Schools are tasked by Ofsted to “boost cultural capital” and to “close the disadvantage gap”. In this blog post, Andy Griffith, co-author of The Working Classroom, makes some practical suggestions for schools to adopt.

1. Explore the language around “cultural capital” and “disadvantage”

As educators we know that language is very important, so before we try to boost or close something we should think deeply about terms that are commonly referred to. What are the origins of these terms? What assumptions lie behind them? Ofsted describes cultural capital as “the best that has been thought and said”, but who decides what constitutes the “best”? Notions of best are, by definition, subjective value choices. 

The phrase “best that has been thought and said”, originally coined by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, is worthy of study in itself (see below for reference). Bourdieu described embodied cultural capital as a person’s education (knowledge and intellectual skills) which provides advantage in achieving a higher social status. For Bourdieu the “game” is rigged. The game Bourdieu refers to is, of course, the game of life, of which education is a significant element. 

When it comes to the term “disadvantaged”, Lee Elliott Major, Professor of Social Mobility at the University of Exeter Professor, suggests that instead we refer to low-income families as “under-resourced”. Schools should be careful not to treat the working class as somehow inferior or as something that needs to be fixed.

Action: Ensure that staff fully understand the term “cultural capital”. Alongside this, explore “social capital” and “disadvantage”. This is best done through discussion and debate. Newspaper articles and even blogs like this one can act as a good stimulus.

2. Create a well-designed cultural curriculum

Does your school have a plan for taking students on a cultural journey? How many trips will your students go on before they leave your school? Could these experiences be incorporated into a passport of sorts?

The cultural experiences you offer will be determined by factors such as your school’s location and budget. A lot of cultural experiences can be delivered in-house in the form of external speakers, films and documentaries, or virtual reality. Others will require excursions. In either case, creating a Cultural Passport helps staff to plan experiences that complement and supplement previous experiences. 

Schools should strike a balance between celebrating each community’s history and going beyond the existing community to broaden students’ horizons. Again, language is important. Does your school’s cultural curriculum explore the differences between so-called “high” and “low” culture? 

No class is an island. Students of all social backgrounds should experience live theatre, visiting museums, going to art exhibitions, visiting the countryside and encountering people from cultures other than their own. Equally, every school’s cultural curriculum should celebrate working class culture. The working classes have a vibrant history of creating art, music, theatre, literature and so on, which needs to be reflected in the core curriculum. 

By looking through the lens of race and gender, most schools have a more diverse offering of writers compared with when I went to school. It is right that more Black voices and more female voices are represented in the school curriculum. This opens new insights for readers, as well as providing Black and female students with more role models. 

Similarly, there should be a strong emphasis on the work of working-class artists and autodidacts, no matter the social demographic of the school. Studying working-class writers such as Jimmy McGovern, Kayleigh Lewellyn, and musicians such as Terry Hall and even Dolly Parton can be inspiring. Similarly, learning about autodidacts such as Charles Dickens, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Vincent Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo can teach students that where there is a strong desire to learn, people can find a way. 

Action: Ensure your school is “teaching backwards” from rich cultural experiences. Outline the experiences that will be stamped in their Cultural Passport before they leave your school.

3. Explore social capital barriers for students

One of the greatest things we can do as educators is to remove a barrier that is holding a student back. One barrier that is faced by many working-class students is lack of social capital – i.e. the limited range of occupations of their social acquaintances or network.

In 2016 I created the first of a number of Scholars Programmes in Kirkby, Merseyside. I’m proud that as well as making a positive impact on academic results at GCSE, it has raised aspirations. The programme is deliberately designed to build social capital. Over the duration of the programme (from Year 7 to 11), students have opportunities to meet and interview adults who are in careers that they aspire to. As well as work experience, the school organises Zoom interviews for students with people working in the industry that they are interested in joining. Not only do these interviews invigorate students, they create a contact that is there to be emailed for information and advice. Over time, the school has created a database of contacts who are able to offer work placements or are happy to take part in either face-to-face or virtual interviews with students. These people are friends and family members of the staff, and even friends of friends.

