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Learning Through Action
LEARNING THROUGH ACTION has its roots in the active learning strategies pioneered by Professor Reg Revens and others in the 1960s and '70s.
Our brand of active learning was first developed by Annette Cotterill in the early 1980s as a B.Ed. honours elective course. Concerned that structured interaction to facilitate learning was largely absent from teacher training at that time, in 1983 she formed LEARNING THROUGH ACTION which started to deliver lesson-support projects, using the techniques, across Berkshire and beyond.
In 1991 the Learning Through Action Trust was formed – a not–for–profit company limited by guarantee and registered charity.
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More than 60,000 knife-related offences a year: This alarming statistic*, and daily news of teenage knife-related incidents motivated the LTA team to research the subject in depth. |
We immediately realised that developing young people's skills in conflict resolution is essential. Not only will this help them to avoid/resolve incidents that may confront them. It will also contribute to fewer young people feeling they need to carry weapons.
The outcome of this study is our latest interactive learning workshop "ON THE EDGE". Following its public launch at The Emmbrook School, Wokingham, it is available for booking (initially for Years 9, 10 and 11) by secondary schools, PRUs and YOIs - "first come, first served".
View the ITV Meridian 'Thames Valley Tonight' report.
- The publication of 'Learning Through Action: The Handbook for a New Approach to Cross-Curricular Teaching', by Margaret Kay and Annette Cotterill (Publ. LDA 1989).
- LTA received the 1993 Gulbenkian Award for Innovation in Museum Education for a programme of workshops at the Commonwealth Institute in London.
- 1993 saw the beginnings of our valued programme of workshops addressing social, health and behaviour issues, that now represents some 90% of our work, which, for over ten years, has benefited some 27-30,000 children and young people each year.
- 1995 was the year that an eight-year funding partnership with Barnardo's began.
- In 1996 we employed our first intensively trained, 'gap-year' role-play presenters, now a vital element in the delivery of these workshops.
- The same year, by invitation, we demonstrated our methods to an NSPCC National Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse, which reported that our methodology was an ideally discreet strategy empowering children to share their experiences.
- Over recent years, an informal partnership with the Welsh Trust for Prevention of Abuse has resulted in our producing together a series of short films for children and, scheduled for 2007, vulnerable adults.
- In 2005 and 2006 an LTA team was commissioned by Grampian Police to deliver, in Aberdeenshire Schools, programmes of workshops addressing personal safety.
- In 2006 Barnardo's commissioned a tour of our "You're OK, I'm OK!" workshop in Isle of Wight schools.
- A workshop delivered by LTA at the Lebanese American University of Beirut (LAU) in 1997 led to a five-year programme of workshops for teachers and students in Lebanon at leading schools, and in the refugee camps, as well as at LAU. LTA training courses with us in England for Palestinian and Lebanese students followed. This development paralleled an earlier workshop at the University of the South Pacific which also resulted in a team of Fijians, Samoans and Solomon Islanders working with LTA in Berkshire and at the Commonwealth Institute in London.
We welcome observers at our workshops by prior arrangement. Contact Us
Over the years we have welcomed visitors from across the world, including a number of teachers/students, from the UK and abroad (eg Japan, Colombia, New Zealand, Tanzania) who have worked with us on secondment for from three to twelve months.
Because the work that we deliver for children and young people is non-statutory, i.e. is not work required to be provided under UK Education Acts and regulations, we receive no direct UK Government financial support.
We depend on donations and sponsorships, and contributions from those hosting our workshops.