How can we support more able learners in the English classroom?

English teachers must move beyond superficial forms of challenge and devise sequences of lessons that genuinely push, inspire and develop more able learners – says Anthony Cockerill, Director of the National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE).

Teachers often rely on strategies that appear to support our most able learners but in reality do little to deepen their thinking. Giving students ‘extra work’ or ‘extension tasks’ can create the comforting illusion of challenge while preventing them from reaching their potential.

These surface-level approaches might tick boxes or keep students busy, but they fail to offer the intellectual stretch and rigour that truly cultivates high attainment. It’s helpful to think more carefully about how we can support more able students at each stage of the learning process.

What are our students learning?

Expose learners to ambitious, complex texts and concepts.

Choose material that stretches students beyond the typical diet of set texts – and this doesn’t necessarily mean totems of the literary canon – so they wrestle with sophisticated ideas, unfamiliar structures and rich language that demands sustained intellectual effort.

Build deep disciplinary knowledge.

Expose students to the debates, contexts and theoretical lenses that shape the discipline of English. By introducing ideas from literary criticism, history, philosophy and politics, we enable learners to see themselves as active participants in wider conversations about texts and culture.

Teach sophisticated language, stylistic and rhetorical devices.

Develop students’ ability to speak and write with precision, control and flair, explicitly teaching the stylistic tools, rhetorical techniques and academic vocabulary used by expert writers so that students can communicate nuanced thinking with confidence and authority.

How are our students learning?

Offer open-ended, creative and evaluative tasks.

Plan learning activities that require students to make choices, experiment with ideas and justify their thinking – for example, writing pastiches, crafting alternative interpretations, or expressing a point of view in an engaging and original way.

Integrate reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Ensure students encounter concepts through an equity of exposure to the traditional four modalities of the English classroom. They might debate an idea orally, explore it through analytical writing, respond creatively, and then listen to expert voices – each mode strengthening and expanding their conceptual understanding.

Provide deliberate practice using style models, exemplars and scaffolds.

Use carefully chosen examples of excellent writing to unpick what makes it effective, draw attention to the writer’s craft, and then ask students to imitate and adapt high-level techniques before gradually removing support as their proficiency grows.

How can we support learning?

Model strategies, vocabulary and thought processes.

Make your own thinking explicit by narrating how you approach a complex task – selecting vocabulary, crafting sentences, making inferences, evaluating interpretations – so that students can internalise and practise the habits that underpin successful creative and analytical work.

Differentiate by depth, not volume.

Plan challenge through increased complexity – such as tackling ambiguous ideas, experimenting with form, or synthesising multiple viewpoints – rather than through additional tasks that may simply consume time without enhancing cognitive demand.

Develop agency and structures for independence, rather than relying on PEE paragraphs and similar mnemonics.

Provide high-challenge frameworks, sentence stems or structural guides that encourage students to construct thoughtful, original arguments; over time, weaning them off reductive formulae like PEE so that their writing becomes flexible, mature and authentic.

What do our students do to show progress?

Encourage them to produce work that reflects increasing sophistication, originality and nuance.
Look for growing control, creativity and ambition in how students communicate ideas – for example, through more daring interpretations, subtle shifts in tone, or inventive stylistic choices that show ownership over their writing and thinking.

Help them to demonstrate critical, evaluative thinking through discussion and writing.

Encourage students to interrogate texts and ideas actively – weighing evidence, questioning assumptions, and problematising simplistic readings – so that their viewpoints become more layered, exploratory and confident over time.

Let them articulate and use knowledge verbally.

Give students frequent opportunities to articulate their thinking out loud – in classroom discussion, debates or hot-seating – enabling them to develop academic and creative oracy, rehearse complex ideas and strengthen their command of subject-specific language.

How should our students receive feedback?

Give precise, personalised formative feedback focusing on stretch and refinement.

Rather than merely correcting mistakes, feedback should target what a student needs to do to move forward – pointing towards greater complexity, precision, or stylistic control.

Use dialogue – verbal questioning, conferencing, and live marking.

Respond in real time wherever possible, using probing questions and quick conversations to deepen understanding, unsettle complacency and move learners forward while they are still ‘in the zone’ of thinking.

Facilitate critique of models and peer feedback.