It is much, much harder for working class students to enter elite professions such as medicine, law and the media. The arts and the creative industries are also harder to break into. Contacts who are able to help a student to build specific industry knowledge and experience can give them a better chance of future success.

Action: Creatively utilise a database of school contacts to provide information and advice for students. Match students with professionals who can offer career advice and insights.

Reference: P. Bourdieu, Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction. In J. Karabel and A. H. Halsey (eds), Power and Ideology in Education (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 487–51.

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The ideas and strategies in this article are contained within The Working Classroom by Matt Bromley and Andy Griffith (Crown House Publishing). More information about the book and training around its contents can be found here.

NACE members can benefit from a 20% discount on all purchases from the Crown House Publishing website. View our member offers page for details.

Plus... The NACE Conference 2025 will draw on the latest research (including our own current research programme) and case studies to explore how schools can remove barriers to learning and create opportunities for all young people to flourish. Read more and book your place.

Dr Ann McCarthy, NACE Research and Development Director

It may seem strange to find an article with both metacognition and assessment in the title. Many people still view assessment as an activity which is separate from the art of teaching and is simply a list of checks and balances required by the education system to set targets, track learning, report to stakeholders and finally to issues qualifications. However, for those who are using assessment routinely, and at all points within the act of teaching and learning, they know the power of assessment which is both explicit and implicit within the process. The drive to focus on metacognition, for all ages of pupils, has opened opportunities for assessment practices to be developed within the classroom both by the teacher and by the pupils themselves.

Contents:

• The story so far: summative and formative assessment
• Limitations to traditional formative and summative assessment practices
• Developing cognition and cognitive strategies
• Metacognition and assessment
• Conclusion: the potential of metacognition to enhance assessment, teaching and learning
• Call for contributions: share your school’s experience

The story so far: summative and formative assessment

Historically, assessment processes were strongly linked to the curriculum and planned content because they responded to an education system which prepared pupils for endpoint examinations. This approach is still evident within the many summative assessments, tests of memory or vocabulary and algorithmic routines seen in classrooms today. One can understand the reliance on these practices as they lead to the maintenance of a school’s grade profile and with good teaching and leadership can promote improvements in external measures. It feels safe!

The strength of this type of assessment is that it can provide baseline markers or diagnostic information. Here the assessment focus is always linked to the curriculum, the content and the examination. Good teaching can then move pupils closer to the end goal. When pupils respond well to this style, they can gain the required results – but too often pupils do not respond well and do not necessarily develop beyond the limits of the examination style question. Here the agenda is owned by the teacher, with pupils expected to respond to the demands of the model. 

The weakness of this style of assessment is that there is little space for variation to reflect the personalities and learning styles of pupils or to allow more able pupils to learn beyond the examination. Here pupils are trained to meet the end goal without necessarily seeing the potential of the learning beyond the final grade. How often do we hear people say “I can’t do this” or “I don’t know this” although it may be a subject studied in school?

The development of formative assessment in different teaching contexts has increased teachers’ understanding of cognition and cognitive strategies alongside subject-specific skills and content. However, teachers can still be drawn into summative assessment practices in the guise of formative assessment. These are often recall or memory activities or small-scale versions of summative assessments aligned to endpoint assessment. 

Good formative assessment is embedded in the planning for teaching and classroom practice. An understanding of the assessment measures and effective feedback will enable pupils to take some ownership of their learning. However, in a cognitively challenging learning environment we seek to empower pupils to own their learning and to become resilient, independent learners. So how then can we think differently about assessment practice?

Limitations to traditional formative and summative assessment practices

With traditional summative and formative assessment methods pupils are responsive to the demands and expectations of the teacher. They are expected to act in response to assessment outcomes and teacher feedback, using the methods and strategies modelled or directed by the teacher. The teacher plans the content, makes a judgement and creates opportunities to gain experience within the planned model. The teacher then assesses within this model and offers advice to the pupils about what they must do next and the actions which the teacher believes will lead to better learning and outcomes. 

This can be successful in achieving the endpoint grades or examination standards. It does not necessarily develop pupils’ ability to do this for themselves, both within and beyond the education system.

