How high challenge and low threat can help pupils to learn the curriculum

We are a challenge seeking species, we like doing things that are difficult. However, no-one wants to be made to feel stupid! There are plenty of examples where we do difficult things such as crosswords, Sudoku, word, and maths puzzles, by way of relaxation. The great thing about these is that we can do them in our own time, without any pressure.

We want to make sure that our classrooms have an atmosphere of high challenge and low threat, and to make sure that we shift away from high challenge and high threat. The high challenge takes the form of demanding work, the low threat comes from reassuring pupils that they don’t need to know all the answers because we are going to scaffold the ways in and support them, primarily through talk. 

One example of this is Richard Kennett providing his pupils with extracts from Marc Morris’ account of the Norman Conquest. This is a demanding text and Richard wanted the class to read and answer the questions for homework: this is high challenge. However, he went on to say that if they couldn’t answer all the questions, not to worry. This is the low threat. What did he find? Well, he found that all the pupils, even those with a reading age below 10 were able to have a go.

Pupils themselves are saying that they enjoy doing demanding work, so let’s not put limits on their learning, and let’s remind ourselves that in the School Inspection Handbook it says that we should be offering a curriculum that is ‘ambitious for all pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils and including pupils with SEND.’

There’s a short film suitable for staff meetings, where I talk about high challenge and low threat on Myatt & Co. You can watch it here.

How stories help pupils to learn the curriculum

Helping pupils to learn well is obviously important, otherwise we are likely to be wasting our time.

There are some ways that are more effective than others. It turns out that if we identify the big ideas and concepts and teach children these, then they are likely to know more, remember more and be able to do more, over time.

It also says in the quality of education judgement in the school inspection handbook that pupils are learning well when they are ‘making progress in that they know more, remember more and are able to do more’. And that ‘teaching is designed to help pupils to remember long term the content they have been taught and to integrate new knowledge into larger ideas’.

We have some helpful insights from psychology, for instance Daniel Willingham’s research that indicates that our brains ‘privilege’ story. Stories help pupils to make sense of new content, they help pupils to make connections and finally they are enjoyable!

There are plenty of stories across the curriculum which we can use to help our pupils know more, remember more and to be able to do more.

Find out more about how stories can help pupils learn more of the curriculum in this short film on Myatt & Co.

How rich vocabulary helps pupils to learn the curriculum

Helping pupils to learn well is obviously important, otherwise we are likely to be wasting our time.

There are some ways that are more effective than others. It turns out that if we identify the big ideas and concepts and teach children these, then they are likely to know more, remember more and be able to do more, over time.

It also says in the quality of education judgement in the school inspection handbook that pupils are learning well when ‘teachers consider the most important knowledge or concepts and focus on these’.

The concepts and big ideas are generally tier three vocabulary. They are the gateways into the individual subjects. If we want pupils to know more and remember more, it’s worth spending time teaching them, talking about them, and showing them in lots of different contexts.

It is important to do this, because most of the conversations in classrooms use tier one and tier two vocabulary. There is nothing wrong with this, however it does mean that it’s important for pupils to have the chance to talk about and explore these. A rich vocabulary is likely to lead to better outcomes for all pupils, and particularly for those who might not be exposed to them outside school.

Where is the best place to start finding these lovely words? There are two main sources: the starting point is national curriculum documents for each subject. In the purpose statements at the start of the programmes of study the big ideas and concepts are set out for each subject. I wrote about how concepts help pupils learn here. 

And the second place to find them is in high quality texts. When we work in this way, we are increasing the odds of our pupils knowing more, remembering more and being able to do more.

It can be tempting to think that pupils will struggle with these big words. But it turns out that they enjoy learning them!

Find out what pupils have to say in this short film on Myatt & Co.

How concepts help pupils to learn the curriculum

Helping pupils to learn well is obviously important, otherwise we are likely to be wasting our time.

There are some ways that are more effective than others. It turns out that if we identify the concepts aka big ideas and teach children these, then they are likely to know more, remember more and be able to do more, over time.

It also says in the quality of education judgement in the school inspection handbook that pupils are learning well when ‘teachers consider the most important knowledge or concepts and focus on these’

It’s helpful to know that there is research from several quarters that supports the idea that learning is likely to be deeper if we spend time identifying and teaching our pupils concepts. (As with any research, these are insights that might be helpful, as opposed to something we are compelled to use). Daniel Willingham discusses the importance of concepts for learning in ‘Why Don’t Students Like School?’  

And this is echoed by Stephen Pinker ‘Cognitive psychology has shown that the mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or intuitive theory. Disconnected facts in the mind are like unlinked pages on the web: They might as well not exist.’ Pretty strong stuff!

