ways to introduce healthy eating topics into all areas of the curriculum.
• Helping both pupils and adults to reflect on their personal, social and physical needs as well as the academic ones and giving them the self-confidence and ability to then express these needs in a positive and constructive way.
• Allowing pupils to share their knowledge and experiences of healthy living with their peers at all age levels and to suggest possible improvements for the whole school community

Every Child Matters
Change for Children considers the well-being of children and young people from birth to 19, so that whatever their background or circumstances, they have the support they need to:

1. Be healthy;
2. Stay safe;
3. Enjoy and achieve;
4. Make a positive contribution;
5. Achieve economic well-being.

All organisations that are involved in providing services to children - including hospitals, schools, police and voluntary groups, are working together to share information to protect children and young people from harm and to help them achieve in life.

WWO parallels this approach by:

• Developing empathy and social relationships, and includes all pupils.
• Encouraging understanding of group roles and processes.
• Extending pupil skills to problem solve conflict in a non-confrontational ways.
• Providing practical, enjoyable and challenging activities for pupils to do together.
• Emphasising the ability to negotiate, make decisions and reach consensus as part of a group.
• Strengthening transferable life skills which positively impact on self-esteem, learning and employability.

SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning)
For Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 teachers and practitioners, Deputies and Heads, to help develop children’s social, emotional and behavioural skills in schools that have already identified these as a key focus for their work with children. This Programme has now been introduced at Secondary Level.

These will be schools who know that the factors holding back learning in their setting include children’s difficulties in understanding and managing their feelings, working co-operatively in groups, motivating themselves and demonstrating resilience in the face of setbacks. These will not necessarily be schools where behaviour and attendance are poor.

WWO can help this with:

• Offering practical ideas and strategies to raise pupils’ self-esteem.
• Introducing and extending emotional vocabulary through the unique WWO process of pre and debriefing with pupils.
• Developing a climate of trust and responsibility for oneself and each other where children feel valued and able to express their feelings.
• Promote activities which cater for and address differing styles of learning and the many different "intelligences" now recognised as impacting on individual attainment.

Developing Pupil Voice
Pupil Voice relates to the consultative aspect of pupil participation about their learning and other aspect that matter in school. It may involve conversations about teaching and learning, asking pupils for comment on new initiatives, asking for evaluation on school, classroom or policy and practice developments.

WWO can enhance this by:

• Promoting community through shared experiences.
• Enhancing communication skills and promotes participation of all pupils within a climate of trust and respect.
• Developing independence and autonomy as the teacher hands more power and, consequently, more responsibility for their own learning to the pupils.
• Promoting pupils as citizens through focusing on social skills, respect and group identity.
• Allowing pupils to observe and reflect on their own involvement in teaching and learning.
• Building problem solving skills to enable greater initiative in learning and peer relationships.
• Encouraging pupils to interact and converse with their peers through the pre and debriefing process so that they can feedback to each other about their experiences of the teaching and learning taking place as well as suggesting ways for taking learning forward.

The Primary Framework for Literacy and Mathematics
Non-statutory, the aim of this framework is to support and increase all children’s access to excellent teaching, leading to exciting and successful learning.  As core guidance it encompasses a new impetus and new structure that promotes social and relational approaches to learning.

The framework highlights a ‘shared determination …that all children are appropriately supported to make the progress of which they are capable.’  It also describes how children deserve:

• To be set appropriate learning challenges
• To be taught well and be given the opportunity to learn in ways that maximise their chances of success.
• To have adults working with them to tackle the specific barriers to progress they face.

WWO adds further support to this by:

• Offering a practical approach that builds, supports and extends collaborative learning and teaching.
• Equipping pupils with the skills to meet the objectives in Strand 3 of the framework – group discussion and interaction.
• Providing practitioners with practical and fun ways of developing key learning, relational and life skills with their pupils, whilst at the same time improving individual attainment.

Speaking, listening, learning: Working with children in KS1 and KS2 

Focussing on Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 teachers, Deputies and Heads, the aim of Speaking, Listening and Learning is to compliment the objectives for reading and writing that are set out in the NLS Framework for teaching, with support materials reflecting the National Curriculum requirements in English.

