Guidance, ideas and examples to support schools in developing their curriculum, pedagogy, enrichment and support for more able learners, within a whole-school context of cognitively challenging learning for all. Includes ideas to support curriculum development, and practical examples, resources and ideas to try in the classroom. Popular topics include: curriculum development, enrichment, independent learning, questioning, oracy, resilience, aspirations, assessment, feedback, metacognition, and critical thinking.
Rachel Taylor, Headteacher, Brook Field Primary School
As part of our ongoing commitment to ensuring high-quality teaching and learning, staff at Brook Field Primary School recently engaged in NACE’s on-demand training, focusing on the Creating Cognitively Challenging Classrooms course. A central element of this training for us was the “Planning to the Top” module, which focuses on developing classroom environments and learning opportunities that support deeper thinking and intellectual challenge for all pupils – not just the most able.
Following this valuable training, time was provided for dissemination across the teaching team. Subject leaders then worked collaboratively to produce subject-specific guides aimed at supporting staff in planning and delivering lessons that consistently include high-quality, cognitively demanding tasks. These guides – referred to as “Planning to the Top Pro Formas” – are now in use across the school and have become a key tool in maintaining high expectations and academic challenge within every subject.
To create these documents, subject leaders drew on a wide range of sources. These included:
The revised Bloom’s Taxonomy question and activity templates, previously developed by staff.
Insights and strategies from prior professional development sessions within their subject areas.
Resources from NACE and other organisations, including identification criteria and provision guidance for more able learners.
This thoughtful synthesis of resources ensures that the Planning to the Top Pro Formas are not only research-informed, but also practical, user-friendly, and tailored to the needs of our pupils. They provide structured support for teachers when designing tasks that require deeper levels of thinking – such as analysis, evaluation and creation – ensuring that lessons are not only accessible, but ambitious.
Importantly, these documents are not static. As part of their ongoing subject leadership responsibilities, subject leaders regularly use the pro formas during monitoring activities, including lesson visits and planning scrutiny. This helps ensure that high-level challenge is embedded across the curriculum and that the use of the documents remains purposeful and relevant. Furthermore, as leaders continue to build their expertise, they are encouraged to adapt and enhance the pro formas with new ideas and best practices. This dynamic approach ensures the documents stay ‘live’ and reflective of our evolving understanding of effective pedagogy.
As highlighted by Rosenthal and Jacobsen in their influential research: “When teachers have high expectations of their students’ abilities, they are likely to achieve higher.” This belief is at the heart of the “planning to the top” approach. By expecting all pupils to engage in complex, meaningful learning tasks, we are cultivating an environment where every child is challenged and supported to reach their full potential.
The introduction and use of Planning to the Top Pro Formas marks an exciting step forward in our teaching practice. Through them, we are reinforcing a culture of high expectations, deep thinking, and continuous professional learning – ensuring that every lesson provides rich opportunities for all children to think hard and learn deeply.
Posted By Jonathan Doherty,
13 March 2023
Updated: 07 March 2023
NACE Associate Dr Jonathan Doherty outlines the focus of this year’s NACE R&D Hub on “oracy for high achievement” – exploring the impetus for this, challenges for schools, and approaches being trialled.
This year one of the NACE Research & Development Hubs is examining the theme of ‘oracy for high achievement’. The Hub is exploring the importance of rich and extended talk and cognitive discourse in the context of shared classroom practice. School leaders and teachers participating in the Hub are seeking to improve the value and effectiveness of speaking and listening. They are developing a body of knowledge about provision and pedagogy for more able learners, sharing ideas and practice and contributing to wider research evidence on oracy through their classroom-based enquiries.
Why focus on oracy?
Oracy is one of the most used and most important skills in schools. To be able to speak eloquently and with confidence, to articulate thinking and express an opinion are all essential for success both at school and beyond. Communication is a vital skill for the 21st century from the early years, through formal education, to employment. It embraces skills for relationship building, resolving conflict, thinking and learning, and social interaction. Oral language is the medium through which children communicate formally and informally in classroom contexts and the cornerstone of thinking and learning. The NACE publication Making Space for Able Learners found that “central to most classroom practice is the quality of communication and the use of talk and language to develop thinking, knowledge and understanding” (NACE, 2020, p.38).
Oracy is very much at the heart of classroom practice: modern classroom environments resound to the sound of students talking: as a whole class, in group discussions and in partner conversations. Teachers explaining, demonstrating, instructing and coaching all involve the skills of oracy. Planned purposeful classroom talk supports learning in and across all subject areas, encouraging students to:
Analyse and solve problems
Receive, act and build upon answers
Think critically
Speculate and imagine
Explore and evaluate ideas
Dialogic teaching’ is highly influential in oracy-rich classrooms (Alexander, 2004). It uses the power of classroom talk to challenge and stretch students. Through dialogue, teachers can gauge students’ perspectives, engage with their ideas and help them overcome misunderstandings. Exploratory talk is a powerful context for classroom talk, providing students with opportunities to share opinions and engage with peers (Mercer & Dawes, 2008). It is not just conversational talk, but talk for learning. Given the importance and prevalence of classroom talk, it would be easy to assume that oracy receives high status in the curriculum, but its promotion is not without obstacles to overcome.
Challenges for schools in developing oracy skills
Covid-19 has impacted upon students’ oracy. A report from the children’s communication charity I CAN estimated that more than 1.5 million UK young people risk being left behind in their language development as a result of lost learning in the Covid-19 period (read more here). The Charity reported that the majority of teachers were worried about young people being able to catch up with their speaking and understanding as a result of the pandemic (I CAN, 2021).
With origins going back to the 1960s, the term oracy was introduced as a response to the high priority placed on literacy in the curriculum of the time. Rien ne change, with the current emphasis remaining exactly so. Literacy skills, i.e. reading and writing, continue to dominate the curriculum. Oracy extends vocabulary and directly helps with learning to read. The educationalist James Nimmo Britton famously said that “good literacy floats on a sea of talk” and recognised that oracy is the foundation for literacy.
Teachers do place value on oracy. In a 2016 survey by Millard and Menzies of 900 teachers across the sector, over 50% said they model the sorts of spoken language they expect of their students, they do set expectations high, and they initiate pair or group activities in many lessons. They also highlighted the social and emotional benefits of oracy and suggested it has untapped potential to support pupils’ employability – but reported that provision is often patchy and that CPD was sparse or even non-existent.
