Interesting that Eton are doing their own research into neuroscience, teaching approaches and learning styles.

[grovel]

www.etoncollege.com/CIRL.aspx

It seems a little amorphous at the moment - hope there will be something concrete to get excited about in the coming years.

Slightly more interested in the next item on the list: www.etoncollege.com/CIRLResearch.aspx further research on the entrance tests. I'd quite like them to be shouting from the rooftops that boys can't just walk in because their grandfather was there.

You're right, Zero. Early days.

It will be fascinating to see the results of the pre-test research. They've now accepted 3,250 boys using the test and the correlation between academic outcomes (at 16 and 18) and the results of tests on boys at 10.5 will be interesting.

I've not expressed that very well. Wine!

I just watched the video.

Very, very vague. Not clear what kind of direction they are taking here at all.

The mention of "neuroscience" made me raise my eyebrows because in practice "neuroscience = pseudoscience" in educational circles.

Still, hard to say what is going on here until they can be a bit more specific.

"http://schoolhousemagazine.co.uk/schools/profiles/above-and-beyond/eton-plus"

Sounds like the usual kinda "21st century skills" stuff (which in practice tends to be a dogwhistle term that means something along the lines of "watering down the curriculum and having students spend lots of time nattering in groups/making posters/copying and pasting stuff off the internet and calling it 'research'/etc.")

Your link refers to Eton Plus, which was something they did about two years ago, it is only indirectly linked to the new research centre.

As for your description of a watered down curriculum with group poster making, my impression is that that is exactly the culture in schools that they want to counter. I gather that, amongst other things, they will certainly be re-evaluating 'traditional' methods, which are now considered outdated and would be frowned on by Ofsted, but which are still used at Eton from time to time to great effect. Their attitude seems to acknowledge that although that style of teaching may not suit all children, or be appropriate all the time, it should not be discounted totally because it is not universal.

Tony Little's recent OEA lecture explains a bit more here.

IndridCold, thanks for that link. I enjoyed it.

Big shoes to fill!

IndridCold, I will take a look at the video you link to when I have a moment. Maybe I've become cynical in my old age due to the number of pseudoscientific educational ideas I've seen in my time.... ;)

I totally understand your cynicism NewStatesman, but I have also had experience of the amazing teaching at Eton. I guess only time will tell.

And, to be fair, Tony Little does not claim to have all the answers. He says that he will probably be embarrassed at our current ignorance about adolescent brains when he looks back on his career.

I watched the video - interesting! TL doesn't say much about what the centre will actually do, though, and tbh, what he does say is a little embarrassing (start at 39.30, anyone who knows anything about education research). That's probably OK; he's giving his name to the centre, not running it. The director, Jonnie Noakes, doesn't seem to have any research background either, though, so it'll be interesting to see whether it ever does actually produce any research worth the name. That said, TL makes an analogy between this centre and the R&D centre of a company, and that makes sense to me. There are plenty of "R&D centres" that do a lot more D than R (e.g., they pick up existing research and work out how to apply it in this company's context, rather than generating new research) and are valuable for it. We'll see. Seems like a positive move overall, even if all it does is give a push to everyone to reflect more on their teaching and learning and give them a forum for sharing ideas.

By the way, contrary to the thread title, there seems to be no claim at all that Eton plan to do research in neuroscience - there they really are aiming only to apply it, and I share TheNewStatesman's scepticism on how much that will really help.