Train students to evaluate work (their own and others’) against ambitious, explicit criteria that has even been agreed in advance as part of the learning process – so that they come to understand effective writing and so they can engage critically and constructively in the improvement process.

Final thoughts

Ultimately, supporting more able learners in English is not about doing more, but doing more thoughtfully. Many of these suggestions reflect effective teaching for learners of all abilities. But by embedding genuine challenge into our curriculum, pedagogy and feedback, we can offer our students the chance to think deeply, work independently and engage with rich ideas.

Find out more…

Join us on Tuesday 17th March 2026 for a free live webinar with the author of this blog post, Anthony Cockerill, Director of the National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE). During the session, Anthony will share examples of how the strategies discussed above can be implemented in practice, with opportunity for Q&A. Read more and register.

Beyond the silence: recognising more able learners within EAL

Misba Mir, Deputy Headteacher at Carlton Junior and Infant School, on the importance of recognising the abilities of EAL learners, ensuring that language proficiency does not become the lens through which all other abilities are judged.

 In many classrooms, there are pupils who think deeply, notice patterns quickly and make sophisticated connections, but whose abilities can easily be overlooked. This is especially true for learners who use English as an additional language (EAL). Too often, language proficiency becomes the lens through which all other abilities are judged. When that happens, we risk missing talent that is present, active and quietly waiting to be recognised.

I’ve worked with EAL learners for years, and one of the most persistent challenges I’ve seen is how easily ability can be underestimated. A child who struggles to explain their thinking in English may still be reasoning at a high level. Another may grasp abstract concepts instantly but lack the vocabulary to show it in conventional ways. When we rely too heavily on spoken or written English to identify ability, we narrow our view and some of our most able learners slip under the radar.

Recognising more able learners within EAL populations matters for two main reasons.

• First, it’s an issue of equity. All learners deserve to be challenged, stretched and supported appropriately. 
• Second, it’s about potential. When ability goes unnoticed, learners may disengage, lose confidence or internalise the idea that they are “behind”, when in reality they are anything but.
  

One of the key difficulties is separating language acquisition from cognitive ability. Learning a new language is demanding. It takes time, exposure and confidence. During that process, learners may appear hesitant, quiet or even passive. But silence does not equal lack of understanding. I’ve seen pupils solve complex problems mentally while struggling to explain their reasoning aloud. Others demonstrate advanced thinking through gestures, drawings or their first language – but this will only be recognised if we are willing to look.

How can we successfully look beyond language to successfully identify and support more able EAL learners?

Close observation is key

More able EAL learners often show their strengths in subtle ways. They may pick up routines quickly, transfer knowledge from one context to another or ask insightful questions using limited language. Some show creativity in problem-solving, finding alternative ways to complete tasks when language becomes a barrier. These are all indicators of high ability, even if they don’t fit neatly into standard assessment frameworks.

Go beyond traditional testing

Assessment itself can be a stressful stumbling block. Traditional tests often measure language more than understanding. For EAL learners, especially those new to English, this can mask what they truly know. Identifying more able learners requires flexibility: using visual tasks, practical activities, discussion in pairs, or opportunities to respond through diagrams or models. When pupils are given multiple ways to demonstrate understanding, ability becomes clearer and easier to correctly identify.

Challenge assumptions

It’s easy, often unconsciously, to associate fluency with intelligence. Learners who speak confidently and use advanced vocabulary are more likely to be seen as able, while those still developing their English may be placed in lower groups or given simplified work. Over time, this can limit access to challenge. More able EAL learners may spend too long consolidating basics they mastered long ago, simply because they haven’t yet mastered the language of instruction.

Adopt a strengths-based mindset

Instead of focusing on what learners can’t yet do in English, we should be asking: 

• What can they do? 
• What do they understand? 
• Where do they show curiosity, speed of learning, or depth of thinking?

For many EAL learners, strengths may lie in mathematics, science, pattern recognition, music or strategic thinking. Language may catch up later but only if those strengths are nurtured, not ignored.

Offer cognitive challenge alongside support

Supporting more able EAL learners isn’t about pushing them faster through language learning. It’s about offering cognitive challenge alongside language support. This might mean providing richer tasks with scaffolding, encouraging use of first language as a thinking tool or allowing learners to work with peers who stretch their thinking. Challenge and accessibility can and should exist together.