Another challenge is that oracy is mentioned infrequently in inspection reports. An analysis of reports of over 3,000 schools on the Ofsted database, undertaken by the Centre for Education and Youth in 2021, found that when taken in the context of all school inspections taking place each year, oracy featured in only 8% of reports.
The issue of how oracy is assessed is a further challenge. Assessment profoundly influences student learning. Changes to assessment requirements now provide schools with new freedoms to ensure their assessment systems support pupils to achieve challenging outcomes. Despite useful frameworks to assess oracy such as the toolkit from the organisation Voice 21, there is no accepted system for the assessment of oracy.
What are NACE R&D Hub participants doing to develop oracy in their schools?
The challenges outlined above make the work of participants in the Hub of real importance. With a focus on ‘oracy for high achievement’, the Hub is supporting teachers and leaders to delve deeper into oracy practices in their classrooms. The Hub supports small-scale projects through which they can evidence the impact of change and evaluate their practice. Activities are trialled over a short period of time so that their true impact can be observed in school and even replicated in other schools.
The participants are now engaged in a variety of enquiry-based projects in their classrooms and schools. These include:
Use of the Harkness Discussion method to enable more able students to exhibit greater depth of understanding, complexity of response and analytical skills within cognitively challenging learning;
Explicit teaching of oracy skills to improve independent discussion in science and history lessons;
Introduction of hot-seating to improve students’ ability to ask valuable questions;
Choice in oral tasks to improve the quality of students’ analytical skills;
Oracy structures in collaborative learning to challenge more able students’ deeper learning and analysis;
Better reasoning using oracy skills in small group discussion activities;
Interventions in drama to improve the quality of classroom discussion.
Share your experience
We are seeking NACE member schools to share their experiences of effective oracy practices, including new initiatives and well-established practices. You may feel that some of the examples above are similar to practices in your own school, or you may have well-developed models of oracy teaching and learning that would be of interest to others. To share your experience, simply contact us, considering the following questions:
How can we implement effective oracy strategies without dramatically increasing teacher workload?
How can we best develop oracy for the most able in mixed ability classrooms?
What approaches are most effective in promoting oracy in group work so that it is productive and benefits all learners?
How can we implicitly teach pupils to justify and expand their ideas and make clear opportunities to develop their understanding through talk and deepen their understanding?
How do we evidence challenge for oracy within lessons?
Teachers should develop students’ spoken language, reading, writing and vocabulary as integral aspects of the teaching of every subject. Every teacher is a teacher of oracy. The report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group inquiry into oracy in schools concluded that there was an indisputable case for oracy as an integral aspect of education. This adds to a growing and now considerable body of evidence to celebrate the place that oracy has in our schools and in our society. Oracy is in a unique place to support the learning and development of more able pupils in schools and the time to give oracy its due is now.
References
Alexander, R. J. (2004) Towards dialogic teaching: Rethinking classroom talk. York, UK: Dialogos.
Britton, J. (1970) Language and learning. London: Allen Lane. [2nd ed., 1992, Portsmouth NH: Boynton/Cook, Heinemann].
I CAN (2021) Speaking Up for the Covid Generation. London: I CAN Charity.
Lowe, H. & McCarthy, A. (2020) Making Space for Able Learners. Didcot, Oxford: NACE.
Mercer, N. &. Dawes., L. (2008) The Value of Exploratory Talk. In Exploring Talk in School, edited by N. Mercer and S. Hodgkinson, pp. 55–71. London: Sage.
Millard, W. & Menzies, L. (2016) The State of Speaking in Our Schools. London: Voice 21/LKMco.
Millard, W., Menzies, L. & Stewart, G. (2021) Oracy after the pandemic: what Ofsted, teachers and young people think about oracy. Centre for Education & Youth/University of Oxford.
NACE Research and Development Director Hilary Lowe explores the relationship between language and learning, and the development of language-rich learning environments as a key factor in cognitively challenging learning experiences.
“We use language to define our world, while at the same time the social world in which we live defines our language. The structure of language and the variation we find within it depend both on the social world as well as the ways in which we create an identity for ourselves and the ways in which we build relations with others. Understanding how language both constrains our thoughts and actions and how we use language to overcome those constraints are important lessons for all educators.” (Silver & Lewin, 2013)
We are sometimes so busy talking in classrooms that we forget about the centrality of language for learning. It is for this reason that this blog post focuses on what is arguably a neglected area in the training of teachers: an understanding of the primacy of language in the learning process, of the link between language and higher-level cognition and high achievement, and the critical role of teachers in developing high-level language skills at all stages of schooling.
The development of language and literacy has long been a tenet of the National Curriculum as well as a significant area of research. Research such as that from Oxford Children’s Language (Oxford, 2018; 2020) has continued to emphasise the importance of linguistic wealth, and the link between paucity of language and academic failure and diminished life chances.
The notion of ‘oracy’ has been less visible in policy developments but has received more recent attention through, for example, the survey undertaken by the Centre for Education and Youth and Oxford University (2021) and the Oracy APPG Speak for Change Inquiry report (April, 2021). The APPG inquiry found that the development of spoken language skills requires purposeful and intentional teaching and learning throughout children’s schooling. It also found that there is a concerning variation in the time and attention afforded to oracy across schools, meaning that for many children the opportunity to develop these skills is left to chance. The inquiry concluded that there is an indisputable case for oracy as an integral aspect of education. The conclusions also emphasised the primordial place of oracy for young people and the critical role of employers, teachers and Ofsted in trying to ensure that these skills are developed to a high level.
In the first phase of NACE’s research initiative Making Space for Able Learners, which focuses on cognitive challenging learning, we were delighted to find examples of effective practices in language development and use, which led us to a renewed interest in the significance of language and discourse in high achievement. The schools in the project which demonstrated consistently excellent practice and high achievement for their most able learners had a systematic and systemic approach to the development and use of high-level language skills alongside wider literacy and oracy development (see below for examples).
