What do young children understand by the term 'learning' and how does this impact upon them in the classroom?

Recent research has emphasised the importance of nurturing young children’s positive learning dispositions and the importance of listening to, understanding and taking action based on young children’s early experiences and views has been taken seriously. (Lancaster and Broadbent, 2003; Clarke and Moss 2001, 2005, 2010)

This paper asserts that despite the encouragement of ‘student voice’ initiatives in schools and young children’s capacity to tell us much about how they perceive the learning process, their views are not always systematically or automatically included in the design and conduct of classroom research and practice. In order for practitioners and teachers to support children and enable them to learn most effectively, we need to understand what perceptions of learning exist within settings.

The author takes the view that if we understand what perceptions exist, we can begin to understand the effect of our current practice upon the learners within the setting and therefore increase their chances of being successful learners at school. The paper explores a case study which provides an insight into the perceptions of a group of children at one school in the South East. The ages of the children were 4, 5 and 6. (Reception Year and Year 1).

The research concludes that young children are able to reflect on their learning and that when children talk about their learning, they talk in highly perceptive ways. It suggests that through utilising this research method that class teachers are potentially able to understand more about the way that children view learning within the setting therefore enabling them to scaffold children’s metacognition and ways of thinking even more effectively.