WWO can significantly help by:

• Recognising and enabling pupil voice in the classroom.
• Developing meaningful talk between pupils.
• Focussing and developing active listening skills.
• Breaking down the key skills of communication and by extending pupils vocabulary making these skills explicit.
• Supporting a partnership approach to learning through trust and team building activities.
• Involving pupils in making decisions about their learning so that they can talk about the skills and strategies they use to support their learning.
• Extending collaborative ways of working for teaching and learning.

The Creative Curriculum
Child centred activities that have a practical basis, are experienced first-hand and relate to the current experiences of the pupils. Activity topics or themes are usually chosen which allow learning to move across all subjects and types of learning.

This holistic approach enables both the overt and the hidden curriculum to impact positively on the child’s spiritual, physical and intellectual welfare and the subject relevance makes an emotional link to what was being learned.

WWO dovetails with this by:

• Offering practical strategies for building positive relationships in the classroom
• Focussing on trust, communication and problem solving skills so that pupils can work collaboratively in a variety of groupings, learning from each other and improving their individual attainment.
• Promoting independent, active learners who can take responsibility for their learning and the impact of their behaviour on others.
• Teaching pupils the vocabulary for valuing and expressing appreciation of other people’s skills and opinions.

Leading in Learning
Introduced as part of the Key Stage 3 Strategy’s support for whole-school improvement, this a systematic programme that focuses on improving thinking skills in curriculum based subjects. The cross-curricular approach is structured to encourage teachers and pupils to look beyond subject confines and to think and learn more generally.

WWO can help this by:

• Building social skills so that pupils can engage fully with skills based learning.
• Offering pupils the opportunity to experience different learning styles and approaches through group work.
• Developing pre- and de-briefing with pupils so that they can develop greater awareness of how as well as what they learn.
• Extending pupils’ thinking skills individually and with others.
• Equipping pupils with the skills to be able to work in groups and fully access cross curricular work.

Opening Minds
The Opening Minds programme suggests that the information-driven National Curriculum is becoming increasingly distanced from the needs of young people and neglecting their need for a broad range of skills for life, including skills for learning the ability to manage people and situations well, and good citizenship. The Royal Society of Arts has now developed model units of work which compliment the National Curriculum, and Secondary Schools are starting to dedicate varying percentages of teaching time implementing and adapting these units to local needs.

WWO helps to support this approach by:

• Promoting key life skills for pupils’ learning and relationships as a fundamental part of the WWO Approach.
• Promoting positive peer relationships and the social skills needed to develop and consolidate them; essential life skills not taught in traditional curriculum provision.
• Offering practical strategies for promoting greater independence and problem solving skills.
• Enriching pupil experience of group and community identity through building trust among peers.
• Providing tools to facilitate and enable cross curricular learning and effective group work.

Skills Based Learning
Helping pupils of all ages to learn many of the skills needed for life through practical application of a creative curriculum. Encouraging group work around a specific project can help them to explore aspects of design and presentation, planning, teamwork and evaluation. With a basic structure and appropriate guidance and coaching even reluctant pupils readily participate in projects that offer very practical and enjoyable learning opportunities.

The building of teamwork and trust is core to the WWO programme and through its practical approach WWO supports skills Based Learning by:

• Enhancing key communication and problem solving skills.
• Developing the WWO pre- and de-briefing process so that pupils can reflect on and move forward in their learning.
• Allowing pupils to focus on the processes as well as the content of their activities and thus become more aware of and confident in their social skills as well as their practical and academic ones.
• Encouraging more inclusive classrooms.

The Early Years Foundation Stage
This initiative was set for children aged 3-5 in September 2000, with guidance in six areas of learning which form the basis of the foundation stage curriculum. These areas are: personal, social and emotional development; communication, language and literacy; mathematical development; knowledge and understanding of the world; physical development; creative development.

Each area has a set of related early learning goals and there is specific guidance available to help practitioners to plan and meet the diverse needs of all children.

WWO can add to this by:

• Supporting young children in developing personal, social and emotional aspects of their learning.
• Offering practical ways of building positive relationships between adults and peers.
• Enriching children’s self-esteem, self-awareness and awareness of others.
• Encouraging social communication and emotional vocabulary so that children can reflect and take responsibility for themselves and others around them.