Developing cognition and cognitive strategies

At the heart of good teaching and learning there is a focus on mental processes (cognition) and skills (cognitive strategies). The most effective classroom assessment makes use of cognition and the cognitive strategies beneficial to the specialist subject, which are most appropriate for the pupils.

The teacher of more able pupils aims to create cognitively challenging learning experiences, which must not be adversely affected by the assessments. This requires carefully selected strategies which hone the cognitive processes at the same time as developing subject expertise. Teaching builds from what pupils already know and understand, what they need to learn and what they have the potential to achieve. It develops the skills needed to apply knowledge, understanding and learning in a variety of contexts. 

To maximise the impact of planned teaching on learning, effective assessment practices are essential. An important factor when planning for assessment, which goes beyond the confines of endpoint limitations, is that it places the pupil, rather than the content, at the centre of the process. Assessment activities should not simply measure current performance against a list of content-driven minimum standards, but also lead to a greater depth of knowledge and improved cognition. These assessments are not positioned separately from the learning but are at the heart of the learning and the development of cognitive strategies.

Assessments planned as part of – and not separate from – teaching and learning might include:

• High-quality classroom dialogic discourse;
• Big Questions;
• Teacher-pupil, pupil-teacher and pupil-pupil questioning;
• Collaborative pursuits aimed to generate new ideas;
• Adopting learning roles to enhance and extend current skills;
• Problem solving;
• Prioritisation tasks;
• Research;
• Investigations;
• Explaining and justifying responses;
• Analytical tasks;
• Examining misconceptions;
• Recall for facts in novel contexts;
• Organisation of knowledge to develop new ideas.

By examining learning in the moment, with pupils working independently or together on pre-planned tasks, with clear and measurable success criteria, the teacher can assess more accurately. Using the planned teaching and learning repertoire as the assessment, the teacher makes learning visible. The teacher will gain a greater understanding of the teaching models which lead to greater improvements in cognition. The teacher is then also able to establish which cognitive strategies are used most effectively and which need to be developed. 

By maintaining the learning while assessing the teacher acts as a resource and a learning activator. Timely questions, redirecting actions or thoughts and providing feedback are among the variety of actions which can take place in the instant. This does not prevent an analysis of the level of knowledge or understanding of the subject. By working in this way, the teacher can provide more precise input to either the individual or the class; in the moment, it will have the greatest benefit.

In classrooms where the teacher combines their subject knowledge with their understanding of cognition, they will inevitably understand the nature and power of appropriate assessment. Teaching and assessment which is rooted in an understanding of cognition has the potential to prepare pupils for learning both within and beyond the classroom. 

When the nature of the learning, the tasks and the assessments are shared with the pupils, they can begin to take ownership of their learning and develop their skills under the guidance of the teacher. Assessing through an understanding of cognition and cognitive strategies allows the teacher to share more fully the process of learning both in terms of academic outcomes but also in relation to thought and cognitive strategies. The pupils can now more fully impact on their own learning, but there is still a dependency on the teacher’s feedback and planning.

Metacognition and assessment

Once we appreciate the power of cognitively aware teaching, learning and assessment then we realise that pupils can take action to improve their thinking and learning if they know more. Metacognition means that pupils have a critical awareness of their own thinking and learning. They can visualise themselves as thinkers and learners. If the assessment, teaching and learning model moves the learner towards owning the learning, understanding their own cognition and cognitive strategies, then greater short-term and long-term gains can be made. Developing metacognitively focused classrooms will lead to a better quality of assessment which pupils will understand and can interrogate to refine their own learning.

When teachers look to develop metacognition as a whole-school strategy and within individual subject teaching there can be greater gains. The pupils will learn about the process of learning and come to understand ways in which they can best improve their own learning. Metacognition is about the ways learners monitor and purposefully direct their learning. If pupils develop metacognitive strategies, they can use these to monitor or control cognition, checking their effectiveness and choosing the most appropriate strategy to solve problems. 

When planning teaching which makes use of metacognitive processes the teacher must first help pupils to develop specific areas of knowledge.

