Creating Excellent Learners (CEL)

A Guide for Parents/Carers

CEL (Creating Excellent Learners) is an approach to helping children to become better learners, both in and out of Chepping View.

It is about creating a culture in classrooms that cultivates learning habits and attitudes that enable children to face difficulty and uncertainty, calmly, confidently and creatively. This is not an approach that is additional to teaching; it is an integral part of it, embedded in everything we do at Chepping View Primary Academy.

Pupils who are more confident in their own learning ability learn faster and learn better. They concentrate more, think harder and find learning more enjoyable. CEL is about educating children not just for academic success but for lifelong learning, for a future which has not yet been determined.

We want our children to be sufficiently confident to take risks, understand and acknowledge both their strengths and weaknesses and welcome challenge and complex learning. We want them to enjoy the struggle, seek those tasks which are stimulating and inspiring even if they are demanding. We also want our children to learn to work effectively in a team and alone.

What are the 5Rs?

The children learn about the 5 Rs; Resilience, Resourcefulness, Reflectiveness, Relationships and Risk Taking. 

We explain that these are like a group of 'learning muscles'.  Just as we can build our physical muscles with the right kind of exercise, learning muscles can also be developed and can grow in strength and stamina. Within each of the 5 Rs are certain key “capacities” or skills which we help the children develop.