James de Winter from The Ogden Trust shares his expertise on how to provide challenge in your physics lessons, regardless of how experienced or confident you are in teaching physics.

The Ogden Trust supports everyone teaching physics, including those who find themselves teaching physics out of field at all levels. Our focus is on helping teachers provide a high-quality physics education for all. Our CPD programmes draw on research, evidence and experience to scaffold and build effective physics teaching practice, by supporting subject and pedagogical knowledge. We work with schools and teachers to improve teacher self-efficacy, confidence and enthusiasm for physics, enabling them to provide stretch and challenge for all students.

The research

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) guidance report on Improving Secondary Physics informs our teacher support. The report made seven recommendations that could be implemented and actioned within the science classroom. 

Looking in more detail at two of these recommendations with a physics lens, we ask:

• What are some of the best ways to make practical work purposeful and effective?
• And how can you support students who arrive at your lessons with alternative conceptions in physics?

Here are some suggestions to help teachers adapt their lessons to challenge all students to reach their potential.

Purposeful practical work 

Practical work is a common feature of physics lessons but sometimes students do not fully engage, instead perceiving this aspect of their lesson as just following instructions. If teachers can be clear about the ‘why’ this can help them structure the practical, asking the right questions to make it effective in supporting students’ learning – making it ‘minds-on’ as well as ‘hands-on’.

Some of the most common reasons for using practical work are:

• To develop students’ competence in using equipment and carrying out laboratory procedures
• To encourage accurate observation and description of natural objects, materials, phenomena and events
• To develop students’ ability to design and implement a scientific approach to investigating an issue or solving a problem
• To enhance understanding of scientific ideas (theories, models, explanations)
• To develop students’ ability to present, analyse and interpret data.

It would be very difficult for any practical activity to cover all of these! I suggest that when planning and carrying out any practical lesson, ask yourself the following questions to maximise its effectiveness:

1. Why am I doing this? Decide on the learning objectives of the practical; this might be from the list above but there may be other reasons.
2. What does ‘effective’ look like? What do you want the students to do and talk about whilst they are doing the activity that will support your intended learning objectives?
3. How do I help make ‘effective’ happen? There is a ‘doing’ part where you think about the instructions, equipment and organisation of the room, but there is also a ‘thinking’ part and you will need to prepare in advance for the questions you will ask students.

It is in the questioning that you can effectively build opportunities to stretch and challenge students.

This is particularly important in physics where many ideas such as forces, electron flow in a wire and magnetic fields can never be directly observed by students. With good questions and examples, we can help students see beyond the single context demonstrated in the activity and appreciate the underlying ideas and where these occur elsewhere. For example, how the ideas in the resistance of a wire experiment can explain why super-fast electric charging cables are so thick and how the concept of specific heat capacity explains why some microwave meals take longer to heat up than others.

Alternative conceptions and diagnostic questioning

Physics is about observing, describing and explaining the world. Students come to our lessons having already developed some ideas about how the world works and unfortunately these don’t always match the accepted explanations. For example, many think that mass and weight are the same thing because most people use these words interchangeably, and that bigger magnets always have stronger magnetic fields because this matches their previous experiences.

Here are three questions to ask yourself before any lesson so you can be prepared to support all students and provide appropriate challenge.

1. What might they think? Identify common alternative conceptions that students may hold. One place to look is the IOP Spark website, which lists common misconceptions by physics topic.
2. How will I know what they think? To help you know where to start, consider what questions to ask to find out what students think. The Best Evidence Science Teaching (BEST) project from the University of York has produced a large collection of free diagnostic questions based on common alternate conceptions, available here.
3. What will I do about it? Consider what to include in the lesson to help move students from their view to the ‘correct’ one. This might include demonstrations, explanations, examples or additional questions. Many BEST questions include suggested follow-up activities.

Want to know more? 

