As schools develop their teaching and learning ‘strategies’, or ‘policies’, or ‘principles’, they have to grapple with the balancing of autonomy with consistency – of teacher or subject difference with common expectations. Speaking to the Confederation of School Trusts in 2024, Sir Kevin Collins painted a bleak picture of the more extreme prescriptiveness, which he... Continue Reading →
Some ways to make sure that students are thinking hard when they read challenging texts in the classroom In a recent post, I explored ways in which a teacher (in this case of geography) might successfully manage students’ classroom encounter with a challenging text, so that it was made accessible to all students, who would... Continue Reading →
Thoughts on what keeps pupils learning through a lesson, and why this might be difficult for the robot teachers of the future A few years ago, I wrote something about engagement, suggesting that saying pupils are ‘invested’ rather than just ‘engaged’ implies that they are more than just on task. The question ‘How will you... Continue Reading →
Schools are working very hard at the moment to make sure that ‘adaptive teaching’ is an established idea, and is a successful part of everyday practice. This post (based on work I have done with schools) offers one framework for reflecting on or auditing that practice. This has, in turn, emerged from discussions around what... Continue Reading →
This post unpacks a typical approach to reading a challenging text, in this case in a geography lesson. It also describes a number of practices associated with strong ‘adaptive teaching’. Reading challenging texts in the classroom It is notoriously difficult in secondary schools for strong disciplinary literacy practices to become established across the curriculum, for... Continue Reading →
The current focus on ‘adaptive teaching’ has meant that the craft (or art) of teacher modelling has rightly been foregrounded, as a crucial mechanism for making learning accessible. Interestingly, when I am asked after seeing a lesson to comment on how learning might have been more successful, modelling is probably the most common element I... Continue Reading →
Recently, I have had a number of conversations with secondary school leaders about exam readiness. The last few years have a seen an important focus on curriculum and its implementation. But some dips in the 2023 results, as well as Ofsted’s announced emphasis on data, have led in many schools to a renewed, pragmatic focus... Continue Reading →
A ‘key learning question’ is simply a way of framing the learning in a lesson or across a sequence of lessons – of setting the learning agenda for pupils. It is an alternative to the traditional ‘learning objective’, replacing a statement of what pupils will learn, or of what they will aim to learn, with... Continue Reading →
A reflection on a sequence of lessons, from the teacher’s and from the learner’s perspectives. By James Durran and Joe Minden. From September 2021, Joe will be teaching English at Cardinal Newman Catholic School in Brighton. This blog is built around a piece of writing which he wrote in 2003, when he was a pupil... Continue Reading →
Reading is built on knowledge. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. This post was co-written with Barbara Bleiman (@BarbaraBleiman), and is also published on the English and Media Centre blog. In 2016, the passages on the new-look Key Stage 2 ‘Reading’ test caused some controversy, seen by many as being too demanding for... Continue Reading →
James Durran 