Some background: language, thinking and learning
The interaction between thought and language has long been the subject of research and academic debate. The thesis that natural language is involved in human thinking is universally well supported, although research into language and cognition often makes reference to ‘strong and weak theories’ of this thesis. Research suggests that higher-level language processes hold a pivotal role in higher-order executive and cognitive activities such as inference and comprehension, and indeed wider expressive communication skills.
Vygotsky (1978) writes that "[…] children solve practical tasks with the help of their speech, as well as their eyes and hands" (p. 26). In Vygotsky's view, speech is an extension of intelligence and thought, a way to interact with one's environment beyond physical limitations: “[…] the most significant moment in the course of intellectual development, which gives birth to the purely human forms of practical and abstract intelligence, occurs when speech and practical activity, two previously completely independent lines of development, converge.” (p. 24).
This higher level of development enables children to transcend the immediate, to test abstract actions before they are employed. This permits them to consider the consequences of actions before performing them. But most of all, language serves as a means of social interaction between people, allowing "the basis of a new and superior form of activity in children, distinguishing them from animals" (p. 28f). Vygotsky wrote, "human learning presupposes a specific social nature and a process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them" (p. 88). Language acts both as a vehicle for educational development and as an indispensable tool for understanding and knowledge acquisition.
In the classroom, therefore, we need to attend to the development of higher-level language processes as explicitly as we do to substantive subject skills and knowledge.
The functions of language in education
The various functions of language most pertinent in the classroom include:
Expression: ability to formulate ideas orally and in writing in a meaningful and grammatically correct manner.
Comprehension: ability to understand the meaning of words and ideas.
Vocabulary: lexical knowledge.
Naming: ability to name objects, people or events.
Fluency: ability to produce fast and effective linguistic content.
Discrimination: ability to recognize, distinguish and interpret language-related content.
Repetition: ability to produce the same sounds one hears.
Writing: ability to transform ideas into symbols, characters and images.
Reading: ability to interpret symbols, characters and images and transform them into speech.
(Lecours, 1998).
All of these functions are key components in the teaching and learning process. Teachers and students use spoken and written language to communicate with each other formally and informally. Students use language to comprehend, to question and interrogate, to present tasks and learning acquired – to display knowledge and skills. Teachers use language to explain, illustrate and model, to assess and evaluate learning. Both use language to develop relationships, knowledge of others and of self. But language is not just a medium for communication – it is intricately bound up with the nature of knowledge and thought itself.
What does this mean for cognitively challenging learning?
For the development of high levels of cognition and to achieve highly, pupils need to develop the language associated with higher-order thinking skills in all areas of the curriculum, such as hypothesising, evaluating, inferring, generalising, predicting or classifying (Gibbons, 1991).
In an educational context it is through iterations of linguistic interactions between teacher and student – and peer to peer – that the process of advancing in learning and knowledge occurs. As Hodge (1993) notes, with limited time in the classroom, teachers often spend much of the available time conveying information rather than ensuring comprehension. This reduces the opportunities for a range of linguistic interactions and for learners to acquire and practise the higher-level language skills associated with high achievement. Planning and organising teaching and learning therefore needs to allow for an increase in opportunities for rich language environments and interactions alongside a cognitively challenging curriculum.
In the NACE research project school visits, we witnessed numerous incidences of highly effective and consistent practices in classroom discourse which clearly contributed to the achievement of highly able learners. These included:
Teachers modelling advanced language and skilled explanation and questioning;
Pupils being taught the language of skills such as reasoning, synthesis, evaluation;
Frequent use of ‘dialogic’ frameworks and enquiry-based learning;
The use of disciplinary discourse and higher tiers of language;
Instructional models which include and prioritise the above.
Examples of effective, language-rich learning environments from the project include:
Portswood Primary School: focus on the early development of vocabulary, language and talk. Teachers use sophisticated language to communicate expectations and learning.
Alfreton Nursery School: teaching develops skills of concentration, as pupils focus on a central stimulus/object and formulate “big questions”. There is also an explicit focus on team working with reference to reasons “why we can agree to disagree” and the importance of listening. The teacher follows these pupil-led ideas in later sessions.
Glyncoed Primary School: a challenging curriculum is achieved through planning and delivery of problem solving-based activities, extended and cognitively demanding tasks, and pupil choice. Teacher talk and high-level and qualitatively differentiated questioning, rich dialogue and cognitive talk is in evidence. Excellent modelling and explanations are also pervasive.
Greenbank High School: pupils are stimulated by differentiated questions prompting them to test hypotheses, make predictions and transfer their knowledge to new contexts. As a result, pupils are working at a strong, sustained pace.
You can read more about the project and order copies of the report here.
Improving the quality and nature of linguistic interaction and discourse within the classroom can better equip learners to engage in cognitive challenge. Learners thus equipped can also move more effectively from guided practice to independence and self-regulation. Teachers working with more able pupils must have a clear pedagogical strategy in mind, with discourse and well-planned questioning an integral part of that strategy. By using a highly interactive pedagogical model, which is language-dependent, teachers get rapid feedback about how well knowledge schemas are forming and how fluent pupils have become in retrieving and using what they have learnt. Working with the most able learners, the quality of questioning and questioning routines must provide the teacher with diagnostic information and the pupils with increased challenge.
Creating language-rich schools and classrooms: implications for teacher development
The development of language is too important to be left to be ‘caught’ alongside the rest of the taught curriculum. We need to give it explicit attention across the curriculum, alongside subject knowledge and skills. To do this expertly teachers should have access to professional development opportunities which give them insights into substantive areas of language acquisition and development – including what that means at different ages and stages and for learners of different abilities and language experience.
NACE’s future CPD and resources will therefore focus on issues in and strategies for language development for high achievement, including:
Case studies of NACE evidence schools with excellent practice in language for high achievement;
The language needs and characteristics of different learners, including the most able;
Creating language-rich school environments;
Approaches to teaching and learning for language development;
EAL learners;
Developing a whole-school language policy.
Schools accredited with the NACE Challenge Award are invited to join our free termly Challenge Award Schools Network Group events (online) to share effective practice in this and other areas. View upcoming events here, or contact communications@nace.co.uk to learn more about NACE’s work in this field and/or to share your school’s experience.
Despite and also because of what is happening around us currently, we are returning to the big questions in education – what should schools be teaching, and how should we assess that on a day-to-day basis and for the purposes of public accountability and progression throughout all phases of education?