Join me for our webinar in partnership with NACE on Wednesday 5 November, along with Jackie Flaherty, Head of Teaching and Learning at The Ogden Trust. We will also be joined by practising teachers who will share classroom experiences and lessons they have learnt for teaching physics most effectively.

About The Ogden Trust

The Ogden Trust provides a portfolio of programmes supporting schools to deliver high-quality physics education with a positive culture and environment for physics learning and access to purposeful enrichment opportunities showcasing pathways for young people.

• Improve retention of trainee and early career physics specialist teachers.
• Develop confidence and competence of teachers teaching physics out of field.
• Retain expertise of experienced teachers of physics within the profession.

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About the author

Dr James de Winter is an adviser and consultant with The Ogden Trust. He is part of the Ogden CPD advisory panel and delivers on the Trust’s subject knowledge and early career programmes. James also leads the secondary physics PGCE course at the University of Cambridge. 

Anjali Patel, Lead Advisory Teacher, Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE)

The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) is an independent UK charity, and English Association, dedicated to raising the literacy achievement of children by putting quality literature at the heart of all learning. 

It is a charity with a national and international reputation for providing excellent literacy training and resources for primary schools, based on extensive research and best practice.

CLPE’s core beliefs and mission align with those of NACE in that we believe it is every child’s right to achieve and to be given the opportunities and experiences necessary to thrive.

What is Power of Reading?

CLPE’s research around the importance of using quality texts as the basis for English planning and quality teaching, and to provide reflective professional development, is embodied in our flagship training programme: the Power of Reading. 

Built on 50 years of CLPE’s research, the Power of Reading explores the impact high-quality literature has on children’s engagement and attainment as readers and the link between reading and children’s writing development, supported by creative teaching approaches to develop a whole-school curriculum, which fosters a love of reading and writing to raise achievement in literacy. 

In short, we recommend the kinds of books that provide challenge and opportunity for sustained shared study in whole-class English lessons with detailed teaching sequences that enable teachers across all primary Key Stages to work in depth with the best children’s literature being published today. 

When ‘broad and balanced’ became overloaded and surface-level

So why do we believe should Power of Reading be at the heart of any English curriculum? 

At CLPE, our school members are integral to our work. We benefit from thousands of schools and teachers being part of that CLPE community and this means we can draw on our relationship with and research in these schools to design professional development programmes and teaching resources that remain relevant.

The Power of Reading programme is refined each year, informed by the evaluations of participants and to take into account new research or statutory guidance or developments from the DfE and Ofsted and to support our schools to interpret and implement policy and guidance with confidence and integrity to what we know works.

In recent years, the issues raised with us by teachers and leaders on our INSETs and training sessions has been overridingly related to concerns around understanding how to use language to communicate meaning and for effect, both orally and in writing; and in editing, refining and response to writing. Perhaps their views resonate with you?

“Children are not motivated to edit their work beyond proofreading for spelling or other ‘surface features’.”

“There is so much curriculum content, we are teaching too much at a surface level rather than teaching at depth, particularly in writing.”

“The EYFS curriculum is too constrained for periods of sustained shared thinking to happen. Reduced time is spent at play, with more carpet time ‘sitting and listening’.”

“Responses to texts don’t have depth, children aren’t able to go below the surface and be reflective and evaluative.”

“Some set structures and routines, e.g. ‘we have to do writing every day’, ‘we have to do grammar on a Wednesday’ are barriers to developing effective practice, particularly in writing.” 

“Not enough time and expertise in how to respond to writing as readers (teachers and children) – text references are features-based, not drawing on language and composition for effect.”

Providing depth to close the disadvantage gap

It is interesting to explore these commonly shared views through the lens of inclusion and to make the connection between being ‘more able’ and the kinds of experiences that lead to this opportunity to thrive and become highly literate.

Children from privileged backgrounds are more likely to experience the kinds of book ownership and book sharing experiences that support them to deepen their reader response and understanding of the world so that – in school – they can begin to explore how authors, illustrators or poets can achieve this response and how they themselves can make meaning for a reader in their own writing.