Consider the impact on wellbeing

There’s also a pastoral component to this work. Being identified as able can have a powerful impact on a learner’s self-image. For EAL learners, who may already feel different or unsure of their place, recognition can be transformative. I’ve seen pupils’ confidence grow when their abilities are acknowledged, even in small ways. That confidence often feeds back into language learning, participation and risk-taking.

Key takeaways

Ultimately, recognising more able learners among EAL pupils requires us to slow down and look more carefully. It asks us to question usual habits of assessment, to listen beyond words, and to remain open to different expressions of ability. It’s not about lowering expectations because language is a barrier; it’s about raising expectations while removing that barrier.

When we get this right, everyone benefits. Learners feel seen. Classrooms become more inclusive and we move closer to an education system that values thinking as much as talking. Ability doesn’t disappear when language is developing because it simply finds new ways to show itself. Our job is to notice and make a difference.

About the author

Misba Mir is a Deputy Headteacher, English Lead and Year 6 Teacher at Carlton Junior and Infant School, West Yorkshire, with over 14 years of teaching experience. She leads on curriculum development and school-wide challenge, ensuring high standards, ambition and engagement for all pupils. Misba is passionate about fostering a positive learning culture, supporting staff development, and preparing pupils for success academically, socially and emotionally. Carlton Junior and Infant School has held the NACE Challenge Award since 2020 and is an active member of the NACE community.

AI and adaptive teaching: embracing the challenge

Matt Kingston, Curriculum Innovation Lead, Holme Grange School

Holme Grange’s teaching and learning focus this year has been adaptive teaching, a priority that brings with it many of the same challenges faced by schools nationwide. One of the most significant barriers has been the time required to create adapted resources that meet individual pupil needs. 

Most teachers can recall spending hours preparing resources, only for unexpected issues such as IT failures, printer jams, or a difficult lesson to undermine the best of intentions. As a result, many teachers have relied heavily on in-class adaptations to ensure accessibility – inevitably an uphill struggle. 

However, the emergence of new technologies has begun to shift this balance, offering teachers ways to maintain both their wellbeing and their ability to provide accessible, high-quality resources for all pupils.

This year, we have undertaken a focused exploration of how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to support adaptive teaching, enabling all pupils to access the curriculum and work towards shared learning goals across a range of subjects. We began on a small scale, working within departments to adapt resources efficiently for diverse learners. This approach demonstrated a clear positive impact, giving us the confidence to begin rolling it out across the whole school.

Our starting point was a staff audit designed to understand how AI was already being used and how it was perceived. The overall response was positive, but three key concerns emerged. Only 11% of staff were using AI to adapt resources; there were significant worries about its impact on pupils’ critical thinking; and concerns around cheating were widespread.

The latter two concerns are being addressed through careful task design. If a task can be easily completed using AI and is difficult to detect, then it is worth questioning its educational value. As AI becomes harder to identify and increasingly difficult to restrict, particularly in homework settings, we have shifted our focus towards designing AI-resistant tasks. These include activities where pupils must defend their opinions, record voice notes to explain their thinking, or engage in flipped learning that is assessed in class using mini-whiteboards. By requiring pupils to articulate and justify their ideas, we strengthen critical thinking while making it harder to outsource learning to AI. Rather than viewing AI as a barrier, we are using it as an opportunity to refine our curriculum and teaching approaches.

In line with our school learning policy on adaptive teaching, it quickly became clear that there was a skills gap among staff when it came to using AI effectively. Our first step was raising awareness of how AI could be used safely and purposefully. This was introduced during an INSET session, where staff were presented with three practical strategies for using AI to support adaptive teaching. Each strategy included guidance on accessibility and impact, strengths and limitations, and example prompts tailored to specific learning needs.

For many staff, this session served as a reminder of AI’s potential. For others who had previously been hesitant, it provided the confidence to begin experimenting with new approaches. This was followed by a second session aimed at beginners, covering the fundamentals of prompt writing, data protection, and key risks such as GDPR breaches and AI ‘hallucinations’. The response was again very positive. While a full staff audit will be conducted later in the year, early indicators suggest a noticeable increase in staff using AI to support resource adaptation. This work will be reinforced through fortnightly ‘quick wins’ shared during staff briefings and in the weekly bulletin.