All the big questions are complex, but assessment is a particularly devilish one. It raises issues of course such as what we should be assessing (and ‘measuring’) and when, but also of how to reflect the different rates of progress and the learning capacities of different young people, of how to assess skills as well as knowledge, and of the place of current and possible future technologies in educational assessment. Assessment must also address wider questions of educational equity.
The smaller questions are also important – of how everyday formative and summative assessment practices in all classrooms, real and virtual, can be as effective as possible. All teachers must become as proficient in assessment as they are in pedagogy – two sides of the same coin. We return therefore to the central importance of high-quality, evidence-informed professional development and evaluation and planning tools for schools.
Your chance to contribute: NACE member survey
NACE has a keen interest in contributing to the debate about how everyday assessment practices and public accountability systems may be improved and reformed to the benefit of all learners, including the most able. As an organisation serving schools directly, we plan to start by looking at aspects which have current and practical application for teachers, informing the development of resources (including enhancement of the NACE Curriculum Audit Tool) and training programmes to support schools. Our engagement will also take account of the rapidly evolving context in which schools are working, and of the importance of improving day-to-day formative and summative assessment practices.
Our initial focus will be on:
The assessment of remote learning;
Assessment literacies and practices to promote the learning of more able pupils.
Both areas will of course make reference to issues of educational equity.
As a membership organisation we very much want to involve our members in our work on assessment, and to that end we are inviting members to respond to an online survey focusing on remote feedback and assessment. This will be used alongside a review of emerging best practice and theory in everyday assessment practices, including assessment of remote learning. Your survey contributions will be an important part of our work in this area, and we will feed the initial results back, so that you can benefit from others’ experiences. .
To contribute, please complete the survey by 4 February 2021.
Dr Ann McCarthy, NACE Associate and co-author of NACE’s new publication “Cognitive challenge: principles into practice”.
To group or not to group: that is the question…
The organisation and management of cognitively challenging learning environments is one of three focus areas highlighted in NACE’s new research publication, “Cognitive challenge: principles into practice”, which marks the first phase in our “Making Space for Able Learners” project. Developed in partnership with NACE Challenge Award-accredited schools, the research examines the impact of cognitive challenge in current school practice against a backdrop of relevant research.
As teachers, we aim to provide a cognitively challenging learning environment for our more able and exceptionally able pupils, which is beneficial to them. The organisational decisions surrounding this should therefore optimise opportunities for learning. Teachers and school leaders must not only consider content to be studied, but also the impact of classroom management decisions from the perspective of the learner. The NACE research showed that these classroom management and organisational decisions were one of three key factors impacting on cognitively challenging learning, alongside curriculum organisation and design and the use of rich and extended talk and cognitive discourse.
One aspect of managing cognitively challenging learning environments is any choice relating to mixed ability teaching versus a variety of designs for selection and grouping by ability. Within the classroom the teacher also balances demands to provide opportunities for all, while simultaneously identifying the nature and opportunity for challenge.
Does ability grouping benefit learners?
There is a paucity of strong evidence that ability grouping is beneficial to academic outcomes for all. However, Parsons and Hallam (2014) did find that grouping can benefit more able pupils. This benefit is not necessarily associated with the act of setting, but with the quality of teaching provided for these groups. Pupils also have opportunities to work at a faster pace, but against this aspiration, Boaler et al. (2000) found pace incompatible with understanding for many pupils. Regardless of the choice made to group or not to group, there is a need to reflect on whether teaching is homogenous or designed to meet the needs of the pupils. Often the weakness is the assumption that grouping alone will drive the learning experience, without an understanding of the cognitive and emotional impact this has on the pupils themselves.
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has examined the use of setting and streaming, which are usually related to attainment rather than ability, and has found that there is often a small negative impact for disadvantaged pupils and lower abilities. When designing learner groupings, it is important to be aware of the impact for all learners and create a beneficial model for all.
How should teachers and schools approach ability grouping?
First, decide what you hope to teach and what it is pupils have the potential to achieve, given enough learning opportunities. Remember, learning is not limited to reproducing planned content by rote, but instead its success lies within a growth of knowledge, its complexity, and its application. Pupils bring a wide range of prior learning, knowledge and experiences which they can share with each other and use to construct new schema. In a well-designed learning environment, pupils have the potential to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding beyond the delivered content. Young et al. (2014) demonstrate the importance of powerful knowledge which takes pupils beyond their own experiences. The development of metacognition and exposure to wider experience should therefore be included in decisions related to the organisation of groups and lesson planning.
Second, decide what environment will provide the best learning experience for the pupils.
Is it best to present advanced curricula at an accelerated rate?
Does teaching include multiple high-order thinking models and skills?
Is learning pupil-centred?
Are multiple modality enquiry methods in play?
Will grouping take account of the complexity of ability and enhance its manifestation?
Will pupils benefit from a wide range of perspectives?
Will pupils utilise the learning experiences of others to reflect upon and refine their own learning?
The answers to these questions will help teachers to make decisions regarding the nature of grouping and classroom organisation. The choice of model should be one which most benefits the learner, one which is not driven by systemic organisational requirements, and one which recognises the impact of external factors on perceived ability.
Finally, what models are available and how can cognitive challenge be achieved within them?
Mixed ability grouping has the benefit of exposing pupils to the wider knowledge, background, and experience of others. In these environments, problems with different layers of complexity and multiple learning routes are often used. The big question or cognitively challenging proposition often promotes the learning with supporting systems and prompts in place for those challenged by the learning.
Cutaway models are an alternative to the simpler mixed ability model. In the cutaway approach, the teacher constantly assesses pupils’ learning and needs and directs their learning to maximise opportunities, growth, and development. Pupils join and leave the shared learning (“cutting away” as appropriate), based on prior learning and their response to the existing task. This model develops and utilises independence and metacognition.
Grouping by task is often used when it is possible to create smaller groups working on different tasks within the same classroom. The teacher uses very specific knowledge relating to pupils’ prior learning and abilities to organise the classroom groups. The teacher can therefore target the teaching to respond to more specific learning opportunities, which in turn can increase pupils’ enjoyment and engagement in their learning.