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are more reliant on classroom routines and resources to be able to access and make connections with high-quality, representative children’s literature; to engage in daily book sharing experiences; develop deeper reader response through sustained book talk; and, as Frank Smith (1982) put it, ‘join the literacy club’ (1).

If teachers are saying they are constrained by an overloaded curriculum or lack opportunity to develop subject knowledge through quality professional development (2), the English curriculum will become increasingly disjointed and ‘surface’ level with a disadvantage gap that grows ever wider. When what all teachers want is to give every child the opportunity to work at greater depth whatever their starting point. 

The last thing we want is for only privileged children to be afforded the benefits of challenge and so we must provide an equitable curriculum that enables all children to be motivated to make and create meaning with rich texts through non-reductive teaching approaches and with expert teachers.

And this is why we believe at CLPE that the Power of Reading is as necessary today as it was 20 years ago, if not more so.

The impact of a reading-rich English curriculum

The Power of Reading programme stems from CLPE’s seminal research publication The Reader in the Writer (3). This research aimed to investigate how children's writing might be influenced by studying challenging literary texts in the classroom. 

The findings from that research serve as the backbone to CLPE’s training programme and they are at the heart of the Power of Reading teaching sequences that support our members to develop an evidence-led literacy curriculum in their own classrooms. 

After 20 years, and with thousands of teachers trained across the UK and internationally, the programme continues to evidence impact on teachers and children whose schools have participated in the training. All the evidence we collect to measure impact continues to teach us how powerful reading can be for both children’s academic attainment and wider learning and development.

An independent evaluation by Leeds Trinity University reported on the impact of using Power of Reading in 11 Bradford schools from Autumn 2018 to Spring 2019 (4). The report shows that children in these schools made accelerated progress and the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils was significantly narrowed.

 
More recently, in evaluating the impact of Power of Reading on children in the Early Years (5), the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers was smaller in research schools compared to all pupils within the local area. And when we compared the engagement and attainment of project children at the start and end of their Reception year, the findings were significant with double the number of children working at age-related expectations in Language and Literacy Areas of Learning.

Key recommendations for a challenging English curriculum

So what can we learn from this research to support classroom practice? 

If we can create an English curriculum that is evidenced to close the disadvantage gap through exposure to and engagement in high-quality texts leading to increased world and vocabulary knowledge and writing outcomes in which children make deliberate choices for their own readers, we are creating a curriculum in which all children have access to experiences that increase their self-efficacy and the chance to be more able.

Our Associate Schools – in some of the most disadvantaged communities in England – observe children working at and achieving greater depth and this is articulated beautifully in a recent case study from the team at Miriam Lord Community Primary School in Bradford. 

The Power of Reading practice and provision at Miriam Lord – and the outcomes observed – connect deeply with NACE’s core principles and can be framed as key recommendations for a challenging English curriculum:

• Ensure teachers have strong subject knowledge of high-quality children’s literature so they can give children access to a range of literary forms within and across all year groups.

“[The children] can talk with a greater depth of knowledge of authors… so their ability to compare themes, characters, likes, dislikes is so much better than it ever was and then that communicates into the writing.”

Find out more about our Power of Reading English curriculum maps.

• Choose books in which they see their own and other realities represented so that you can build authentic reader and writer identities in all children which allow them to develop and demonstrate their abilities. 

“The children need to see themselves in books – or at least an element of their lives – in books. They need access to books that they can connect to and that will draw them in and I think the book choices we give them here give them a bigger hook, certainly than the book choices I had when I was growing up.”

Find out more about CLPE’s Reflecting Realities Research.

• Use a range of non-reductive, social and creative teaching approaches to deepen children’s understanding and broaden their experiences, including drama, artwork and storytelling.