One of the most significant challenges AI has introduced relates to student use. Concerns around cheating were not unfounded, with pupils openly discussing their use of AI tools to complete notes and homework tasks. However, as AI will inevitably form part of students’ future lives, a blanket ban would do little to prepare them for what lies ahead.

Instead, we are focusing on educating pupils about appropriate and effective use. We are currently trialling a Year 9 tutor programme to explore how structured guidance impacts students’ understanding and use of AI. This programme covers how AI works, the risks it poses to learning, how it can be used positively, and what the future of AI may look like. Alongside this, we are piloting small-scale projects such as subject-specific GPTs that pupils are permitted to use independently. These tools are designed to guide thinking rather than provide answers, helping pupils to use AI as a learning aid rather than a shortcut.

Ultimately, this approach relies on pupils choosing to use AI responsibly. Developing this mindset will take time and ongoing dialogue. To support this, we will continue gathering feedback through staff audits, research, and CPD, while also establishing a digital student council to give pupils a voice in shaping how AI is used within the school.

We are still at the very beginning of a long journey with AI. However, the willingness of both staff and pupils to engage thoughtfully with this challenge has been encouraging, making what could be a daunting task an exciting opportunity for meaningful change.

Holme Grange School, Wokingham, has been accredited with the NACE Challenge Award since 2013, and is a NACE Challenge Ambassador School.

The recently published Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR) Final Report confirms that ambition must lie at the heart of a new system of education. It sets out a vision whereby every pupil should have access to “a rich, aspirational and challenging offer” – that is, a curriculum designed not just for many, but for all. 

The review emphasises that ambition for every learner means more than raising the bar – it means ensuring no pupil is left behind, and that ambition is realised through curriculum design, teaching, and assessment working in harmony. 

As we respond to this agenda in our schools, the question becomes: how do we keep our curriculum ambitious for every learner, especially as change looms? In this piece, we outline six practical levers to help school leaders, middle leaders and teachers embed ambition for all – drawing on the research and practice we explored in How Do They Do It?.

1. Ambition begins with clarity of purpose

Every ambitious curriculum starts with this question: what do we want every pupil to know, understand, and be able to do? In our book, we make the point that ambition is not simply a display on a wall but is visible in the quality of pupils’ work.

The CAR underlines that schools need to articulate an entitlement: the national curriculum must be for all children and young people, and should be inclusive in design.

Without clarity of purpose, ambition becomes a slogan rather than a coherent practice.

To act on this:

• Review your curriculum intent statements: do they specify outcomes for all learners – including those with disrupted learning, special educational needs or disadvantage?
• When planning units, ask: can teachers articulate the ambitious end-point for each learner group?
• Use professional development to bring teachers together to examine examples of strong pupil work and discuss: was this ambitious? Why? How might we raise it further?

2. Ambition demands intelligent sequencing

Ambitious work isn’t about giving the hardest material first, nor about revisiting the same material without progression. It’s about building a staircase, not erecting a wall. In our research, we saw two common mistakes: one, ambition set too low (re-visiting rather than deepening); two, ambition set too high (introducing content before pupils are ready).

The CAR emphasises coherence and progression. It signals that linking prior learning, increasing complexity and ensuring curriculum continuity across key stages are vital. 

Actions to support this:

• Audit schemes of work: check that each unit connects to prior learning and shows how pupils will progress to something more challenging.
• Plan for learners who may need scaffolded or bridge units so they are ready for ambitious work.
• Create opportunities to revisit, consolidate and then apply knowledge in increasingly complex contexts.
  

3. Ambition is outward-looking

If ambition is entirely internalised, it can become complacent. The most ambitious schools maintain a habit of looking outwards: to exemplar practice, to strong pupil work elsewhere, to what disciplines expect beyond school.

The CAR highlights that the national curriculum should reflect the diversities of our society and prepare young people for work and life. That requires schools to benchmark against high expectations everywhere. 

How to embed this:

• Ask teachers to bring in examples of strong curriculum design, assessment tasks and pupil work from other schools/contexts.
• Use subject networks, external visits or trust collaboration to compare what ambitious work looks like in your phase/subject.
• Regularly ask: what would this look like if we were at our best? What would pupils be producing?
  