Grouping by subject is an extension of grouping by task. If pupils learn all their subjects within the same class group, this enables the teacher to note the different strengths within the subject. In larger schools, pupils are often grouped by overall performance in specific subjects. This model might include advanced curriculum and require higher-order thinking skills. Pupils might be given opportunities to research more deeply into areas of interest. For this model to be successful there needs to be fluidity between the groups so that pupils are well-placed to enjoy cognitively challenging experiences.
With these ideas in mind, schools will then create an overarching model which reflects the school vision, ethos and culture. Teachers will consistently strive to provide cognitively challenging learning opportunities which benefit all. They use their knowledge of the pupils’ past and present learning and their vision of what the pupils can be and can achieve in the future to design the learning environment. They then organise the classroom to excite, engage and challenge their pupils – remembering that regardless of the sophistication of the approach, every group will be mixed ability as no two pupils are identical. If high-quality and engaging teaching is child-centred and not homogenous, then pupils will excel in cognitively challenging classrooms.
References
Boaler, J., Wiliam, D. and Brown, M. (2000). Students’ experiences of ability grouping – disaffection, polarisation and the construction of failure. British Education Research Journal, 26 (5), 631–648.
Parsons, S. and Hallam, S. (2014). The impact of streaming on attainment at age seven: evidence from the Millennium Cohort Study. The Oxford Review of Education, 40 (5), 567-589.
VanTassel-Baska, J. and Brown, E. (2007) Toward Best Practice: An analysis of the efficacy of curriculum models in gifted education. Gifted Child Quarterly, 52, 342.
Young, M and Muller, J. (2013). On the Powers of Powerful Knowledge. Review of Education1(3) 229-250.
When thinking about the future of any part of the economy and society, most futurists will start by looking back. The reason for this is quite simple. First, it is important to understand the journey to where we are now, or where we think we are. Second, it helps us focus on past predictions about what would happen that did not and why. Finally, it helps understand if the sector being considered has taken full advantage of long-term trends and that trend has run out of steam, or still has a while to go.
Much hype in the tech sector over the last decade and more has been around “big data”. Since the exam chaos of the summer, there has been an increased interest in alternatives to the current systems of assessment and certifications. One topic, learning analytics, has been growing in interest in my email and social media conversations since lockdown. This is the “big data” in education movement in one of its manifestations.
Here, I want to look at the wider issues of data in education by contrasting my school years (the 1960s) with today.
Try this as a little exercise. Think of a year between 1990 and 2015. Now choose a F1 Grand Prix race. Then Google “winner 1997 Monaco Grand Prix” with your chosen years and race substituted for mine. In less than a minute from start to finish you can get the answer.
Now back in the 1960s, maybe some people would have had sports annuals and could look the answer up. Maybe you had a racing nut among your friends who would know the answer. If not, a trip to a local library which may or may not have had a book with the answer, during opening hours. Most people would have given up.
Note: it does not matter whether you are interested or expert in F1; the answer is available on demand.
So, the first question I want to pose to educationalists is this:
“How has what is taught, how it is taught and assessed changed to take advantage of the widespread availability of data on demand?”
This growth of availability also brings new challenges.
First, different cultures have different answers to the same questions. Try asking Siri who invented television. The Americans claim Philo Farnsworth. As you enter Helensburgh in the West Coast of Scotland the welcome sign says, “Birthplace of John Logie Baird, inventor of television”. Who is correct?
Add to this various conspiracy theories around COVID-19, vaccines, 5G and many more issues: the need for information literacy among teachers and pupils is clear if we are to benefit and minimise risk over this vast treasure trove of data.
So, my second question is this:
“Where in the school curriculum is this challenge addressed to ensure our youngsters have the skills to navigate the data landscape?”
If we try a more complex question, the possibilities become apparent. Jane Austen’s garden at Chawton House was laid out last time I visited using only plants that were known in England while she was alive. “What flowers were introduced into the UK during the life of Jane Austen?” would have been a PhD thesis back in the 1960s.
In an area of your own interest, think of a similar question when you have 30 minutes spare and research it online. Having worked in the industry for decades, it is amazing still to be astonished at what is available now – with all the necessary caveats about quality.
It is in this last area – quality of information – that I think support for the most able learners has the most potential. Rather than focus on teaching them against a fixed syllabus, there is potential for giving them learning challenges and developing their research capabilities and skills to discriminate among the contested claims in the information they can discover for themselves.
If interested, spend half an hour looking at the history of flight online. It is an extraordinary tale from ancient times, not just a story of the 20th century and the Wright brothers.
Online learning is not the same as online teaching.
Over 20 years ago I remember a young lad, who was a troubled individual, researching and building a history of boxing project of his own volition. His pride in demonstrating what he had discovered for himself and his desire to articulate and share his story changed his teacher’s perceptions of him.
So, here is my third question – and challenge – for you, dear reader:
“How can schools develop in the 2020s so that all our children have the skills to use the avalanche of data available on demand to stretch their imagination, creativity and learning?”
Under this there are many questions that need to be addressed, around curriculum, assessment, resources, inclusion, and importantly professional development.
In my talk at NACE’s upcoming Leadership Conference (16-20 November 2020) I will be developing this and other themes to encourage us all to imagine what schooling needs to be post-pandemic to tackle the challenges we all face as parents, teachers and citizens.
Join the conversation… NACE patron Dr Chris Yapp will lead a session at NACE’s 2020 Leadership Conference exploring how schools can optimise the use of digital technologies to extend, enrich and develop independent pursuit of learning. View the full conference programme.
In the opening weeks of this term, we held two online meetups for NACE members – focused on exploring challenges and opportunities in the current context, sharing ideas and experiences with peers, and identifying priorities and core principles for the coming weeks and months.
While acknowledging the significant differences in the experiences of both students and staff members over the past six months, the two sessions also highlighted some strong common themes and key messages:
1. Humanity first and teaching first
While wellbeing is and should remain a priority, NACE Associate Neil Jones makes the case that for more able learners, study is in fact an intrinsic part of their humanity. The meetups highlighted the need to focus on restoring learners’ confidence and self-belief; reinstating healthy and effective learning routines; showing care, calm and confidence in learners’ abilities and futures; continuing to consider the needs of the more able in planning and practice (and supporting colleagues to do so); maintaining high expectations and ambitions; and being aware of the risk of learning becoming “endless” for the more able (particularly in remote/independent learning).