“It provides lots of opportunities for immersion and exploration which is really important for a number of children that come to our school because they’ve got deprivation of experience so they don’t get to have those exciting days out or lots of real-world experiences so the books give them that and then they get to participate in role play and activities which enthuse them which then feeds into their writing process.”

Find out about CLPE’s recommended teaching approaches.

• Follow an authentic writing process in which children are making meaning from well-crafted written language, then engage in making conscious choices with their own writing. Focus not on the ‘what’ but the ‘why’ when making such choices, within a community of readers and writers. 

“It puts children’s enjoyment at the centre of everything. It’s not focused solely on the final written output and the success criteria which was the case for a number of years and it made the whole writing process quite onerous and quite boring for children.” 

Find out more about CLPE’s reader into writing research.

• Make explicit the connections children can make between growing literacy knowledge and skills and in wider curriculum work so that children have opportunity to thrive across a range of contexts and throughout the curriculum. 

“It has wider themes threaded through it like geography, history, citizenship so it’s not just English as a stand-alone subject.”

Find out more about the Power of Reading books recommended for each Key Stage.

References
(1) Joining the Literacy Club. Further Essays into Education, Frank Smith (Heinemann, 1987)
(2) Independent review of teachers’ professional development in schools: phase 2 findings (Ofsted, May 2024)
(3) The Reader in the Writer, Myra Barrs and Valerie Cork (CLPE, 2000)
(4) Leeds Trinity University report on the impact of Power of Reading in the Exceed Academies Trust, Bradford (2019)
(5) The Power of Reading in the Early Years (CLPE, 2023)

Additional resources and support

• Find out how you can get involved in CLPE’s Power of Reading programme
• Join NACE and CLPE for a free live webinar on Tuesday 17th June

Plus: save the date! On Friday 3rd October NACE and CLPE are collaborating on a “member meetup” event (free for staff at NACE member schools) exploring approaches to sustain pleasure and challenge in reading and literacy across Key Stages 2 and 3. Details coming soon to the NACE community calendar.

Holme Grange School's Tom Greenwood shares six steps to maximise the impact of your practical science lessons.

Science is more than just memorising facts and following instructions. True scientific thinking requires critical analysis, problem-solving, and creativity. Practical science provides the perfect platform for developing these skills, pushing students beyond basic understanding and into the realm of higher-order thinking.

Why challenge matters in science education

Practical science sits at the peak of Bloom’s revised taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001), requiring students not just to remember and understand but to apply, analyse, evaluate, and create. These skills are essential for developing scientifically literate individuals who can tackle real-world problems with confidence and insight.

Steps to maximizing the impact of practical science

To truly challenge students and develop their higher-order thinking, practical science lessons must be carefully structured. Here’s how:

Step 1: Solve real-world problems

Practical science activities should be grounded in real-world applications. When students see the relevance of their experiments, their engagement increases. For example, testing water purity or designing a simple renewable energy system connects scientific principles to everyday life.

Step 2: Get the groups right

Collaboration is key in scientific exploration. Thoughtful grouping of students – pairing diverse skill levels or encouraging peer mentoring – can enhance problem-solving and communication skills.

Step 3: Maintain a relentless focus on variables

From Year 5 to Year 11, students should develop a keen understanding of variables. This means recognising independent, dependent, and control variables and understanding their importance in experimental design.

Step 4a: Leave out a variable

By removing a key variable from an experiment, students are forced to think critically about the design and purpose of their investigation. They must determine what’s missing and how it affects the outcome.

Step 4b: Omit the plan

Instead of providing a step-by-step method, challenge students to devise their own experimental plans. This pushes them to apply their understanding of scientific concepts and fosters creativity in problem-solving.

Step 5: Analyse data like a pro

Teaching students to collect, visualise, and interpret data is crucial. Using AI tools to display class results can make data analysis more engaging and accessible. By linking their findings back to the research question, students develop deeper analytical skills.

Step 6: When practicals go wrong (or right!)