Metacognitive knowledge refers to what learners know about learning. They must have a knowledge of:

• Themselves and their own cognitive abilities (e.g. I find it difficult to remember technical terms)
• Tasks, which may be subject-specific or more general (e.g. I am going to have to compare information from these two sources)
• The range of different strategies available, and an ability to choose the most appropriate one for the task (e.g. If I begin by estimating then I will have a sense of the magnitude of the solution).

Metacognitive knowledge must be explicitly taught within subjects. Where the assessment process works effectively within this the pupils can measure and understand their own learning. This is particularly important for more able learners who are then able to take greater responsibility for their learning, moving this beyond the constraints of the examined curriculum. 

The Fisher-Frey Model shows how responsibility for learning moves from teacher to pupils through carefully planned teaching strategies. This model is also relevant to the development of metacognitive teaching strategies as they are developed within schools. The Education Endowment Foundation has shown how the teacher can learn about and teach metacognitive strategies, gradually passing the learning to the pupils. 

 
Diagram based on work of Fisher-Frey and EEF

 At each stage some form of assessment takes place to ensure the required or expected outcomes have been achieved. The teacher wants to know the impact of the teaching and the pupils want to know the effectiveness of their learning. The teacher must also assess the pupils’ ability to use metacognitive strategies. Are they simply accepting the situation as it is? Are they attempting to engage in the process but do not know which strategy is best? Are they able to use their learning strategically or have they moved on to become reflective and independent learners? The teacher uses the assessment information with the pupil to help them to become increasingly self-aware and more adept at using the strategies available to them, but also to recognise their own strengths. 

Strategies used in metacognitively focused classrooms which can be developed with the teacher’s support, undertaken by pupils and assessed might include:

• Prioritising tasks
• Creating visual models such as bubble maps and flow diagrams
• Questioning
• Clarifying details of the task
• Making predictions
• Summarising information
• Making connections
• Problem solving
• Creating schema
• Organising knowledge
• Rehearsing information to improve memory
• Encoding
• Retrieving 
• Using learning and revision strategies
• Using recall strategies

If pupils and teachers work together to assess and plan the process of learning about the things they need to know and about themselves as learners, then metacognitive self-regulation becomes possible. Metacognitive regulation refers to what learners do about learning. It describes how learners monitor and control their cognitive processes. Pupils can then learn through a cyclic process in which they learn how to plan, monitor and evaluate both what they learn and how they learn. 

 
Based on diagram in Getting Started with Metacognition, Cambridge International Education Teaching and Learning Team 

Pupils need to know how to work through these crucial stages to be successful in their academic work and in support of their metacognitive processes. For example, a learner might realise that a particular strategy is not achieving the results they want, so they decide to try a different strategy. Assessment information will help them to refine the strategies they use to learn. They will use this to evaluate their subject knowledge, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation. They will become more motivated to engage in learning and can develop their own strategies and tactics to enhance their learning.

Conclusion: the potential of metacognition to enhance assessment, teaching and learning

If teaching is focused on subject content and only subject content is assessed, then teachers will be able to plan, track, set targets and work towards examination grades. 

When a teacher is knowledgeable about cognition and cognitive strategies, teaching and learning becomes more interesting. The teacher begins to share the objectives and success criteria with the pupils. Planning for teaching and the learning activities develop cognition and move beyond simple recall and application of facts. Pupils become more able to use and organise information. They are more able to retain knowledge and use it in a variety of complex or original contexts. The teacher remains in control of the planning, teaching and assessment but pupils have some degree of understanding of this. They are now more able to respond to advice about their learning. They begin to try alternative methods for learning. They know what they are doing well, what they still need to do, how they need to do this and why it is important. They utilise the assessment criteria and feedback to enhance their learning. 

Teachers who teach pupils about metacognition and help them to develop metacognitive awareness know the importance of giving control to the pupil. They collaborate with the pupils to assess their development in becoming more strategic or reflective in the use of strategies. Pupils learn better because they begin to assess their own learning strategies and their subject knowledge with a plan, monitor and evaluate model. Their motivation improves and the conversations between teachers and their pupils about learning are more insightful.