2. Assess, but don’t add stress
While meetup attendees agreed on the importance of understanding where students are and identifying gaps in learning, they also emphasised the importance of achieving this without creating additional pressure, either for staff or learners. Take time over this, building in low-/no-stakes assessment, regular verbal feedback, and involving students in the process of identifying where they feel more/less confident and what they need to do next.
3. Stay ambitious in teaching and learning
A recurrent message from the meetups was the importance of remaining ambitious in teaching and learning – balancing the need to pare back/streamline without narrowing the curriculum or lowering expectations, and auditing deficits without leaping to remedial/deficit thinking. Key ideas shared included a focus on meaningful tasks; teaching to where learners could be now; choosing language carefully to inspire, excite and set high expectations; finding ways to incorporate hands-on as well as theoretical learning; finding opportunities for collaboration; and prioritising dialogic teaching and learning – recognising the loss of rich language exchange during school closures.
4.Continue to build on “lessons from lockdown”
Both sessions also highlighted the many innovative practices developed during school closures, many of which will be retained and further developed. Examples included the use of technology and/or project-based learning to support learners in working both independently and in collaboration with one another.
Finally, the meetups reinforced the importance of engaging and listening to students – involving them in conversations about their experience, interests and passions, and making them part of the creative, innovative thinking and discussion that will help schools and individuals continue to move forward positively. Or as NACE Associate Dr Keith Watson has written, “Not merely recovering, but rebounding and reigniting with energy, vigour and a celebration of talents.”
For more on these key messages and other ideas explored during the meetups, watch the recordings:
NACE member meetups are free to attend for all NACE members, offering opportunities to connect and share ideas with peers across the UK and beyond, as well as hearing from NACE Associates and leading schools.
Not yet a NACE member? Starting at just £95 +VAT per year, NACE membership is available for schools (covering all staff), SCITT providers, TSAs, trusts and clusters. Members have access to advice, practical resources and CPD to support the review and improvement of provision for more able learners within a context of challenge and high standards for all. Find out more.
Posted By The Bromfords School & Sixth Form College,
03 July 2020
Amy Clark, Assistant Headteacher for Quality of Education, explains how The Bromfords School and Sixth Form College has used Microsoft Teams to support both students and staff – delivering remote learning, pastoral support and peer-led CPD.
Being thrust into the world of remote learning has galvanised us to dig deep as a profession and do what we do best: find ways to make learning enjoyable – even in the toughest of times. At The Bromfords School, a small group of us had already been trialling the use of Microsoft Teams with our sixth form pupils to enhance the provision they were receiving, with the focus on enabling students to participate in a learning-rich environment without having to be in the classroom. Students loved having access to a digital learning space, outside of school, that they could use to have academic debates on key topics, share links to wider reading or resources and generally support each other in a collaborative way.
We also saw Teams as a way for staff to share best practice CPD. We all know what happens when you attend an amazing INSET day or twilight session; you eventually find time to do planning and create some wonderful resources that you share with colleagues, but they get lost amongst the mass of emails, meaning the brilliant work done often gets lost. The plan was to use Microsoft Teams to provide a specific space for professional dialogue about teaching and learning, where teachers could share resources, upskill each other and continue to develop as professionals.
Then along came COVID-19 and thrust our plans forward…
Using Teams for academic, pastoral and peer support
Even though the timeline for rolling out Microsoft Teams across the school was sped up, our staff certainly rose to the challenge. Whilst Teams isn’t the only software we have used to communicate remote learning to students, it is quickly becoming a space that students use for both academic and pastoral purposes.
Tutor group channels were set up on Teams for every year group, where tutors have been able to ‘check in’ each week with pupils. This has ensured that students’ academic needs are met, that students have access to advice should they need it, but most importantly, tutors could keep track of students’ mental wellbeing. Open lines of communication meant that if a child was struggling, we could support them. Students didn’t know how to work remotely, how to organise their time or how to be self-motivated; our use of Teams has provided them with methods for easy communication with an adult they are familiar with on a daily basis.
We hope that by having the lines of communication open to students and having a compulsory check-in each week, the bridge between students working in isolation at home and returning back into the building is eased and that that we are able to lower anxiety for our students.
Our Teams CPD channel has supported staff not only in developing their IT skills to enable the best possible provision for students, but also in accessing a range of ideas they might not have come across before. Our channel has ‘How to…’ videos on topics including the use of narrated PowerPoints, quizzes or forms on Teams, how to use ‘assignments’ within Teams and mark these using a rubric to give feedback on the work completed, to name just a few. Staff have also shared information on how to create drop-down and tick-boxes in Microsoft Word, where to go to get icons for dual coding, methods for increasing student engagement and other concepts that will improve remote learning.
Even staff members who are self-proclaimed ‘technophobes’ have been able to develop their IT skills to ensure the digital learning process for our pupils is as strong as it can be. The channel has enabled everyone to feel like we are all in this process together, all learning together – and nothing is as daunting when you have others by your side.
Five core principles for effective remote learning
As a school, we were keen to ensure we were catering to the needs of all our pupils during this time, with our more able students being a key focus. We wanted to ensure the provision offered to this group remained high quality so they were able to continue to be challenged academically – avoiding the dreaded generic worksheet, a one-size-fits-all approach. We also found that many of our more able were struggling with managing workload, which developed increased levels of anxiety.
A group of leaders and I developed what we felt were the five core principles of remote learning and delivered this to staff through CPD meetings, to ensure our more able students were academically and emotionally supported.
We felt that remote learning should be:
Concrete: it should have a clear purpose and learning intent that fits with the wider curriculum. There should also be clear timings for tasks so that students do not spend excessive amounts of time on projects.
Inclusive: consider how you stretch your most able students by providing links to wider reading, podcasts, challenge tasks or breadth of choice such as presentation methods.
Considerate: taking into consideration students’ learning environments and access to materials they could need. Also planning tactically so that students do not become overwhelmed with the sheer amount of work expected of them.
Reflective: students should have feedback at key points and self-assessment opportunities through sharing clearly defined success criteria.