Failure is an integral part of scientific discovery. Encouraging students to reflect on unexpected results – whether positive or negative – teaches resilience, adaptability, and critical thinking.

Bonus step: Harness the power of a Science Challenge Club

A Science Challenge Club can provide a platform for students to explore scientific questions beyond the curriculum. Such clubs foster independent thinking and offer opportunities for students to work on long-term investigative projects, deepening their understanding and enthusiasm for science.

Final thoughts: why practical science is essential

Engaging students in hands-on science doesn’t just make lessons more interesting – it equips them with crucial skills:

• Critical thinking: encourages deeper questioning and problem-solving.
• Collaboration: strengthens teamwork and communication.
• Real-world problem solving: helps students connect theory to practice.

As educators, we can design activities that challenge high-achieving students, encourage independent experiment design, and foster strong analytical skills. By doing so, we prepare students not only for exams but for real-world scientific challenges.

The future of science lies in the hands of the next generation. Let’s ensure they have the skills to think critically, innovate boldly, and explore fearlessly.

Related reading and resources:

• NACE subject-specific resources: primary science
• NACE subject-specific resources: secondary science

Charlotte Newman shares five approaches to challenge learners in secondary school religious education (RE).

I want to start off by sharing my context with you as I believe this is important in what I have found works well in my school. I am a Head of Religious Education in a secondary school in Cambridgeshire. We are the largest school in the county and as a result we are truly comprehensive with a wide range of student abilities and backgrounds. At KS3, our classes are mixed ability and therefore, it can sometimes be difficult to stretch and challenge the most able when there may be other students in the group that need more support. At KS4, we set by ability with English, taking into account students’ target grades and KS3 data. 

1.  Teach to the top (and beyond!)

At KS3, we always aim to teach to the top and scaffold for those students who require more support. This ensures that every student in the class is challenged. Regular opportunities are built into the lessons to extend students’ thinking. This does not simply mean additional tasks, as this is something our students often get frustrated with – that ‘challenge’ equals ‘do more’. Instead, we will ask them to research something from the key stage above. For example, when teaching about the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism I might ask more able students to research the idea of dependent arising to better understand the Buddhist philosophy. At KS4, when teaching about Jesus’ resurrection to sets 1 and 2, I will bring in the views of Rudolf Bultmann and N.T. Wright on the idea of a metaphorical versus historical resurrection from KS5. 

To ensure all teachers across the department are doing this effectively, we have spent CPD time mapping our KS3 against our GCSE specification to highlight the links we can make. We have done the same between our GCSE and A Level specifications. This has been particularly useful for those teachers who do not teach KS5, to increase their subject knowledge in order to stretch high ability students.

2. Encourage deep analytical thinking

In our school, we have employed PiXL ‘Thinking Harder’ strategies. These ensure students are showing their understanding of our topic by having to analyse the knowledge they have learnt. For example: which of a set of factors (Paul’s missionary journeys, martyrs, the Nicene Creed, Constantine) contributed most to the development of the early Church? They may order these and have to justify their choices. 

We can also do this through questioning during philosophical debates to get students articulating their thoughts in a sophisticated argument. Examples include: “Why might that be the case?”; “Why is that significant?”; “What evidence do you have to support that view?”; “Can you add to what X just said?”

Additionally, it is important to ensure that students have the opportunity to engage with primary religious texts such as the Qur’an, as well as those from different scholars, such as Descartes’ Meditations. This enables them to develop their hermeneutical skills to really understand the text and its context, compare interpretations/perspectives of it and critically analyse it.

3. Allow opportunities for multidisciplinary connections

Religious education is a multidisciplinary subject. The Ofsted RE Review (2021) promotes “ways of knowing”, that students should understand how they know, through the disciplines of Theology, Philosophy and Social Sciences. You could arguably add others too: Psychology, History, Anthropology, etc. 