Call for contributions: share your school’s experience

In this article I highlight the importance of metacognition for learning and for the learner. I also explain the importance of assessing what is happening in the classroom. Assessment will give the teacher a clear indication of the impact of teaching and the effectiveness of learning. Assessment will help the self-regulated learner to reflect on their learning and develop the strategies needed to be a successful learner throughout life. 

We are seeking NACE member schools to contribute to our work in this area by sharing information about effective assessment approaches in their contexts. Where has assessment practice been implicit within your teaching? How was it planned? How did if fit within the teaching? How was the process shared with the pupils? How did you and the pupils measure levels of achievement? How did this change the way they learned or the way you taught? 

If you can share examples of the way you have built up assessment processes within the classroom and across the school, we would love to hear from you.

Please contact communications@nace.co.uk for more information, or complete this short online form to register your interest.

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Read more: Planning effective assessment to support cognitively challenging learning

Connect and share: join fellow NACE members at our upcoming member meetup on the theme "rethinking assessment" – 23 March 2022 at New College, Oxford – to share ideas and examples of effective assessment practices. Details and booking

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References and additional reading

•  Anderson, Neil J. (2002). The Role of Metacognition in Second Language Teaching and Learning. ERIC Digest.
• Cahill, H. et al (2014). Building Resilience in Children and Young People: A Literature Review for the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. DEECD.
• Cambridge International Education Teaching and Learning Team. Getting Started with Metacognition.
• Chick, N. (2013). Metacognition. Centre for Teaching, Vanderbilt University.
• Education Endowment Foundation (2018). Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning: Seven recommendations for teaching self-regulated learning & metacognition 
• EEF. Evidence Summaries: Metacognition and Self-Regulation
• EEF. Four Levels of Metacognitive Learners (Perkins, 1992)
• EEF. Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning: School Audit Tool
• EEF (Muijs D., Bokhove C., 2020). Metacognition and Self-Regulation Review 
• EEF (Quigley, A., Muijs, D., & Stringer, E., 2020). Metacognition & Self-Regulated Learning Guidance Report 
• Fisher, D. & Frey, N. (2008). Better Learning Through Structured Teaching: A framework for the gradual release of responsibility. ASCD.
• Lowe, H. and McCarthy, A. (2020). Making Space for Able Learners – Cognitive Challenge: Principles into Practice. NACE.
• Webb, J. (2021). Extract from The Metacognition Handbook. John Catt Educational.
  

• Could we examine less often and use classroom-based assessment more often?
• Should we rethink testing and assessment and their position in the learning process? 

Testing vs assessment

 

A strategic approach to assessment which supports cognitively challenging learning environments

• What they are trying to assess;
• How they plan to assess;
• Who the assessment is for;
• What evidence will become available;
• How the evidence can be interpreted;
• How the information can then be used by the teacher and the pupil;
• The impact the information has on the planned teaching and learning;
• The contribution assessment makes to cognition, learning and development.

Assessment and classroom management

Assessment in language-rich learning environments

Priorities for effective assessment

• To understand what the pupils know already;
• To promote and sustain cognitive challenge and progression:
• To measure the impact of both the teaching and the learning;
• To adapt practice in a timely manner;
• To support, extend and enhance learning;
• To examine how effectively the knowledge is used in new, varied and complex contexts. 

• Understand the nature and purpose of activities so that they can benefit from them;
• Appreciate the demands of learning;
• Engage in the learning journey;
• Develop their own cognitive skills and learning attributes;
• Take action to improve themselves;
• Take ownership of learning;
• Become increasingly autonomous and self-regulating.

What next?

• Education Endowment Foundation (2021), Cognitive science approaches in the classroom (a review of the evidence)
• Rimfield. K, et.al. (2019), Teacher assessment during compulsory education are as reliable, stable, and heritable as standardized test scores. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 60(12) (1278-1288)

• 3 key ingredients for cognitive challenge
• Assessment in a remote learning environment: what have we learned?
• Reinventing assessment in the post-pandemic world

