Understanding Children's Learning

Colin Lever has spent all of his teaching career in mainstream schools that have contained a high percentage of challenging children. As both a teacher and head of faculty he has been an advocate of a child centred approach to teaching and learning, playing an active part in ‘turning around’ two failing schools, both of which were inclusive in their philosophy.Following a secondment in 1988 he worked with a colleague from the Special Needs sector to set up an integration project that gave children with severe learning difficulties access to mainstream education and the National Curriculum. The project received national acclaim and established itself as one of the longest running integration project of its type at the time. Colin has written extensively over the past twenty years for all Key Stages, principally in the areas of Science and Technology.　At present Colin is employed as a behaviour ‘specialist’ in a mainstream school, working as part of an S.E.B.D and M.A.S.T team. He works with challenging children and advises colleagues and senior management and the LEA on all aspects of behavioural management in order to facilitate inclusion.

• Introduction; How children think and learn; Key skills; Managing change through study; Factors influencing motor development; Out of the mouths and minds of babes: Language acquisition and development; Children and numeracy; An introduction to science and technology; Mind the gap; Creativity and learning; Educating all: Towards inclusive classroom practice for children with special educational needs; Managing behaviour for learning; Gender issues in education; Citizenship

"This book provides an overview of children's emotional wellbeing. It examines how children communicate and how we, as adults, can respond in such a way as to provide positive messages, to increase their emotional vocabulary and change behaviour. In essence it offers a child-centred approach to managing behaviour through reflective language, among tools and concepts." – Neil Henty, Early Years Educator (EYE)