We need to bring every advance in developing learning skills to bear as fast as possible. The focus here is changing and a new revolutionary discipline is emerging, the field of Educational Neuroscience. Academics, psychologists and teachers have begun to collaborate and explore the connections between our brain functions and learning processes in order to discover new learning techniques that will help children reach their full potential.
Our work is in bringing together educators and those who specialise in the study of the brain, the mind and behaviour. Our interest lies in the mechanisms that underpin all learning whether ‘normal’ learning, coping with specific learning difficulties or dealing with special education needs.
Our aim is to share and act on the evidence and insights from high quality research in these multi-disciplinary fields in order to bring understanding of how we learn.
Improving education is a national priority in the UK. Our future is being staked on cutting the deficit and growing the real economy and that demands a clever, skilled workforce.
We’ve spent vast sums of money in this country on a ‘transmit and receive’ model of education, focussing on physical buildings, new technologies and new curricula but we spent piteously little on understanding why it is some children are so much better at learning than others.
We’ve got to tackle it now or the UK is in danger of falling behind over the next decade as we face new global competition.