Phase 1: developing our thinking

• In the UK, there has been a 9% gap in achievement between girls and boys since at least 2005; prior to that a gap was in evidence at O-Level and the 11+ exam.
• This gap is the same in many developed countries, but the narrative is different. In France, for example, the gap causes less consternation.
• Historically, almost all cultures have bemoaned adolescent boys’ “idleness” and their “ideal of effortless achievement”.
• The gap narrows in late adolescence and, internationally, by the age of 30 males have outstripped females in terms of their level of education and training, and earnings.
• Gender is an unstable indicator of individual student’s attainment and engagement: not all boys are underachieving, and not all girls are achieving. 
• Gender-based approaches to teaching and learning are too often gimmicky, distracting and have no discernible effect on achievement. Learning has always been difficult; engagement comes from excellent subject knowledge of the teacher, supportive monitoring of understanding and confidence between teacher and learner.

Phase 2: interventions 

Phase 3: lessons learned

Impact on teaching

Impact on pastoral support

• “We work hard for the teachers who like us.”
• “Extended day is pointless.”
• “If we’re put in intervention, no one explains why.’”
• “Interventions make me feel sh*t.”
• “You need confidence to be motivated.”
• “Some of our targets are genuinely too high.”
• “It feels like the school is just after the grades.”
• “If you share how you really feel with your mates it will all crumble.”

Phase 4: ongoing provision and evaluation

Key takeaways:

1. The attainment gap between boys and girls of this age is perennial. The work we do in schools can only go some of the way to address it, so concentrate on what is in your control: teaching well and caring well.
   
   
2. Excellent teaching is what it always has been: that which allows students, male and female, to think. Learning is what it always has been: necessary, sometimes exciting, sometimes hard and distasteful. That goes for all of us, male and female.
   
   
3. That said, all children need to develop positive habits of mind to stay motivated and happy enough that their actions have meaning. There will be challenges to this, different between time and time and community and community. To work out what these challenges are, and how to address them intelligently, use a wide range of data to ask meaningful questions.
   
   
4. Loneliness and a lack of discussion about aims and habits are main drivers of underachievement and can quickly erode wellbeing. Boys as a group appear to feel these deficits more keenly than girls as a group (but not exclusively). We are in loco parentis and need to prioritise time and space for students who don’t do so at home to explore and examine how to develop successfully, in ways that are personal to them.
   
   
5. Use your colleagues’ professional expertise and nous and encourage them to engage in contextual reading. It is alarming at the present time – perhaps encouraged by the instantaneity of the Twittersphere – how much change can be reactive and ignore lessons from the history of education policy. Before initiating any major or contentious change, aim to run it by as many colleagues as possible and get a pre-mortem. In our experience, colleagues’ insights, suggestions and misgivings all played a crucial role in preventing us making major mistakes.

Recommended reading:

• UNESCO 2019 Gender Review: https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/2019genderreport
• Gender and Education Association: www.genderandeducation.com
• Gender issues in schools: what works to improve achievement for boys and girls – DCSF 2009
• Gary Wilson, Breaking Through Barriers to Boys’ Achievement: Developing a Caring Masculinity (2013)
• Matt Pinkett and Mark Roberts, Boys Don’t Try? Rethinking Masculinity in Schools (2019) - review

Laura March, Hub Lead of the NACE R&D Hub at Southend High School for Boys, shares eight key issues discussed at the Hub’s inaugural meeting earlier this term.

Our inaugural NACE R&D Hub meeting was attended by colleagues from 12 schools, spanning a range of phases and subject areas. Ensuring the Hub meetings are focused on evidence and research allows us to respond to the masses of misinformation presented to us. A collaborative approach to understanding the needs of more able and talented (MAT) learners, and how to support them, enables colleagues to become more open and reflective in their discussions.

We started the meeting by sharing our own experience at Southend High School for Boys (SHSB), exploring our work towards gaining and maintaining the NACE Challenge Award over the last 15 years, and what strategies have had the biggest impact.

In the following discussion, it was interesting to explore what ‘differentiation’ means to different colleagues and key issues raised about what constitutes ‘good’ practice. It was also useful for colleagues from different fields – science, MFL, primary, physics, English and RE – to share approaches to developing writing skills, such as using ‘structure strips’, visualisers to model work, or tiered approaches to subject vocabulary. Finally, some questions were raised about communicating more able needs with parents; what should be included in the school’s more able policy; and how to monitor the impact of strategies on more able learners.