Engaging: staff should incorporate a range of learning activities and software to avoid students becoming demotivated. Also focusing on mechanisms for praise so that students know their hard work is being recognised.
The concepts here are not new. But when staff are also dealing with the pressures and anxiety a COVID-19 teaching world presents, it is a timely reminder that the core principles of teaching must remain so that students can continue to succeed. The five core principles listed above all aim not only to enrich the remote learning a student receives, but also take into consideration students’ mental wellbeing too.
When we return to school, I hope the lessons learnt from using technology during this time do not get lost. Many members of staff have told me how much they have enjoyed using Microsoft Teams to support learning and how they will continue to use it moving forward, particularly to aid collaborative work with peers and to support home learning. Our eyes have been opened to the potential of this technology in supporting and enriching the curriculum for more able students though many of the methods listed above. It has certainly provided both staff and students with a very different learning experience, with the potential to continue to enrich learning beyond the classroom for students and increase enjoyment in developing pedagogy for staff.
Dr Matthew Williams, Access Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, shares his belief in the importance of “confident creativity” as the key to developing sustained effort and a lasting love of learning.
I am a fellow and tutor in politics at Jesus College, Oxford, and I’d like to share some thoughts on how students can be energised to “work harder”. Specifically how do we encourage sustained effort, leading to improved attainment? What follows are reflections on a decade of teaching and schools outreach work at Oxford and Reading Universities. There is a mixture of theory here, but readers should be warned there will also be big dollops of unscientifically personal recall.
As an undergraduate student of politics at the University of Bristol, the most significant learning experience came during seminars on the British Labour Party. At first, I was fairly indifferent on the subject, but the seminars entailed a mixture of traditional essay-based research and more flashy simulation-based learning. On the latter, we had a Cabinet meeting in our seminar with each of us playing real characters. I was Jim Callaghan, and I had to prepare Cabinet papers, work out strategy and tactics in order to win a fight with, in particular, Tony Benn!
The experience brought everything to life. The theoretical and practical came together, and I have to this day never forgotten the specifics of that fight in late 1976. On reflection, the primary effect of the simulation was the transformation of the subject matter from work into study. Studying is not work in the sense of being performed for someone or something else’s benefit. Instead, studying is intrinsically pleasurable. Whilst many students are motivated by long-term payoff (career prospects, reputation, power etc) many, like me, see more immediate feedback. This particular teaching style transformed the 9am walk to lectures from a reluctant trudge to an enthusiastic commute. It was revelatory.
Demystifying the means of achieving distinction
Ever since those seminars I have aspired in my personal and professional life to transform work into study. The key ingredient used by the seminar tutor was positive motivation. He made clear his interest was in us and our ideas, rather than our performance in the exam and the reputation of the university. As such, he did not want us to regurgitate the literature, rather he wanted us to know the literature so we could analyse it critically whilst presenting our own original contributions.
This was liberating. All of sudden the most complex elements of social democratic ideology and post-industrial economics were not prohibitively intimidating; they were required reading for anyone wishing to have their voice heard. In this process, we had to acknowledge we could contribute to a debate despite our relative academic inexperience. The tutor was clear: good ideas are not the monopoly of tenured professors. If we wanted to, we were perfectly capable of contributing original theoretical insights and empirical discoveries. To achieve the distinction of a first class degree our work had to be creative and, crucially, the tutor made clear we were all capable of distinction if we wanted it.
This teaching style resonated with me because it demystified the means of achieving distinction. Previously, I had assumed distinction was a matter of talent, intelligence and luck – none of which I felt much graced with. Subsequently, I realised distinction meant creativity, and creativity needed energy and self-confidence.
Understanding the importance of “confident creativity”
“Confident creativity” is not my first teaching philosophy. For a job application in 2012 I proposed a similar philosophy focused on positive motivation and confident application of skills. Whilst this is seemingly the same philosophy, the older version was predicated on teaching as the transmission of knowledge, where now I see teaching more as developing and nurturing key skills. The transmission model prioritised interesting learning materials as the fundamental variable; whilst I still consider the materials to be important, they are secondary to the students’ nurtured development of complex skills. When students internalise the skills of processing complex information, they will find interest in practically all relevant materials, without the need for unrepresentatively “sexy” content. Even a 1970s Cabinet meeting can become enthralling!
The key change in my teaching philosophy has been the realisation that motivating students should encourage a sense of independent intellectual development. This change in emphasis can be represented as a synthesis of two learning outcome hierarchies, proposed by Bloom et al (left pyramid) and Anderson & Krathwohl et al (right pyramid).
I propose a synthesis of these taxonomies, fleshed out with qualifying adjectives:
Including qualifying adjectives in Anderson & Krathwohl et al’s hierarchy allows us to assess the learning objectives in greater detail, with clearer observable implications. Adding an extra level of nuance to the concepts enriches their meaning, without losing the parsimony and clarity which are such key strengths of the original taxonomy. The addition of adjectives could be criticised as creating needless tautologies – if, for instance, we assume confidence is a necessary condition of creativity. However, creativity can be achieved without confidence if it is accidental and the student is unaware of the merits of their creativity. We need to aim for confident creativity because it is significantly more sustainable and transferable for a student to create in confidence than to be creative by accident or with heavy-handed guidance.
Transferring this approach to different contexts
Critical reflexivity is a very personal journey, and the results of my personal reflections may not be transferable. Even the phrase “teaching philosophy” connotes a sense of philosophy as retroactive rationalisation of one’s own perspective, as opposed to the analytic use of the term as a clear, open and rigorous system of thought. As Nancy Chism states, somewhat ironically, “One of the hallmarks of a philosophy of teaching statement is its individuality.” Whilst a teaching philosophy is developed through self-reflection, it requires self-awareness before it can be applied to others. Notably, teachers are somewhat unusual in their relationship with knowledge. They relish the acquisition of knowledge as an intrinsic good, where motivation to learn is rarely absent and the desire to contribute is second nature.
