FREE ONLINE ACCELERATED LEARNING WORKSHOPS FOR EVERY YEAR 11 STUDENT
A FREE experimental workshop,
Lesson 1
Think about how our brain likes to process information, develop accelerated learning skills, and look at the effect of our senses on memory.
Lesson 2
Change how you take notes forever. Realise the impact of colour, symbols, trains of thought, and the questioning process on our ability to understand the world around us.
Lesson 3
We can often remember around 7 things, at any one time, before we start to get confused. Now you’ll be able 35 things, in less than 3 minutes.
Lesson 4
Discover how to use your time effectively, consider when we have creative inspiration, and master a system that will mean you never need to revise again.
The Challenge
The pandemic has changed everything about how we all work – we have all felt it, Year 11s are no exception.
As leaders in critical thinking and accelerated learning, across education and the professional world, we were asked, if we only had a few minutes with this intake of Year 11s, what would we say? How would we motivate students who have been learning online for almost a year? And how would we help them prepare for the next step in their educational journey?
In response, we have created an experimental workshop, divided into four bitesize sections, with the power to change the way you think, learn and remember forever. Instead of being able to recite a few facts, you’ll understand how to learn across every subject.
The Aim
There is no project like this in education today.
We want to reach half a million Year 11 students. To empower them to understand how we truly learn, think, and remember, and to apply those ideas for the rest of their lives.
There are over 4000 secondary schools in the UK. We’re already talking to many of them, along with our education partners, to help schools embed the workshops into their online offering. If you are a teacher, please feel free to share this programme amongst your friends and colleagues at other schools.
We know that we can reach the half a million Year 11s most easily through schools, but we are also excited about students sharing this work amongst themselves. Help us to refine our practice – tell us how the experiments worked for you! And look out for hints, techniques and explanations across our social platforms.
Who's it for?
The ability to communicate with young people is the most powerful tool any teacher has, and whilst we have pitched our videos for Year 11s, everyone is welcome! We all know education (and life) is not one-size-fits-all. Questioning the way we learn and taking that approach into other parts of our lives is something that can benefit us all.
Students
Year 11s, these workshops are for you! You may not feel it right now, but your brains are incredible. Give us a few minutes and we can prove it to you. And if you can feel these techniques working, keep using them. They don’t work because of your academic ability – they work because of something deeper than that. Not just for your exams, but for the rest of your lives.
Teachers
We know first-hand how hard you’ve been working. You have shown huge amounts of creativity and resilience to keep your students going.
Our workshops have been designed to enrich the extra work you’ve been putting in over the last year.
We have split the lessons into shorter videos, so that once the workshop has been watched through, you have control – to review sections with your students, use as icebreakers for your own classes, and explore your current content through a different lens.
The skills in our workshops can be applied immediately and adapted across all content and school subjects.
Parents & Carers
You have had such a challenging year. You’ve been expected to hold it all together through tough times AND become an educational expert. Our experimental workshops are going to help your children feel differently about themselves and their learning.
We know children do better when you’re working together. So join in, it would be great if you were a part of this journey. Watch the experiments with them and look out for our tips on how to support effectively at home along with strategies to take into your own life too.
Our Approach
At Enlighten, we’re leading the conversation about the way we learn. How we think, rather than what we know. Why? Because understanding the process of learning gives us lifelong skills that work for every subject. Not simply memorising facts that will be soon forgotten after an exam or test.
Instead, we focus on the process of learning. Moving away from content-driven classes, and developing CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS which we know profoundly improve students’ understanding across all subjects, whilst training them to become effective independent researchers and confident collaborators. Skills that are highly sought after by innovative organisations around the world.
At Enlighten we strongly believe that critical thinking skills are among the best tools we have to challenge inequalities in our global society. They lead our students to challenge institutionalised processes and outdated viewpoints, and our workforces towards creative problem-solving and innovation.
Who We Are
Karim Al-Abbas set up Enlighten in 2011 to challenge the lack of critical thinking in education: to show that it is far more effective for students to focus on how they work rather than what they know.
Over the last ten years, Enlighten has become a world-leader in process-driven education: working with schools, universities and companies across the globe to help people think more quickly, learn faster and remember more.
Our clients include the National Bank of Kuwait and the European Parliament, start-ups and FTSE 100 companies, along with over a hundred UK schools and tens of UK universities.
Equality in Education
The pandemic is continuing to create a powerful negative imbalance in our
educational landscape. Every day that the current situation perpetuates, the greater the gap grows between disadvantaged students and their peers.
Over the past 10 years, our short, interactive workshops in schools and universities have particularly focused on disadvantaged students. And although we recognise that part of the widening attainment gap is due to digital poverty, we are confident that if a student can get online, they will make greater gains using our process-driven methods than taking part in a content-led class.
Our programmes represent an opportunity for students to think of themselves
outside of the mirror that their immediate environment holds up to them. A chance to start afresh, without prejudice. Our students are empowered to think for themselves with skills they can use for their whole lives, affecting their futures and positively impacting those around them.