The good news is that there are plenty of concepts, but there aren’t too many. Where is the best place to look for them? Well, there are two main sources: the starting point is national curriculum documents for each subject. In the purpose statements at the start of the programmes of study the big ideas and concepts are set out for each subject.

And the second place to find them is in high quality texts. When we work in this way, we are increasing the odds of our pupils knowing more, remembering more and being able to do more.

For a short recording and additional resources, here is a short film - ‘Helping pupils learn the curriculum through concepts’ - suitable for staff meetings on Myatt & Co.

Informed debate is the fuel of curriculum development…

When John Tomsett and I were working on our new book ‘Huh: Curriculum conversations between subject and senior leaders’ we wanted to explore the somewhat uncertain territory between the ‘knowledgeable one’ namely the subject leader and the potentially ‘less knowledgeable one’ their line manager. In some cases, a subject leaders’ line manager has the same academic background as the faculty, but more often than not, this isn’t the case.

In order to unpack this, John used the same format for each of the interviews:

• With a class of Year 9s in front of you, if you have taught them a rich, challenging curriculum, what does success look like in terms of what those students know, understand, and can do in your subject?

• If that is your destination, where do you begin in Year 7 and how do you build up to that point?

• What would you like your senior leader line manager to know about your subject?

And that basically is the heart of the book. From these simple questions, conversations emerged which identified the unique landscape of each subject, and which prompted further questions organically. From the recordings, we structured the chapters with the same format:

• We condensed the interviews from about 8 000 into 3 000 words, with a brief introduction to the history of the subject on the school curriculum

• One side of A4 overview of the key stage 3 curriculum

• Three documents/articles/books the senior leader should read

• Five questions the subject leaders would like their line managers to ask them about the curriculum. 

 And some absolute gold came out, as a result of this structure, for example:

‘You tell them that they will be talking in terms of how academic musicians would talk about music.’ Liz Dunbar

‘You know, you can start a programming lesson by asking students to write a sequence on how to make a cup of tea?’ Tristan Kirkpatrick 

‘When students claim they can “do” a language, they are really thinking about is whether they can speak it.’ Hannah Pinkham

‘Latin…the guilty secret of a student's weekly lessons.’ Dr Lucy Cresswell

‘Rescue a lumpy sauce to send a student home with a decent macaroni cheese; teach a student about gelatinisation and they’ll perfect sauces for life!’ Garry Littlewood

‘I’ve done a lot of work around sequencing over the last couple of years, so much so that my poor Year 7 students don’t do any biology until we get to about March time because we're far too busy laying down the groundwork.’ David Gash 

And finally, ‘Start with what the subject leader is really proud of and why.’ Claire Hill

Curriculum development is an ongoing process; it's not going to be finished, ever. And that’s why we have called the book ‘Huh’ named after the Egyptian god of everlasting things.

You can watch a recording of John and Mary’s webinar here via the free membership.

Curriculum pace

‘The slow philosophy is not about doing everything in tortoise mode. It's less about the speed and more about investing the right amount of time and attention in the problem so you solve it.’

- Carl Honoré.

‘Curricular materials in high-performing nations focus on fewer topics, but also communicate the expectation that those topics will be taught in a deeper, more profound way...’[1] If we are to do justice to the curriculum, we need to take the right amount of time. The pressure to rush through the material was one of the drawbacks of the previous version - it encouraged speed at the expense of depth, swiftness of coverage over security of that coverage and superficial knowledge at the expense of deep understanding. It is fair to say that the latest curriculum is more demanding and that the orders for English and maths expect children to have mastered aspects from an earlier age than they had previously. However, for all other subjects, apart from history, the content coverage is much less. Somehow, however we have got it into our heads that fast is good and slow is bad.

There was a time when some schools were encouraged to inject more pace into lessons and that was because the thread of the lesson was drifting, and, in some cases, it was sluggish, with too little being expected of pupils. However, most of that has been eradicated and instead speed trumps more thoughtful ways through the curriculum. One way of thinking about this is by considering the curriculum as a banquet. In this analogy, the gifts of the subjects are offered and opened up to children. But because speed is the trump card, they do not have enough time to do more than taste a few elements and if they do swallow some of it, they get indigestion because they are being moved quickly on to the next ‘course’. If we are to honour the curriculum and children’s learning, we need to think of pace differently - pace needs to be appropriate to the learning. There will be times when it is appropriate to move on quickly, but only because it is clear that the children have got it and now need something additional. Mostly, however, things need to slow down. It is simply not possible to work through a curriculum at break-neck speed. All that happens is that the destination is reached, but without any of the necessary equipment or indicators to be able to say whether it had been a successful journey or not.