But what is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander. For many students school and college is first and foremost about acquiring qualifications, and therefore simply an instrument for career advancement. As such, not all students want to achieve distinction, nor see the value in risking creative contributions when a less resistant path exists. For such students there is a risk that emphasis on creativity will alienate them from the subject and the teacher. Furthermore, the development of my teaching philosophy has primarily taken place at an elite university, where boundary-pushing and intellectual confidence is far less risk-laden than in other contexts. The unflinchingly liberal environment at Oxford ascribes considerable value to intellectual creativity, perhaps at the expense of consolidation. Yet there is little utility in a teaching philosophy that is contingent on where and for whom it applies.
Nevertheless, these concerns are surmountable. Yes, academics perhaps have a gilded view of knowledge, but only because they have internalised the skills of contributing knowledge to the point where it has become (for the most part) a pleasure. It is incumbent on academics to encourage students towards a similar relationship with the world. Whilst not all students will want or feel able to contribute genuine insights, “confident creativity” is the apex of the pyramid and there are other levels of learning available to differentiate between learners. The ambition should be to encourage confident creativity, but “critical evaluation” or “balanced analysis” will be satisfactory outcomes for many students. Learners should not be forced to fit a teaching style that alienates them and a degree of differentiation between students will be required with the proviso that “confident creativity” is unambiguously the preferred goal and should be encouraged as far as possible.
Ultimately, the point of education is to equip individuals with the skills to speak for themselves. This is best achieved when we mix up teaching styles, and jolt work into study.
References
Anderson, L.W., Krathwohl, D.R., Airasian, P.W., Cruikshank, K.A., Mayer, R.E., Pintrich, P.R., Raths, J., & Wittrock, M.C. (eds) (2001) A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing. (New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc).
Bloom, B.S., Engelhart, M.D., Furst, E.J., Hill, W.H., & Krathwohl, D.R. (eds) (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals – Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain. (London, WI: Longmans, Green & Co Ltd).
Chism, N. V. N. (1998) “Developing a Philosophy of Teaching Statement.” in Essays on Teaching Excellence 9(3) (Athens GA: Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education).
Pratt, D.D., & Collins, J.B. (2000) ‘The teaching perspectives inventory: Developing and testing an instrument to assess teaching perspectives’ Proceeding of the 41st Adult Education Research Conference.
About the author
Dr Matthew Williams is Access Fellow at Jesus College, University of Oxford, where he teaches and conducts research in the field of political studies. Known as “the Welsh College”, Jesus College has a long history of working with schools in Wales and has recently taken on responsibility for delivering the university’s outreach and access programmes across all regions of Wales. Read more.
Live webinar: “Developing sustained effort in able learners”
On 2 July Dr Williams is leading a free webinar for NACE members in Wales, exploring approaches to developing confident creativity and motivating learners to be ambitious for themselves. This is part of our current series supporting curriculum development in Wales. Find out more and book your place.
Posted By Hilary Lowe,
11 December 2019
Updated: 03 December 2019
NACE Education Adviser Hilary Lowe goes in search of the perfectly pitched challenge...
Building on NACE’s professional development and research activities, we continue to explore and refine the concept of ‘challenge’ in teaching and learning for high achievement – the central tenet of much of our work and the heart of provision for very able learners.
What do we mean by challenge?
The notion of challenge is multi-faceted and goes further than designing individual learning and assessment tasks. It merits a subheading which makes it clear what we mean. As a provisional and necessarily evolving definition:
“Challenge leads to deep and wide learning at an optimal level of understanding and capability. It encompasses appropriate learning activities but is more than that. Its other facets include, for example: the learning environment, the language of classroom interactions, and learning resources, together with the skills and attributes which the learner needs to engage with challenging learning encounters. These encounters may take place both within and beyond the classroom.”
Some of these building blocks coincide with pedagogical approaches and theoretical perspectives which enable challenging learning for a wide group of learners. It is important therefore that we also interrogate these perspectives and adapt related classroom practices to ensure relevance and application for the most able learners.
Our work on challenge in teaching and learning is part of a wider campaign that will also explore and promote the importance of a curriculum model which offers sufficient opportunity and challenge for more able learners.
Below, we focus on the design and delivery of challenging tasks and activities in the classroom which are likely to enable more able learners to achieve highly and to engage in healthy struggle.
Pitching it right: keep the challenge one step ahead
If teaching for challenge is providing difficult work that causes learners to think deeply and engage in healthy struggle, then when learners struggle just outside their comfort zone they will be likely to learn most. Low challenge with positive attitudes to learning and high-level skills and knowledge can generate boredom within a lesson, just as high challenge with poor learning attitudes and a low base of knowledge and skills can create anxiety. Getting the flow right, ensuring the level of challenge is constantly just beyond the learners’ level of skills and knowledge and their ability to engage will then create deeper learning and mastery.
By scaffolding work too much and for too long, and stealing the struggle from learners, we can undermine expectations and restrict the ranges of response that our learners could potentially develop unaided.
Implications for planning and teaching
What then are the implications for planning and for using every opportunity inside and outside the classroom to “raise the game”? Challenge should involve planned opportunities to move a learner to a higher level of achievement. This might therefore include planning for and finding opportunities in classroom interactions for:
Tasks which encourage deeper and broader learning
Use of higher-order and critical thinking processes
Demanding concepts and content
Abstract ideas
Patterns, connections, synthesis
Challenging texts
Modelling and expecting precise technical and disciplinary language
Taking account of faster rates of learning
Questioning which promotes and elicits higher-order responses
When considering the level of challenge in your classroom, ask:
Do you set high expectations which allow for the potential more able learners to show themselves?
Have you reflected on prior learning and cognitive ability to inform your plans?
Is your classroom organised to promote differentiation?
Do you plan for a range of questions that will scaffold, support and challenge the full range of ability in your class?
Can you recognise when learners are under- or over-challenged and adapt accordingly?
Are you using examples of excellence to model?
Will learners be challenged from the minute they enter?
Share with your learners your expert knowledge, your passion, your curiosity, your love of the subject and of learning. Have high expectations – and resist the urge to steal their struggle!
Challenge in the classroom: upcoming NACE CPD
New for 2020, NACE is running a series of one-day courses focusing on approaches to challenge and support more able learners in key curriculum areas. Led by subject experts, each course will explore research-informed approaches to create a learning environment of high challenge and aspiration, with practical strategies for challenge in each subject and key stage.
An earlier version of this article was published in NACE Insight, the termly magazine for NACE members. Past editions are available here (login required).
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