PROFESSOR BECKY FRANCIS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, EDUCATION ENDOWMENT FOUNDATION, UK There’s no doubt that schools today are in a much better position to judge what is most likely to work in their classrooms than they were 10 years ago. We have access to more robust evidence than ever, which gives us valuable information about which pedagogical […]
ALEX REYNOLDS, DIRECTOR OF PRIMARY LEARNING & CURRICULUM, NORTHERN EDUCATION TRUST, UK HANAH HERON, DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION, CLIC TRUST, UK KIRSTIN MULHOLLAND, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN EDUCATION, NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY, UK LOUISE JACKSON, INDEPENDENT EDUCATION CONSULTANT, WYE EARLY YEARS, UK NICOLA CHERRY, EARLY YEARS DELIVERY MANAGER AND INDEPENDENT EARLY YEARS CONSULTANT, UK Effective teaching is complex and nuanced. It requires a deep […]
GEMMA MOSS, PROFESSOR OF LITERACY AND DIRECTOR OF ESRC EDUCATION RESEARCH PROGRAMME, UCL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION, UK RACHEL FRANCE, RESEARCH FELLOW, ESRC EDUCATION RESEARCH PROGRAMME, UCL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION, UK Research-informed practice in England The concepts of evidence-based and research-informed practice have become increasingly central to school improvement in England. With its origins in evidence-based […]
MARCY STEIN, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, USA KRISTEN ROLF, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY, USA For over 50 years, the best way to educate children has been heatedly debated by those who favour what might be described as ‘teacher-directed instruction’ and those who favour ‘student-centred instruction’. In this article, we contend that Direct Instruction […]
DEBBIE BOGARD, CITY AND ISLINGTON SIXTH FORM COLLEGE, UK ALEX MELVILLE, LEYTON SIXTH FORM COLLEGE, UK NEELAM PATEL, ST MARY MAGDALENE ACADEMY, UK Why metacognition in A-level study? A-levels are simultaneously intellectually demanding, given the range of higher-order skills involved, and extremely challenging, given the vast amount of content that needs to be covered. Our […]
Lin Goram, English Subject Development Lead, Teach First, UK Writing and the National Curriculum for English Reading and writing are given broadly equal emphasis in the most recent iteration of the National Curriculum for English (DfE, 2014). But the two are positioned differently. The National Curriculum recommends that cultural, emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual development […]
NICOLA PEARCE, EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATOR, EDGE HILL UNIVERSITY, UK Theoretical framework Risky play in early childhood education is a concept that has seen a recent rise in popularity but remains a relatively new research area. Play is often defined as ‘risky’ based on the characteristics of where or how children play – at heights or […]
Dr Jonathan Firth, University of Strathclyde, UK Dr Claire Badger, The Godolphin and Latymer School, UK Background Creativity is widely considered to be a vital skill in education. It sits at the pinnacle of the revised Bloom’s taxonomy of skills (Anderson et al., 2001) and has been recognised as important across all curriculum areas (van […]
DR ELIZABETH CARRUTHERS, FORMER HEADTEACHER, UK This research was part of my doctoral thesis on the pedagogy of children’s mathematical graphics (Carruthers, 2022), funded by the Martin Hughes Memorial Trust, Bristol University. The overall aim of this section of the study was to capture teachers’ perspectives as they reflect on their pedagogies of mathematical play. […]
DAVID GREENSHIELDS FCCT, VICE PRINCIPAL, GRACE COLLEGE, UK The COVID-19 pandemic, including the closure of schools within many Western nations in the spring of 2020, has accelerated the shift towards and heightened the awareness of many educational organisations in relation to digital learning environments and technologies, and this has persisted throughout the period of schools […]
ANDREW B. JONES, ASSISTANT HEADTEACHER, THE REACH FREE SCHOOL, UK; PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT LEAD, THE WATFORD PARTNERSHIP FOR TEACHER TRAINING, UK Over the past decade, researchers have gained a better understanding of spaced and interleaved practice as effective strategies for enhancing retention and retrieval performance (Bjork and Bjork, 2019; Brunmair and Richter, 2019; Donoghue and Hattie, […]
DAVE TUSHINGHAM, LEAD PRACTITIONER MATHEMATICS, THE GREENSHAW LEARNING TRUST, UK Teaching in the pandemic In March 2020, immediate and urgent change to our pedagogical approaches was needed as the world went into lockdown. For most students, learning now largely took place online. For teachers like myself, live ‘performance’ in the classroom was replaced with practice […]
DEEPIKA NARULA, ST ALBANS SCHOOL,UK Worked examples play a vital role between the teacher instruction and independent practice, and serve the purpose of scaffolding for students to experience guided practice. Since learning more about Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), I realised the A-level Chemistry course has many areas where the intrinsic load or the number of elements […]
Andrew P. Brower Latz, The Manchester Grammar School, UK Aims The aim of this research, undertaken in 2021–22, was to discover the views of students in my school about their experience of blended learning using Microsoft Surfaces and associated software (especially Teams). Their views were sought via a questionnaire, filled in by students in December […]
Adam Lamb CTeach, Head of Learning Area (Languages), Mossbourne Community Academy, London, UK Languages have long been considered “difficult”. The reasons are obvious – you can’t make progress without learning lots of vocabulary, you have to get your mind round illogical grammar rules and avoid getting discouraged by mistakes when applying them, and you project […]
SIDRA SAEED AND HUW HUMPHREYS, DEPARTMENT OF TEACHER EDUCATION, SCHOOL OF EDUCATION AND COMMUNITIES, UNIVERSITY OF EAST LONDON, UK Introduction: Context and research focus How children respond to each other as learners through feedback is well established (Topping et al., 2003; Boon, 2016; Feil, 2021); less is known about how children learn from peer-modelling (Ohtani […]
Terry Pearson, Independent Researcher, UK Introduction In this article, I consider research on two aspects of engaging in retrieval from memory – research that has reported both positive and negative effects. I begin with a very brief outline of the conclusions drawn about the consequences of retrieving information from memory on the long-term retention of […]
JULIAN CARRERA, HEAD OF GEOGRAPHY, THE JOHN LYON SCHOOL, UK What is so special about retrieval practice? If ‘Memory is the residue of thought’ (Willingham, 2009, cited in Sherrington, 2021), then retrieval practice must be at the heart of teaching and learning. Coe (2019) commented that ‘Retrieval practice is strongly supported by over 100 years […]
Kristian Still, Deputy Headteacher, Boundary Oak School, UK Over the last decade, an extensive body of literature on the benefits of testing (Roediger et al., 2011) has become connected with and articulated through the language and conceptual toolkit of cognitive science. The evidence is clear: testing or retrieval practice raises pupil achievement (Perry et al., […]
Purvi Gandhi, Head of Psychology, Trent College, UK Deb Outhwaite, Director, Derbyshire Teaching Schools Alliance (DTSA), UK Introduction The science of learning provides valuable insights into information processing and retention, yet applying this knowledge to classroom practice remains a challenge. Understanding how students learn can help teachers to improve practice and empower students to enhance […]
