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

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.

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.

Amanda Hubball, Deputy Head and More Able Lead at Alfreton Nursery School, explores the power of metacognition in empowering young people to overcome potential barriers to achievement.  

Disadvantage presents itself in different ways and has varying levels of impact on learners. It is important to remember that disadvantage is wider than children who are in receipt of pupil premium or children who have a special educational need. Disadvantage can be based around family circumstances, for example bereavement, divorce, mental health… Disadvantages can be long-term or short-term and the fluidity of disadvantage needs to be acknowledged in order for educators to remain effective and vigilant for all children, including more able learners. If we accept that disadvantage can impact any child at any time, then it is essential that we provide all children with the tools they need to navigate challenge.    

More able learners are as vulnerable to the impact of disadvantage as other learners and indeed research would suggest that outcomes for more able learners are more dramatically impacted by disadvantage than outcomes for other children. A cognitive toolbox that is familiar, understood and accessible at all times, can be a highly effective support for learners when there are barriers to progress. By ensuring that all learners are taught metacognition from the beginning of their educational journey and year on year new metacognition skills are integrated, a child is empowered to maintain a trajectory for success.       

How can metacognition reduce barriers to learning?         

Metacognition supports children to consciously access and manipulate thinking strategies, thus enabling them to solve problems. It can allow them to remain cognitively engaged for longer, becoming emotionally dysregulated less frequently. A common language around metacognition enables learners to share strategies and access a clear point of reference, in times of vulnerability. Some more able learners can find it hard to manage emotions related to underachievement. Metacognition can help children to address both these emotional and cognitive demands.

In order for children to impact their long-term memory and fully embed metacognitive strategies, educators need to teach in many different ways. Metacognition needs to be visually reflected in the learner’s environment, supporting teachers to teach and learners to learn.   

How do we do this at Alfreton Nursery School?

At Alfreton Nursery School we ensure that discourse is littered with practical examples of how conscious thinking can result in deeper understanding. Spontaneous conversations are supported by visual aids around the classroom, enabling teachers and learners to plan and reflect on thinking strategies. Children are empowered to integrate the language of metacognition as they explain their learning and strive for greater understanding.

Adults in school use metacognitive terms when talking freely to each other, exposing children to their natural use. Missed opportunities are openly shared within the teaching team, supporting future developments.

Within enrichment groups, metacognition is a transparent process of learning. Children are given metacognitive strategies at the beginning of enhancement opportunities and encouraged to reflect and evaluate at the end. Whether working indoors or outdoors, with manipulatives or abstract concepts and individually or in a group, metacognition is a vehicle through which all learners can access lesson content.

We use the ‘Thinking Moves’ metacognition framework (you can read more about this here). Creative application of this framework supports the combination of metacognition words, to make strings of thinking strategies. For example, a puppet called FRED helps children to Formulate, Respond, Explain and Divide their learning experiences. A QUEST model helps children to follow a process of Questioning, Using, Explaining, Sizing and Testing.

Metacognition supports children of all abilities, ages and backgrounds, to overcome barriers to learning. Disadvantage is thus reduced.

Moving from intent to implementation

Systems and procedures at Alfreton Nursery School serve to scaffold day to day practice and provide a backdrop of expectations and standards. In order to best serve more able children who are experiencing disadvantage, these frameworks need to be explicit in their inclusivity and flexibility. Just as every policy, plan, assessment, etc will address the needs of all learners – including those who are more able – so all these documents explicitly address how metacognition will support all learners. To ensure that visions move beyond ‘intent’ and are fully implemented, systems need to guide provision through a metacognitive lens.  

Metacognition is woven into all curriculum documents. A systematic and dynamic monitoring system, which tracks the progress and attainment of all learners, ensures that children have equal focus on cognition and emotion, breaking down barriers with conscious intent.

 

At Alfreton Nursery School, those children who are more able and experiencing disadvantage receive a carefully constructed meta-curriculum which scaffolds their journey towards success, in whatever context that may manifest itself. Children learn within an environment where teachers can articulate, demonstrate and inculcate the power of metacognition, enabling children to be the best that they can be.

How is your school empowering and supporting young people to break down potential barriers to learning and achievement? Read more about NACE’s research focus for this academic year, and contact us to share your experiences.

