Amethyst Learning

Amethyst Learning at Willowcroft

“Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.” – Denis Waitley

At Willowcroft, we encourage the children to take responsibility for their own learning, both academically and socially.  Amethyst Learning is our new behaviour for learning approach. It uses a mixture of approaches from Guy Claxton, Di Pardoe and the ideas and experience of our teaching staff to create a reward system for the children in school and recognise their personal achievement.

Children receive house points for following the Give Me Five rules and for house team activities held throughout the year. In addition, we have identified the skills we believe children need to be successful as individual learners, not just at Willowcroft but for the rest of their lives. Children will be assessed on these skills throughout the year and will receive a certificate and an amethyst for each achievement.

We have created our own Amethyst Superheroes to represent each R and as a visual reminder to support the children in gaining familiarity with the language of learning we will be using.

Resilience: Stone

Resourcefulness: Hex

Reflectiveness: Gem

Reciprocity: Quartz

Class Dojo

Class Dojo is an online resource we use to support our Amethyst Learning. Each class has their own Dojo page, which enables all adults and children to record every time a skill relating to Resilience, Resourcefulness, Reflectiveness and Reciprocity has been achieved. When a child has had a key skill logged 10 times on their own Dojo page, they will receive a certificate and amethyst jewel in a whole school assembly. At the beginning of the year, parents will receive a Class Dojo invite from their child's teacher, which allows them access to their child's Dojo page and the Class Story via a personal and secure code. The Class Story allows parents the chance see what is going on in their child's class and is used much like our Facebook page with teachers sharing pictures and updates. Class Dojo is also available as a mobile phone app.