A design for learning: Five teaching and learning keys for your lessons

Forget Christmas – in my house, the first week of December was much more festive. My family and I awoke early each morning and crept downstairs – nimble on our feet – to see if our New Vacuum had arrived.

And one day, after a knock at the door and a signed chit, there it was, standing proud in the hall: shiny and new and beautifully designed, accompanied by its progeny of nozzles, one for every occasion.

My daughters regard cleaning as an unpleasant chore and their creativity knows no bounds as they invent new ways of shirking it. But, since the arrival of the New Vacuum, they have regularly volunteered – yes, volunteered – to hoover the carpets and are genuinely disappointed when I say no (which I only do when the New Vacuum – being cordless – is out of charge. Admittedly this is most of the time because it takes 30 hours to accumulate enough charge for just quarter of an hour’s use). Anyway, I digress...