When pace is privileged over security of content, there is often some confusion between the work and the learning and it goes something like this: well, we have done it, so they should have got it. But between the doing and the being able to say that they have got it, lessons need to slow down so that the curriculum matter can be properly digested. And this can only be done through talk, discussion, making mistakes and addressing misconceptions. Mistakes need to be celebrated as the launchpad for new learning - if all our pupils understand things the first time round then the work is probably too easy. And the demands of the new curriculum, which require greater depth, mean that it is no longer reasonable or realistic to plough on at great speed.

What are we doing when we slow down? We are not talking here about going at a snail’s pace, but at the appropriate pace for deep learning. When we get this right, we are allowing pupils to engage with material - this should be source material wherever possible, either extracts or full texts, according to the ages of the pupils - to go through unfamiliar words, talk about them in context, check for pupils’ understanding of these terms and ask them to make sense of the material.

In fact, in everything we do, we should be getting to the heart of the matter. And it is the appropriate use of pace which allows us to help our pupils to go deeper and learn better. To really take this to heart and put it into practice, it means that we do not take superficial, one-word answers, but expect pupils to explain their reasons, to listen carefully to their responses and to expect other pupils to do so, and ask them whether they agree or not. If we are helping our children to infer as well as to take on board surface details, we need to probe, to check what they are thinking and to see if their peers agree. One way to make this more efficient is to ask the pupils to talk in pairs about what they understand the key points to be. While this is happening, it is possible to wander round the room, listening to what they say. Then, when it is time to bring things together, it is possible to highlight some of the things which have been heard: ‘I noticed that you focused on this, can you tell us why? What do the rest of you think?’ and ‘Over here, I’m not sure that you understood the question correctly. What do you think it means? Do the rest of you agree?’

By slowing down and going deeper, we not only make things more meaningful for children, we are also able to select fewer resources, which we explore in depth, rather than racing through a pile of irrelevant material.

[1] Schmidt, W. & Prawat, R. (2006) ‘Curriculum Coherence and national control of education: issue or non-issue?’ Journal of Curriculum Studies vol38 (no6) pp. 641-658

Beautiful work

‘The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.’

- Elbert Hubbard

A few questions: do we provide enough opportunities for our pupils to produce beautiful work? Do they have the chance to polish and refine something? Are they clear about what good work looks like? Have they been inspired by the finished work of others? How often do pupils get the chance to produce work for a real audience? Are there opportunities for multiple drafts, punctuated with honest and specific feedback? The schools which do this are providing their pupils with something important - authentic work of high quality, something that pupils can be proud of.

Again, how often do pupils have access to the highest quality materials for their final work? In a Reception class in a school in Birmingham, I noticed that children were using artist-quality pastels. What was the rationale behind this? The response was interesting: if we want our pupils to produce beautiful work, we need to make sure they have the best materials. They know that these are used by professional artists. This means they take care of them, do not waste them and are inspired to do their best work. And the expense? Well, we’d rather have fewer things of the highest quality…

The notion of ‘beautiful work’ has been championed by Ron Berger, who argues that it is possible both to meet standards and create authentic work. Underpinning this is the idea that children’s work should be honoured. It should be of the highest quality and it should also have an audience. ‘Once a pupil creates work of value for an authentic audience beyond the classroom - work that is sophisticated, accurate, important and beautiful - that student is never the same. When you have done quality work, deeper work, you know you are always capable of doing more.’[1]

The beautiful work exemplified by Austin’s butterfly[2] did not happen overnight. Underpinning beautiful work is the imperative to draft, take feedback which is precise, robust and kind, redraft and repeat. Then we are ready to showcase to the world. The key takeaway from Austin’s butterfly has been focused on the drafting and the quality of the final piece. However, it is also worth noting that this work was for a purpose: for many years, pupils in this school studied birds, and created beautiful note cards with a scientific illustration of a bird on the front and information about the bird on the back. Those cards were printed on quality card, bundled in boxed sets and sold in the community and throughout the state, including at state rest stops on highways; all the profits were used to support preservation of bird habitats.[3] And so we have the criteria here which are twofold: quality work and a real audience.

There are samples of high-quality work collected on the Models of Excellence site. One, for example, where pupils aged 13-14 created a book for younger pupils, featuring original fables and accompanied by cut-block print illustrations.[4] The students studied the genre of fables, wrote personal narratives to surface issues in their own lives and created animal protagonists and stories to embed those issues in fables with helpful morals. This involved considerable practice, as they only had one chance to compose the woodcut. What is important about this is that pupils were producing both high-quality literary and artistic work. The rules and criteria for each discipline were adhered to. This, and other examples, show how academic standards can be reached from work that is deeply artistic and connects the heart to learning.