When developing an enquiry question for a scheme of work, you may have in mind a particular discipline you wish the students to approach it from, for example exploring “What does it mean to be chosen by God?” using a theological method/tools to study the question from the perspective of Judaism. However, in order to stretch the most able students it would be fantastic if you gave them opportunities to think about this from a different ‘lens’. How might a Christian/Muslim approach this question? What would a philosophical/social scientist approach to this question look like?

4. Facilitate independent research projects

I currently run the NATRE Cambridgeshire RE Network Hub and so I regularly have the opportunity to meet up with other teachers/schools in my region. I was recently involved in a curriculum audit with other secondary teachers and I loved a scheme of work employed by one of my colleagues. Prior to starting the GCSE course, students are given the chance to choose a topic of interest to them within RE to conduct independent research and eventually present their findings. They are given a framework and some suggested ideas/resources to guide them as well as different ways in which they could present their research. This is a fantastic idea to stretch the most able as there is so much scope with this student-led project. 

In my colleague’s school, all students have access to a handheld device, therefore IT is easily accessible to support this work. Teachers can easily share documents and links to students this way too. Unfortunately, this is not the case in my context and so wouldn’t be feasible, but I am in the process of thinking about how we could do something similar that works for us.

5. Promote independent learning outside of the classroom

In RE, we have the privilege of being able to teach about many real-world issues and ethical debates that students find fascinating. As a result, they often want to explore these further in their own time. Therefore, in my school we have compiled ‘Independent Study’ materials for each unit of both the GCSE and A Level courses.

At GCSE, we have compiled booklets where we suggest something to read, something to watch something to listen to, and something to research. These have enabled us to introduce A Level thinkers into the course and engage students with high-level thinking through The RE Podcast or Panspycast, for example. This is key as it piques students’ curiosity and promotes a real love of the subject.

At A Level, we provide students with university lectures (the University of Chester is great for this for RE) and debates between scholars on YouTube (e.g. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath on the relationship between religion and science). We then expect to see evidence of this further reading/research in their exam answers and their contributions to lessons.

About the author: Charlotte Newman is a Trust Lead for Religious Studies for Archway Learning Trust. She is on the Steering Group for the National Association for Teachers of RE (NATRE) and the Oak Academy Expert Group for RE. She is also a member of Cambridgeshire SACRE and has until recently led an RE local group. She has delivered much CPD on RE nationally.

Ten top tips to build learners’ sense of belonging and status

1. Welcome them to the class, ensuring that you make eye contact, address them by name and give them a smile – establishing your positive relationship and helping them feel noticed, valued and safe in the learning environment.
2. Go out of your way to find opportunities to give them responsibilities or assign a role to them, making it clear to them the skills and/or knowledge they possess that make(s) them perfect for the job. 
3. Reserve a place for them at clubs and ensure they are well inducted into enrichment opportunities.
4. Arrange groupings for activities to ensure they have supportive peers to work with.
5. Invite them to contribute to discussions, to read and to give their opinions. Don’t allow confident learners to dominate the discussion (learners with high status talk more!) and don’t ask for volunteers to read (students with low status are unlikely to volunteer). 
6. Show respect for their opinions and defer to them for advice. e.g. “So, I’m wondering what might be the best way to go about this. Martha, what do you think?” “That’s a good point, Nitin. I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you!”
7. Make a point of telling them you think they should put themselves forward for opportunities (e.g. to go to a football trial, audition for the show, apply to be a prefect) and provide support (e.g. with writing an application or practising a speech).
8. Connect them with a champion or mentor (adult or older peer) from a similar background who has achieved success to build their self-belief.   
9. Secure high-status work experience placements or internships for them.
10. Invite inspiring role models with similar lived experience into school or build the stories of such role models into schemes of learning and assemblies.  

• Closing the attainment gap – part 1: diagnosing challenges and barriers
• Closing the attainment gap – part 2: eliminating economic exclusion