This quote from Charles Leadbeater and the Student Agency Lab's report, 'Learning on Purpose' (February, 2022, p. 3) resonates:
"It is easy to agree in principle that learning should develop a powerful sense of agency. It is much harder to do that in practice, in schools which have to work within a system that is ultimately driven by exam results. In this setting it is all too easy to marginalise student agency as an add-on, to turn it into a course in design thinking, an entrepreneurship program, or community service."
A first step we can all do, and which isn't laborious, is to bring our students to the table when designing teaching and learning, and allow them a voice in the design of assessment tasks. What manifests is palpable reduction in passivity, where students are physically present, but cognitively absent. Learning is transformed, with students as agents in their own learning. I would love to hear your stories of how learner agency is fostered in your schools!