Here are eight key areas discussed during the meeting:

1. Strengthening monitoring and evaluation

This had been identified as an area for development at SHSB. MAT Coordinators and Subject Leaders are responsible for completing an audit to review their previous targets for more able learners and to outline opportunities, trips, competitions, resources and targets for the new academic year. This enables the MAT Lead to identify areas for pedagogical development so that targeted support can be put in place, as well as any budget requirements to purchase new resources.

2. Engaging with parents and carers

We shared the example of our parent support sheet. Not only are we bridging the gap between academic research and classroom practice, we aim to encourage a positive dialogue with parents by sharing the latest research on memory and strategies of how to stretch and challenge their sons and daughters at home. This has been very positive during parents’ evenings, with departments recommending extended reading; apps for effective revision such as Quizlet and Seneca; and You Tube videos for specific topics.

3. The zone of proximal development

As part of the Department for Education Teachers’ Standards, teachers must adapt teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all pupils. This includes knowing when and how to differentiate appropriately and using approaches which enable pupils to be taught effectively (Department for Education, 2011). We looked at the Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky) and how we ensure pupils avoid the ‘panic zone’.

As Martin Robinson (2013) says: “We are empowered by knowing things and this cannot be left to chance”. We cannot assume that more able learners know it all and simply leave them to their own devices in lessons. In contrast, we must avoid providing work that they are too comfortable with, resulting in easy learning and limited progress.

4. Myths and misconceptions

We looked at common myths surrounding more able learners and agreed that many of these are unfounded and untrue. Not all more able pupils are easy to identify because the opportunities are not always provided for talents to emerge. Likewise, SEN can mask multi-exceptionalities and we should ensure we have measures in place to identify these. We are also aware that the more able learners are not always the most popular or confident; many will suffer from ‘tall poppy syndrome’ or ‘imposter syndrome’.

5. High expectations for all

The key message is ensuring all learners have high aspirations and expectations and are provided with different routes to meet these. The research indicates that good differentiation is setting high-challenge learning objectives defined in detail with steps to success mapped out. It includes looking at the variety of ways teachers support and scaffold students to reach ambitious goals over time. We should avoid using language that sends a message to students that this part of the curriculum is not for them and that high expectations are only for ‘some’. We know that teaching to the top will raise aspirations for all learners.

“Effective differentiation is about ensuring every pupil, no matter their background and starting point, is headed towards the same destination, albeit their route and pace may differ. In other words, we should not ‘dumb down’ and expect less of some pupils, but should have high expectations of every pupil.” – Matt Bromley (SecEd, April 2019)

6. Developing literacy and writing skills

As part of our School Improvement Plan, we have a renewed focus on disciplinary literacy. Embedding this in lessons is a key way to ensure all pupils are able to express themselves within their subject domain.

“The limits of my language are the limits of my mind.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

The range of writing we ask students to do is broad: analytical, evaluative, descriptive, explanatory, persuasive. Expecting them to shift between these without a clear structure is understandably going to create problems, so good modelling is essential. To support this, our MAT Coordinators have been using visualisers to model how to use key words in writing and to close the ‘knowing and doing gap’.

7. Metacognition

Externalising our thinking aloud enables pupils to improve metacognition. This is an essential skill in critical thinking and self-regulated, lifelong learning. It is important for learners to have skills in metacognition because they are used to monitor and regulate reasoning, comprehension, and problem-solving, which are fundamental components of effective learning.

8. Curriculum planning

We finished our meeting by looking at the new education inspection framework, specifically the guidance on subject curriculum content. Does it emphasise ‘enabling knowledge’ to ensure that it is remembered? Is the subject content sequenced so pupils build useful and increasingly complex schemata?

Our next Hub meeting will focus on the most effective ways to build up pupils’ store of knowledge in long-term memory.

References:

• Bromley, M. (2019) Effective differentiation: What does it look like in practice? SecEd April 2019.
• Robinson, M. (2013) Trivium 21c: Preparing Young People for the Future with Lessons from the Past. Carmarthen, Wales: Independent Thinking Press.

 

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