Embedding oracy skills across the curriculum

Oracy scaffolds to develop classroom talk

• Voice 21 classroom listening ladders: high-ability students can take on leadership roles in group discussions, facilitating peer learning and mentoring others, which not only reinforces their understanding but enhances their social and emotional skills.  
• Student age-related oracy frameworks from Voice 21: to encourage high-ability students to articulate their learning processes, reflect on their contributions, and assess their growth.   
• Sentence stems and talking roles: high-ability students thrive in environments that challenge their thinking. Oracy practices with sentence stems support argumentation, encourage deep analysis and critical reasoning. 
• Voice 21 good discussion guidelines: exposure to diverse perspectives can challenge high-ability students’ thinking and expand intellectual horizons. 
• Proof of listening guidelines from Voice 21: listening helps high-ability students build better relationships with their peers and teachers. When students feel heard, they are more likely to engage and participate in the learning process, creating a positive and inclusive classroom atmosphere. 
• Student talk tactics and sentence stems from Voice 21 for every discussion and debate: high-ability students thrive in environments that challenge their thinking, and these tactics stimulate intellectual curiosity and critical analysis. These improved whole-class discussions and have greatly impacted group work as the children are more focused, listen carefully to others, build on their ideas, embed learning and address misconceptions. Overall, it has helped students to become confident, eloquent individuals and created a more effective learning environment.

Public speaking practice

Dialogic learning communities 

A stronger voice within and beyond the classroom

• Voice 21
• Oracy Cambridge
• We need to talk, 2024 – Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England
• Oracy: the why and the how – Chartered College
• Oracy Skills Framework – Oracy Cambridge and Voice 21 
• Oracy Benchmarks – Voice 21

P4C has been a pedagogical approach which has been embedded at Alfreton Nursery School for over 5 years. The approach has gradually morphed from being a daily intervention for targeted children, into a whole school, cross curricular approach to teaching and learning.

1. 4Cs

The 4Cs which underpin the P4C philosophy: Caring, Collaborative, Critical and Creative, represent types of thinking to be encouraged within a culture of enquiry. At Alfreton these four approaches to thinking have been adopted as keys to learning and teaching across the curriculum.  Children are reminded, for example, of the need to think in a collaborative way when building with blocks, to show caring thinking when in the home corner, apply critical thinking when solving a maths problem and apply their creative thinking when discussing a story. Teachers explicitly model these four Cs and highlight whenever they witness a child using them and they will mirror the use of these thinking approaches, clearly identifying strategies they too are using.

Within story groups the 4Cs are applied with a differentiated approach. In our first story group the focus remains clearly on Caring thinking.  As children’s understanding grows, they are then supported to explore the concept of collaborative thinking. More able learners are taught to independently apply all four thinking approaches within these sessions.

2. Enquiry based curriculum

The implementation of P4C across the curriculum has meant that children are taught about open mindsets. Children are taught to wonder, question, debate and share in a climate of respect and acceptance. Opinions rather than facts underpin the way children interact with their learning and rather than being passive receptors of knowledge, children are taught to actively engage with their learning. P4C training encourages teacher reflection and the conscious implementation of role within a lesson. At Alfreton Nursery School teaching staff consider within their planning whether they intend to guide learners from a position of open ended potential or instead to teach with a clearly intended outcome. We believe there is space for both within daily interactions but in order to ensure the balance between adult and child voice, teacher role needs to be clear.

Children are taught the importance of empathy for others perspectives and various stimulus are used to provoke challenge.  For more able learners, question quadrants help children understand different types of questions and raise awareness that some questions are void of a clear answer.  Opinion corners are used to enable more able children to illustrate their thinking and to appreciate others ’thinking.  Children are then supported to either maintain their view or on consideration of others thoughts, yield.

3. Circle time enquiries

The more formal enquiry model is used with more able learners, but has been carefully adapted to support young children’s thinking.  An enquiry will take a week of 10 minute sessions daily and will begin with a stimulus. Children are supported to formulate a question and this can require a great deal of teacher support in the initial stages. We find in nursery that young children can find it challenging to formulate a question rather than a headline. This process may take two sessions. One question is then selected to pursue and the question quadrant supports how we will seek an answer.

The rest of the week will be taken with debating and exploring possible answers, and if the question is philosophical in its nature, our final reflection will support children’s acceptance of difference. The social behaviour within an enquiry is an essential element to the process. Respect for others when they are speaking and offering contributions to the group enquiry through gesture, form the parameters of collaboration.

4. Continuous provision

Within the continuous provision of our nursery classroom, Alfreton Nursery School provides specific stimulus for all children, linked to children’s literature. For example, during a focus on stories with a woodland theme, the keyword stimulus may be ‘Nature’. Artefacts and images supporting and challenging the meaning of nature will be available to support developing thinking. Over the course of the week, big, open-ended questions will be collected and displayed to support children’s engagement.

• ‘What is nature?’
• ‘Is nature at my house?’
• ‘Am I nature?’
• ‘Is nature in space?’
  

Talking, writing, drawing, singing, dancing, role play...are all encouraged as a means of responding to a stimulus. 