4. Ambition must be inclusive by design

Ambition for some pupils is not ambition at all. The CAR is explicit that the curriculum and assessment system must provide for all children and young people, including those who face barriers. 

This is why we argue that ambition must be non-negotiable but flexible: entitlement to high-quality knowledge and rich tasks, with scaffolding and support built in for access.

Practical steps:

• At curriculum planning stage ask: how will this ambitious aim be accessible to all learners without lowering the bar?
• For pupils with SEND or interrupted learning, build in bridge tasks, retrieval opportunities and scaffolds.
• Celebrate ambitious outcomes from all learner groups – shift the narrative so ambition is seen as universal, not exclusive.
  

5. Ambition shows up in assessment and the final product

Ambition isn’t fulfilled when a lesson ends or when pupils complete worksheets. It is fulfilled when pupils produce something significant: an extended essay, a fieldwork project, a creative performance, a reasoned debate. In our work we observed too many schools focus on content coverage and then skip the phase where pupils use that knowledge to do something ambitious.

The CAR emphasises that assessment systems should capture the breadth of the curriculum and reflect rich outcomes – not narrow measures only.

Actions for this:

• Construct assessment tasks which require pupils to apply and reason, not merely recall.
• Provide time for pupils to revisit and refine work so ambition is realised.
• Use pupils’ outcomes as diagnostic data: did the ambitious task yield the expected quality? What adjustments to curriculum or pedagogy are needed?
  

6. Ambition is sustained through reflection and iteration

Curriculum design and teaching are not one-off achievements. The CAR recognises that the system must evolve, and that ambition requires ongoing review: “Why are we doing this? Are we achieving what we set out to? How do we know?” are questions we emphasise in How Do They Do It?

How to make this a habit:

• At the end of each unit, hold a short review: did pupils’ work reach our ambitious end-point? What blockers emerged? What support was most effective?
• Maintain a departmental ambition tracker: track the quality of pupil outcomes across learner groups, identify where ambition may be slipping, and intervene.
• Support teacher professional learning around ambition: hold collaborative workshops, peer-review sessions or book group discussions on what ambitious means in practice.
  

Final thoughts

The Curriculum and Assessment Review has given us a timely prompt: ambition is more than a goal. It is a design factor, built into curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and school culture. For ambition to become reality, it must be clear, sequenced, outward-looking, inclusive, visible in assessment, and sustained through review.

In our busy schools, it can be tempting to focus on operational change – new content lists, new assessment formats – but without anchoring these in an ambition-for-all mindset we risk reforming the system without transforming it.

So let us ask: what does ambitious mean in our context? What will pupils be producing when we succeed? How will we know that all learners, including those facing the steepest barriers, have done ambitious work and are ready for what comes next?

If we keep that focus at the centre of our curriculum redesign, we will ensure that ambition for all is not just rhetoric but daily reality.

Mark Enser and Zoe Enser were teachers and school leaders, ex-HMIs in Ofsted’s Curriculum Unit, and are the authors of How Do They Do It? What can we learn from amazing schools, leaders and teachers? (Crown House, 2025).

For discounts on this and other Crown House publications, view all current NACE member offers (login required).

Roger Sutcliffe, Director of DialogueWorks and Creator of the Thinking Moves A-Z

As Kate Hosey said in her blog post in 2022, some students – perhaps many – can “find it hard to motivate themselves to be more active in their learning”.

There may be various reasons for this, some of which may be related to social trends beyond the classroom. This blog post is not intended to offer a cure for all of those!

What it offers is a simple suggestion, that students might be more engaged with their learning if they saw it as a way of developing skills for life – followed by another, as to how that desired outcome might be reached.

What do we mean by ‘learning’?

The word ‘learning’ is ambiguous between content – what is learnt – which is typically ‘subject’-based, and process – the daily slog, and sometimes satisfaction, of ‘studying’.

Many students, if not most, see learning predominantly as the former – the acquisition of stipulated knowledge, rather than the development of smart skills for life.

But what could be smarter than cognitive – essentially, thinking – skills? (Well, perhaps metacognitive ones – but watch this space!)

If only the teaching and learning process explicitly promoted and practised such skills, then maybe, just maybe, more students would value and engage with the process.

