Structured Learner Agency.
Relationships. Negotiated-Choice. Purpose. Growth.
Develop your students' capacity to participate in decisions about learning, act with intention, and reflect on outcomes, through the Structured Learner Agency Whare Model.
"Agency grows when learners see purpose, are given gradual choice, and are supported by strong relationships and purposeful conversations."
Mary-Anne Murphy, Momentum LearningWho it's for
- School leaders
- Teachers
- Learners
- Whānau and community
What it helps build
- Purpose: why learning matters
- Choice: decisions within clear boundaries
- Action: strategies that move learning forward
- Reflection: evaluating evidence, adapting
The impact
- Stronger learner ownership and motivation
- Equitable, structured opportunity for voice
- Deeper engagement with curriculum
- A shared language for agency, school-wide
The Whare Model.
© Momentum Learning Ltd 2023
Mary-Anne Murphy's Structured Learner Agency Whare Model is a visual metaphor for the conditions that hold agency up. Like a whare, no single feature carries it alone, a strong roof cannot compensate for unstable foundations, and excellent tools cannot replace belonging or purposeful relationships.
Identity and Belonging
Creates the relational and cultural security from which learners can take intellectual risks and see themselves as legitimate participants.
Knowledge-Rich, Science-Informed, Integrated Curriculum
Provides the concepts, language and disciplinary knowledge required for foundational learning, with integrated areas providing meaning and context.
Learning to Learn
Develops metacognition, strategy awareness, goal setting, and the ability to transfer learning across contexts.
Assessment For/As Learning
Makes progress visible through feedback, reflection and criteria that learners can use to decide what to do next.
Technologies
Extends access, expression, collaboration and feedback, when selected for a clear learning purpose rather than used as an end in itself.
Personalised Learning
Coordinates the model around the learner's strengths, needs, interests and next steps, without lowering expectations.
Negotiated Choice
Connects support with responsibility by giving learners authentic influence within boundaries that protect quality, inclusion and shared purpose.
Learning Conversations
The purposeful dialogue through which teachers and learners clarify meaning, surface thinking, and negotiate goals together.
Learning-Centered Relationships
The relationship of ako and mutual respect that gives life to the whole model.
From teacher-led to student-owned.
Agency isn't a switch, it's a continuum. The question for leaders isn't how much control to give up, but what level of direction will best enable learners to participate with increasing responsibility.
Teacher-Led
Students know what to do and why the learning matters.
Teacher-Guided
Students begin to justify choices and use feedback.
Shared Decision-Making
Responsibility is visible in planning, dialogue and revision.
Student-Owned
Students act with purpose while remaining accountable to evidence and community.
Effective schools move along this continuum in response to purpose, learner readiness, subject demands and equity, not as a one-way progression.
How it's delivered.
Implementation is treated as collective inquiry, not a programme to be installed, through a five-phase, whole-school cycle.
Establish a Shared Purpose
Agree what learner agency means in your school, why it matters for your community, and how it connects to curriculum and strategic priorities.
Map the Current State
Listen to learners, teachers and learning assistants, observe lessons, and identify where each element of the model is strong or missing.
Choose a Focus Area
Select one or two high-leverage practices, such as co-constructed success criteria or learning conferences, with observable indicators of progress.
Learn Through Growth Cycles
Plan, enact, collect evidence and adjust, using professional learning teams to examine practice and student progress together.
Scale What Works
Document effective routines, protect time for collaboration, and support consistency across year levels as needs evolve.
Structured agency is more equitable than unstructured freedom, agency increases only once learners have the knowledge, criteria, relationships and feedback needed to use it well.
Investment
Developing Structured Learner Agency.
Mary-Anne Murphy's full research-informed whitepaper, including the Structured Learner Agency Whare Model, the continuum from teacher-led to student-owned learning, and a collaborative implementation roadmap for school leaders.
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Download The Whitepaper (PDF)Let's build momentum together.
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