Conclusion

P4C can be seen as a formal process, and with this assumption comes a belief that nursery children cannot engage fully in the pedagogy.  Alfreton Nursery School refutes such a belief and can demonstrate that an enquiry based curriculum can provide nursery aged children with the freedom to form opinions and explore social influence. Young children need opportunities to reflect on their lived experience and feel exposure to wider concepts. P4C in nursery has powerful impact on children’s development as learners and grows individuals capable of critical and creative thinking within a culture of care and collaboration. All children benefit from a P4C approach, progressing rapidly across the whole curriculum, due to their increased capacity to question, respond to alternative perspectives and work together to solve problems.  

Planning assessment using oral questions

Questioning, dialogic discourse and oracy are recognised as important aspects of teaching and learning  but we must not forget that they are also important features of assessment. Questioning is routinely used as a formative assessment strategy. The teacher asks questions to establish whether pupils understand the content being shared. Misconceptions can be identified, and progress can be measured. The teacher can then make an appropriate learning decision and guide pupils to achieve the objectives.

Within a cognitively challenging learning environment the planning for teaching and assessment will include questions designed to not only to achieve these purposes but also to deepen, challenge and inspire learning. To develop assessment practices which support cognitively challenging learning the teacher must consider the nature of the questions being asked and their position within the lesson.

Teachers often use closed questions which require a specific response enables the teacher to assess whether specific facts are remembered. Closed questioning may include:

• quick fire questions (hands up response)
• peppered questions (quick retrieval around the class no hands up)
• call and response (ritual and repetition, response in unison)
• whole class response (possibly using white boards)

It is important for all pupils and particularly more able pupils to have a wide repertoire of knowledge and skills. By using these ongoing low stakes assessments pupils develop their knowledge recall and memory. The disadvantage of closed questions when working with more able pupils is that they often distract from the learning and take place when deeper learning is possible. The teacher must therefore plan carefully for these and have a good understanding of the needs of the class so that the questions are perceived positively within the learning and lead to benefits for the pupils.

By contrast open questions provide opportunities for healthy discussions and debate. Open-ended questions add interest to the lesson; challenging the pupils and enhancing thinking. The teacher can use these to check understanding, gain a fresh perspective on pupils’ learning and promote cognition.

If pupils need to bring together ideas to solve problems then convergent questioning may be used. At the start of a lesson or topic the convergent question might be used to assess existing knowledge and understanding. To encourage convergent thinking the teacher may ask pupils to analyse different types of solution and justify their choice of the most appropriate solution. By contrast a teacher wishing to assess higher order cognitive learning such as evaluation, analysis or synthesis may use divergent questions.

One type of divergent question which is often used to both teach and assess learning is the “BIG QUESTION”. Using this, the teacher opens the learning up to include greater breadth and depth. A Big Question has the potential to promote independent learning through research and shared knowledge. A teacher may use this type of question to enable pupils to move beyond the planned content and introduce their own experience and interests. Alternatively, the question may be devised to provide cognitive challenge and to help pupils to organise the knowledge they already possess. Although this style of questioning is often viewed as a teaching tool it cannot be successful without ongoing assessment, review and refinement.

The use of questioning as an assessment technique not only requires an appropriate choice of question type but a careful consideration of how and when a question might be used. In the context of spoken questions, the teacher must decide at what point in the learning process the questions can provide most information about the learning and have the greatest impact on  learning.

The teacher might pose questions from the front of the  class, set questions which promote whole class or group dialogic discourse or pose individual questions. When a teacher poses questions to the whole class there is a risk that more able pupils answer a disproportionate number of questions or remain passive when there is little cognitive challenge. This can be addressed by promoting shared discussion through think-pair-share techniques. When the teacher decides to question the whole class, challenge can be achieved by asking questions which require pupils to continuously improve responses by asking pupils to say it again but better.

Once questioning techniques have become well established they not only provide a means of formative assessment but also enable assessment to become part of the learning process. The questions asked at the start of a programme of study or at the beginning of the lesson provide a baseline for instruction. Teachers know what the pupils can remember and how well they use their knowledge. The lesson can be adapted to reflect the starting point and the additional support needed. Teachers may be able to use a cutaway model for teaching so that those who need additional input can receive this. Other pupils who have been assessed as ready for more independent learning can undertake alternative, meaningful and challenging tasks working alone, in pairs or in small groups.

Questions strategically placed as a part of the delivery of the lesson can allow the teacher to moderate the pace of the lesson and the depth of learning. In classrooms where the teacher models good questioning, speaking and listening, pupils will learn to ask questions which help them to assess their own understanding and learn well.

Questions at the end of a period of learning act as an assessment of learning so that the teacher and pupils can establish what has been learnt and understood. Following written assessment teachers provide their pupils with feedback. This is often most effective when there is some degree of whole class feedback in which both the teacher and the pupils can ask deeper questions which allow the work to be improved and learning to be deepened.

