Naomi Sautter, Science Leader and Class Teacher, North London Collegiate School, Dubai; MA Education Student, University of Exeter, UK As educators, we are tasked with preparing students for a future that we cannot see. Within the literature, there are many different perspectives about what an effective learning environment may look like and the skills and […]
Ella Louisa Martin, New Horizons Children’s Academy, The Thinking School Academy Trust, UK Over the past three academic years, the multi-academy trust that I work for have embarked on a journey to develop our children’s understanding of themselves as learners. This has coincided with a drive to embed evidence-informed teaching and learning across the trust […]
Tristan Igglesden, Faculty of Education, Cambridge University, UK Introduction The demand for remote learning, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to the introduction of the Google Classroom learning management system (LMS) into the lives of over 150 million students (Google, 2021). However, most teachers had little time to consider the potential of this technology […]
Coral Huby, Curriculum Developer, New Horizons Children’s Academy, UK Introduction Behaviour management is taught widely across every point in a teacher’s career in the classroom. We have all come up against those classes, groups, children that push the boundaries to avoid something: learning, interaction, perhaps truth. But consider the language used there – ‘come up […]
Beth Greville-Giddings, Learning and Development Lead, Raleigh Education Trust, UK The term ‘learning environment’ includes many factors. Tapia-Fonllem et al. (2020) discuss the attributes of learning environments across five different dimensions: physical: spaces, furniture, decoration academic: curricular materials social: interpersonal interactions institutional: governance and administration wellbeing/ cultural: psychosocial environment. This review considers the physical […]
Claire Pass, MA Education, Leadership and Management; Co-Founder and Director, Dragonfly: Impact Education, UK Creating an effective learning environment means paying attention to both the macro-culture – across the whole school – and the micro-culture(s) of the individual classroom (Moore et al., 2017). This article will consider how both the macro- and micro-cultures of the […]
Johanna Thomson, Primary Link Tutor, The Tommy Flowers SCITT, UK; EAL Content Writer, Twinkl Educational Publishing Ltd, UK One and a half million students in England are English as an additional language (EAL) learners (The Bell Foundation, 2020a). Yet too often in school, being multilingual can be viewed as a barrier to making academic progress […]
Jacob Huckle, Head of EAL at an international school; part-time doctoral student, University of Bath, UK According to the latest school census, 19.3 per cent of students in England’s schools are learning English as an additional language (EAL), which is around 1.6 million students (Explore Education Statistics, 2021). Although there is no specific data, it’s […]
Emily Walker, Shaw Primary Academy, UK Cognitive load theory has been continually developed since the 1980s and is concerned with the processing ability of memory (Garnett, 2020). The following two areas of cognitive load are important to consider when supporting learners: the characteristics and level of complexity of the material or task itself, known as […]
Emily Weaver, Assistant Headteacher, Rowner Junior School, Gosport and Fareham Multi Academy Trust, UK Kerry Payne, Executive Headteacher, Gosport and Fareham Multi Academy Trust, UK Rowner Junior School, part of the Gosport and Fareham MAT, is a coastal school serving a demographic of high deprivation: 62 per cent of learners are eligible for additional pupil […]
Colleen McLaughlin, Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Cambridge, UK Where are we now? The landscape of mental health and schools The lesson is that the goals of schooling must include social features as well as the transmission of information. (Rutter, 1991, p. 8) We have known for a while that school has a significant […]
Samantha Torr, Alpha Teaching School Hub, UK Context and demographics In line with increases in the number of EAL students across the country (Demie, 2017 DfE, 2015).), the ATSH has experienced a significant increase in students with EAL in schools within the areas that it serves. This has led to project involving 11 schools across […]
Kathryn Kashyap, School Improvement Adviser for Achieving for Children, UK My research question set out to consider how a group of Somali young people who had recently migrated and who might be considered to require ‘educational help’ (DfE and DoH, 2015) negotiated their learner identities at home and at school. To understand their lived experiences, […]
Latoya van der Meer, Kings Education, UK Dr Liam Guilfoyle, University of Oxford, UK Introduction Developing local school policies and implementing them is never easy. School leaders who aim to do this quickly may provide teachers with policy texts in the hope that this leads to the actions that they envisage. However, policies are much […]
Ali Williams, The Grove, Orchard Mead Academy, UK Inclusive, supportive learning environments The Grove is home to a designated specialist provision (DSP) for students with social, emotional and mental health needs (SEMH). There are 21 students working on-site and a further seven off-site. There are nine specialist staff, plus teachers from the main school at […]
Charlotte Mosey, Senior Lecturer in ITT/E, University of Derby, UK Jack Bryne Stothard, Lecturer in ITT/E and Teacher Education, Research and Innovation Lead, University of Derby, UK In-service teachers, due to time constraints, often have little time to thoroughly reflect upon their pedagogy, and as such it becomes increasingly difficult for innovative and inclusive practices […]
Anna Czebiolko, Head of EAL at Cockburn John Charles Academy, Leeds, UK Children who are new to the English education system can perceive English as a ‘foreign’ language that has little or nothing in common with their native dialect. This article will explore how the explicit teaching of language families can help students to make […]
Irene Leach, Deputy Headteacher, Weatherfield Academy, Bedfordshire, UK Dominic Griffiths, Visiting Research Fellow, Faculty of Health and Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK Introduction In this article, we take forward some of the ideas presented in an earlier Impact piece (Griffiths, 2020), which presented the case for using ‘neurodiversity’ as a framework for looking beyond the […]
Caroline Bligh, Open University, UK Stephen Newman, Carnegie School of Education, Leeds Beckett University, UK With many children in UK schools currently learning English as a second (or, often, as an additional) language, the needs of those young learners are becoming a focus for many teachers. We argue that too much attention has been focused […]
Naveed A Khan, Kennesaw State University, USA Faced with a lack of funding and teacher shortages, many classrooms across America are becoming more crowded. Within this crowd, English language learners (ELLs) are among the fastest-growing group of students. Obtaining English proficiency is a critical skill to ensure these students’ future success in higher education and […]
