Bright Ideas

  June saw the conclusion of our Professional Learning cycle at Sandringham with a celebration of bright ideas lead by a wide number of workshop leaders. The wide range of topics included: Oracy Active Discussion and Debate...

This week, I have been reflecting upon the importance of encouraging our students to Think Outside. I was reminded of the importance and benefits of working outside when we delivered a whole year group David Hockney art workshop...

Placemats for Differentiation Rachael Potter has created placemats to support students’ understanding of the novel they are currently reading in English. These are placed on each students’ desk at the beginning of each lesson,...

I was recently on a learning walk and spotted a brilliant idea in History. Every KS3 student is given a “programme of study” to stick in their exercise books. It gives them information on exactly what topics they...

https://www.retrievalpractice.org  This website has a wealth of information about why and how retrieval practice can be incorporated into lessons.  At the moment they are offering a ‘Metacognition Template’ download, and they...

When thinking about our focus upon inclusion this year and turning to the topic of questioning, I remembered an AfL strategy from @teachertoolkit from some time ago – Pose, Pause, Pounce, Bounce. While initially similar to...

I was reminded of this idea, whilst observing a lesson. A great starter is a quick quiz with up to 10 questions for students to answer. This helps students to remember what they were learning about in the last lesson and help...

Inviting local feeder schools into the school to complete subject specific project work is an excellent way to build relationships with local teachers and meet prospective students to the school. Primary and Infant schools...

Following a recent assessment in English, Alfie Fox thought carefully about how to use ReAct to improve the quality of students’ writing. Faced with a picture stimuli and a set of descriptive writing techniques, students...

I saw this technique being used very effectively in Mark Allday’s Year 10 Computer Science lessons recently. The students have to undertake an extended piece of Non Examined Assessment (controlled assessment in old money)...

Give students a couple of minutes at the end of a lesson to prepare a one word response to questions about the lesson. In group work, questions such as “Who generated the most effective ideas today?” will allow you to visually...

Introducing new topics to students can be quite tricky. You want to engage students from the very beginning but this can be particularly difficult if the content is quite challenging or abstract. How students respond in that...

Do you ….? always have the same hands going up to answer your questions in lessons?  have some characters dominate in your class? have boys or girls that volunteer their answers more readily? unconsciously look to the same...

IDEA: Ask a student (or multiple students) to act as a cameraman and take videos of students presenting the learning that is going on in the lesson. BENEFIT: As a differentiation strategy – it gives students who are...

Using student work as exemplars is a powerful technique – gives a motivational boost to those students whose work is displayed and a clear target for other students to aim for. The evidence also shows that peer learning is...

Meta-cognition, learners “knowledge of their knowledge”, is a promising area for research at the moment. The EEF report ‘Metacognition and self-regulated learning’ from April 2018 is a must read for all...