The importance of discourse as an assessment tool

When a teacher poses questions to individual pupils, groups of pupils or to the class there is a clear link to the process of instruction and the demands od end of programme assessments and examinations. The teacher wishes to be sure that pupils have the knowledge and understanding of curriculum content and the ability to apply these in a variety of contexts.

For teachers of high ability pupils or pupils who have knowledge and skills in specific areas of learning this can provide limitations as there are a bounded number of questions and responses planned within the learning. Many teachers feel nervous when discussion goes beyond the predetermined lesson or curriculum plan. They may have concerns that course content will not be completed or that the pupils may deviate into areas where the teacher’s knowledge base is less secure.

Vygotsky (1878) demonstrated the importance of language on learning. If the teacher has successfully assessed what the pupil already knows then the plan for learning takes place in the Zone of Proximal Development Pupils’ learning can be extended through interaction with others. He believed that giving a pupil appropriate assistance would be enough to achieve the task. This may be applied generally to pupils of all abilities but can be used specifically with high attainers or those underachieving but capable of high attainment.

Using this model teachers focus on three components to aid learning:

• The pupils are in the presence of someone more knowledgeable on the subject;
• The teacher uses social interaction skilfully, to allow pupils to observe and practice skills;
• Scaffolding or supportive activities with the teacher or peers support the pupil through the zone of proximal development.

Through assessment the teacher will establish what the pupil already knows.  Pupils can then work alongside others who may have greater knowledge relating to aspects of a subject. Through classroom discussion they will be able to assess what they know themselves and gain new knowledge and understanding from those around them. When considering this as part of assessment strategies pupils will benefit from good quality feedback. Pupils need to know what a good response might look like. They need opportunities within classroom discourse to examine their own responses, share their views with other and make potential improvements to learning. Scaffolding and feeding forward enables pupils to use the feedback information effectively. During the subsequent classroom discourse they can ask questions or learn about aspects of the subject which are yet to be met formally as part of the learning process. By feeding forward more able pupils can make links in learning and think more deeply about what they are learning.

Through classroom discussion pupils can achieve more than they think themselves capable of learning. Pupils can develop multiple solution pathways to complex problems. By talking and working with the teacher and others they can attempt to solve interesting and challenging problems entering an initial zone of confusion with resilience. For this to be successful assessment strategies must be well developed. The teacher must know when to prompt, when to scaffold, when to ask a specific question or provide an idea. The teacher will also plan the preparatory work or materials needed to support discourse and have a means of measuring and evaluating the nature and quality of the discourse so that it leads to deep and rewarding learning.

What has been happening in our schools?

NACE schools can provide many good examples of questioning, dialogic discourse and improved oracy used effectively both as a teaching and as an assessment tool.

One example of practice which was being trialled in some schools was the use of the Harkness method. This method which originates in the Phillips Exeter Academy, New Hampshire and named after philanthropist Edward Harkness. It was developed to kindle curiosity, encourage learning and develop respect. Pupils sit in an oval and are encouraged to initiate and lead discussions about a designated text or area of learning. Pupils can develop ideas around a topic, ask questions and share their knowledge. The teacher is then able to assess the nature and quality of input from each of the pupils and the impact prior learning may have on their contributions. Examples of the use of this ranged from younger pupils bringing LAMDA skills into normal classroom learning and the teacher recording their behaviours on post it notes to sixth form students preparing and discussing materials in preparation for A level. The discussion diagram included the location of each pupil and a line joining pupils to those they spoke to. As can be seen, the teachers’ assessment tool can be diagrammatic allowing them to measure the frequency of contribution by each pupil and the nature of the contribution. The teacher facilitates the discussion but does not lead it. Where pupils’ lack knowledge or skills the teacher may separately support these. This is a good example of learning in the Zone of Proximal Development with ongoing assessment in place.

Another example of discourse leading to improved learning was the use of more able peer mentoring with younger pupils. Here the older pupils were metacognitively well developed and were able to assess the learning needs required to succeed in each subject. They were then able to enter discussion with younger pupils to advise and support them to develop learning attributes. The younger pupils learning from the more knowledgeable older pupils.

School leaders have also been thinking about the language we use when providing feedback and the time given to pupils to respond to that feedback. Often a feedback question leads to activity but does not necessarily deepen or enhance the quality of the learning and understanding. If the teacher demonstrates expectations and provides models which pupils can aspire to then the feedback question acquires greater meaning. Pupils might be asked to think more deeply about a response, include additional information, make comparisons, draw conclusions, make choices or express opinions. They may be asked to demonstrate a process or show alternative methods. Greater complexity or depth of response may be sought. When pupils receive this type of feedback they can then ask the teacher questions or engage in discussions together so that they bring greater knowledge and insight to their work developing their metacognition and metacognitive skills which they can use in the future. Leaders making changes to marking policy found that they needed to create space for learning in this way within the curriculum plan.