How could this ideal be reached? The key is in the word ‘explicitly’. Any taught lesson, at any level and in any subject, demands of the students a variety of thinking skills. (If not, it cannot be worth its salt!)

How often are these demands spelled out? To be fair, the best teachers will do this, if not in advance of a learning task, then afterwards, by way of explaining how it could have been done better.

But there are still two challenges to be overcome.

Developing a shared language for thinking skills

I recognised the first of these challenges about 15 years ago, when I was commissioned to teach some teachers (more) about thinking skills. It is that there is no common language for teachers and learners to talk about thinking skills, nor indeed any appreciation of the full range of such skills.

That was when I set about creating Thinking Moves A-Z, a list of the 26 most fundamental cognitive skills – which has the further merit of being easy to learn and use.

This scheme enables teachers to be clear what sorts of thinking they are expecting students to practise in any given lesson. Typically, they might highlight two or three metacognitive ‘moves’ per lesson for the students to focus on, but over a term or year they might aim to cover as full a range as possible.

The second challenge is that, ultimately, the aim is for students not only to be more aware of their capacity for different sorts of thinking – what I sometimes call their ‘brain powers’ – but to practise those skills independently: to see themselves as, and indeed to be, ‘good thinkers’.

That, of course, is the point at which those skills can properly be called ‘metacognitive’ – when students are not just thinking about their thinking, but doing so with purpose and with proficiency.

Inspiration, aspiration, and commitment

But I must return to the main question of this blog, namely how to get students to appreciate this ultimate aim, and to engage with it.

As to the appreciation, I have already hinted that simply providing students with a common and complete vocabulary for thinking about thinking is likely to be interesting, if not inspiring, to them.
What student would not be impressed to be told that their brain/mind is capable of 26 different ‘moves’, and indeed has been making them daily – but without their even realising it?

And then what student would not aspire to become better at some, if not all, of these moves – to become ‘good’ at thinking AHEAD (predicting or aiming), for example, or thinking BACK (remembering or reflecting)?

Of course, some students will still need to be encouraged – motivated – to commit themselves to this aspiration, and to the journey involved.

Getting better at EXPLAINING, for example, involves long-term commitment to expanding one’s vocabulary, and to deploying words with care.

Getting better at WEIGHING UP (evaluating) involves deep commitment to open-mindedness and fairness.

And getting better at balancing ZOOMING OUT and ZOOMING IN involves commitment to the move most fundamental for metacognition – being able to step back from time to time and look at the whole picture, before deciding which aspect to focus on next – a balancing cycle we all repeat all the time, again usually without realising it.

Unlocking the full benefits of metacognition

Metacognition is not just the ability to manage your thinking better in various ways. It is the ability, I maintain, to manage your whole self – your feelings and actions as well as your thinking.

That includes the ability to recognise what is in your interest as well as what you are interested in, and to commit to some actions that might not be as appealing as others.

I realise that it is asking a lot of young people to reach the level of self-awareness where they are completely self-motivated in this way. So, I repeat that young people need steady encouragement from their teachers to be better thinkers, as well as just better learners.

But I think that there is an even greater intrinsic value to becoming more metacognitive – more self-aware and more self-managing.

To sum up, then, I am saying that part of motivating students to become metacognitive is to spell out to them what metacognition is, so that they know how they could actively develop that capacity in themselves.

In my next blog post, I will do a bit more explaining of metacognition, since I think it is not as well understood, even by educationalists, as it might be. ‘Thinking about your thinking’ is a good starting explanation, but it lacks some vital ingredients. Other accounts are similarly too narrow, and rather formulaic.

Metacognition is potentially a key to fuller and richer living, not just more proficient learning. It should, then, be a driving concept for all schools and teachers.

Roger Sutcliffe is Director of DialogueWorks and Creator of the Thinking Moves A-Z. He taught at both junior and senior level (English and Maths) for over 25 years, and has been an independent educational consultant, specialising in Philosophy for Children and Teaching Thinking, for the last 25 years. He is a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching.

Roger is currently collaborating with NACE on a four-part course based on the Thinking Moves A-Z, open to schools across all phases and contexts. If you missed the first session, it’s not too late to join! Contact us to arrange access to the recording of Session 1, and live participation in the remaining three sessions.