Put diesel fuel in the tank of a diesel car, and the cogs and pistons smoothly tick. Put petrol in a diesel engine – the mechanics cease to run smoothly, and problems begin to develop. Feedback can have the same effect – it can either power your students’ learning journey or leave them liable to […]
Last summer our faculty decided to re-write our Key Stage 3 science scheme of work (SOW). It had become apparent that our students were severely lacking fluency in a number of key areas of the curriculum. Fundamental facts and concepts were not readily available to them and they were therefore struggling with the new, more […]
Within the teaching profession, there is a consensus that national curriculum has been far more demanding since 2014, when the government initiated reform to make the curriculum “rigorous, engaging and tough’ (Richardson, 2014). The rewritten National Curriculum required pupils to learn their twelve times table by the age of nine, alongside complex scientific theories such as climate change and evolution. Within this policy context, it has become increasingly important to improve students’ ability […]
‘Metacognition and self-regulation’ and ‘collaborative learning’ remain high in the EEF Teachers’ Toolkit of effective teaching approaches, and with good reasons. These reasons can be framed through the following hypotheses. Firstly, to become metacognitive and self-regulating, learners need to experience learning situations, activities and content that can best be resolved, understood and applied through opportunities […]
An extract from an article that first appeared in Education Week on 22 September 2015. Reprinted with permission from the author. For many years, I secretly worked on my research. I say ‘secretly’ because, once upon a time, researchers simply published their research in professional journals – and there it stayed. However, my colleagues and I […]
Why this? Why now? Why us? Jerome Bruner, the renowned American psychologist, states that the primary objective of any act of learning, over and beyond the pleasure it may give, is that it should serve us in the future (Bruner, 1960). The purpose of education is therefore to prepare young people for the future. However, […]
Throughout my teaching career, I have consistently observed that attitude, rather than baseline data, indicates future success. Whilst some will inevitably struggle more with challenging concepts or a mathematical method, those who persevere tend to benefit. This led me to question whether self-regulated learning could promote improved attainment in science. A potential to succeed […]
Since 1997, UK governments have advocated evidence-based practice in English education policy (DfE, n.d.) ; (also see Ball (Ball, 2013) and Whitty (Whitty, 2016) for a discussion). However, we have yet to see this translation of research into practice realised. In this article, we use the example of attainment grouping as a case with which to explore some of the wider challenges around […]
What does research say about memory? Scientists and psychologists have spent years developing numerous models to try and unpack how our memory work. Whilst debates between them still continue, perhaps the most useful, for educators so far, is the multi-store model that includes the notion of short-term memory (STM), working memory (WM), and long-term memory […]
I started teaching mathematics in 2001, and I knew from my sports coaching experience that achievement comes from proper practice, hard work and a belief that success is possible. I was known for the phrase ‘Believe2Achieve’. If a child wanted to improve and had a good coach, then they would. In terms of mathematics, teachers, […]
Theory and research often don’t offer simple answers, which can be frustrating for practitioners, and it is easy to oversimplify the original research. In the case of growth mindset, this has been intensified by media attention, where it is presented as either a fad or a fix-all. It is neither. It is a rational theory […]
Recent advances in neuroscientific methods have led to an increased understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying cognition and behaviour. In turn, this has prompted a growing interest in the relevance of neuroscience to education. Since the 1990s, there have been an increasing number of journals, societies, courses, online communities and funding calls, all aiming to […]
All experts constantly reflect upon what they are doing and how they are progressing (Stobart, 2014). If our students are to be expert learners, they must be able to reflect upon and monitor their learning . For this, they need opportunities to assess their own strengths and weaknesses and set themselves challenging, but attainable goals. The […]
A key challenge facing neuroscience and education is how to translate evidence from the laboratory into the classroom (Dommett et al., 2013). From the mid-19th century, similar challenges have faced the medical profession as it aspires to become a ‘natural science’ grounded in biology. Firstly, laboratories are not classrooms, just as the biological experiment is […]
At the heart of effective classroom practice is the need to teach children to think well. This fascinates me, especially the mysteries of metacognition. I’m not alone. My recent online search revealed over four million entries for metacognition. However, there remains debate about this complex concept. I’ve been particularly interested in the question of whether […]
Oakthorpe Primary School in Leicestershire has had a keen focus on improving children’s wellbeing and resilience for the last six years. This started in response to the needs of children and the community to develop a language for learning and to enhance learning opportunities. The school is situated in the old coalfields of the Midlands […]
Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) are an integral part of the UK education system, providing education for pupils who have been excluded from mainstream school. The dominant discourse around PRUs is an overwhelmingly negative one, focusing on their limitations and emphasising the bleak prospects for pupils who end up going to PRUs, ‘The general consensus is […]
This article is based on an original research article published in Frontiers in Education (Müllensiefen et al., 2015). Theories of intelligence and academic performance Despite theories of intelligence being uncorrelated with general cognitive ability (Dweck et al., 1995), (Robins and Pals, 2002), theories of intelligence do appear to reliably predict academic performance in students, especially […]
The Education Endowment Foundation is an independent charity dedicated to breaking the link between family income and educational attainment. It funds rigorous evaluations of teaching and learning strategies that aim to raise pupils’ attainment. Its aim is to find out what is most likely to work effectively and support teachers and senior leaders to put […]
Introduction In 2004, Robin Alexander published his seminal work Towards Dialogic Teaching: Rethinking Classroom Talk (Alexander, 2017, 2020). Now in its fifth edition, this excellent pocket-sized book is a must read for educators, across all phases, interested in developing a more dialogic approach to their classroom practice. Dialogic teaching utilises the power of classroom talk to […]