If we want to produce more beautiful work, should we think more about the quality and quantity of worksheets, most of which do little to promote beautiful work, or should we be investing instead in high-quality sketchbooks, for example? While these are designed for art, they also make great resources for showcasing beautiful work. Work that is original, that represents the fruits of considerable labour and which are worth keeping. How much of pupils’ work gets thrown away at the end of an academic year? What does this say about the sector’s attitude to learning? And if funds are tight, there are electronic tools for capturing beautiful work, such as Book Creator[5] and Explain Everything.[6]

This is not to make the case that every lesson needs to produce a final produce of beautiful work. Rather it is the opposite: that there should be opportunities across the curriculum for this quality to take place, over time. It is a worthwhile endeavour not just for pupils, but for adults as well. It shifts the landscape, it raises the game and it means that we have to continually ask, is this the best it can be? It’s a question worth asking: What do standards actually look like when met with integrity, depth, and imagination?

[1] https://www.edutopia.org/blog/deeper-learning-student-work-ron-berger

[2] https://vimeo.com/159082211

[3] http://modelsofexcellence.eleducation.org/projects/austins-butterfly-drafts

[4] http://modelsofexcellence.eleducation.org/resources/wolf-would-forgive-illuminating-standards-video

[5] https://bookcreator.com/

[6] https://explaineverything.com/

Thinking about curriculum implementation

The implementation of the curriculum is the nuts and bolts of the quality of education. It is here that pupils encounter and grapple with the material. It is possible to have a website full of fine words and statements that the curriculum is ambitious, however, it is the quality of what happens in classrooms that indicates whether the intent has been translated into practice. The handbook says that inspectors will ‘consider the way that the curriculum developed or adopted by the school is taught and assessed in order to support pupils to build their knowledge and to apply that knowledge as skills (we call this ‘implementation’).’[1] The three strands of the quality of education judgment are not graded separately, but are considered together.

There are implications for staff development which follow from the implementation judgement. For example, ‘teachers have good knowledge of the subject(s) and courses they teach. Leaders provide effective support for those teaching outside their main areas of expertise.’ In order for teachers to have good subject knowledge, they need to be given the time and the resources to do this properly, it cannot be a bolt-on. Subject knowledge development is probably the greatest professional development need. The reason is that most primary colleagues teaching subjects beyond English and maths will need time to develop this aspect of their teaching. And this is the same for many secondary colleagues as well, due to the fact many are teaching subjects which were not their first discipline in university. And even for those who are teaching the same subject as their degree, they still have to get to grips with texts which were not studied at university. So, the professional development need for subject knowledge development is sector wide.

The handbook goes on to say that ‘teachers present subject matter clearly, promoting appropriate discussion about the subject matter being taught. They check pupils’ understanding systematically, identify misconceptions accurately and provide clear, direct feedback. In so doing, they respond and adapt their teaching as necessary without unnecessarily elaborate or individualised approaches.’ At the heart of this is responsive teaching, purposeful questioning to expose what pupils have understood and to address misconceptions.

The handbook also says ‘over the course of study, teaching is designed to help pupils to remember long term the content they have been taught and to integrate new knowledge into larger ideas’. In order to get this aspect right, we need to take on board the findings from cognitive science. As we do this, we need to be mindful of the limitations of research - nothing can have absolute proof, but there is plenty of evidence that retrieval practice, spaced repetitions, interleaving, low stakes quizzes, discussion about the knowledge being learnt are important strategies in helping to secure knowledge in the long term memory. At the heart of this is the recognition that deep learning is not a one-off event.

This is what the implementation sections says about assessment: ‘teachers and leaders use assessment well, for example to help pupils embed and use knowledge fluently, or to check understanding and inform teaching. Leaders understand the limitations of assessment and do not use it in a way that creates unnecessary burdens on staff or pupils.’ At the heart of this is formative assessment, namely checking for understanding during the lesson. This can be done in a number of ways: through verbal questions (not directed just at one of two pupils) which, where appropriate expect elaboration and discussion. Alex Quigley’s strategy of ‘ABC’[2] is incredibly helpful for embedding this in classroom practice. ‘By asking students to Agree with; Build upon; or Challenge the answers of other students it allows students to develop their ideas in a more disciplined fashion, whilst giving a helpful scaffold to their ideas.’ This type of activity is a powerful way of helping teachers to ‘check pupils’ understanding effectively, and identify and correct misunderstandings’. It is also useful in meeting this element of the handbook: ‘teachers use assessment to check pupils’ understanding in order to inform teaching, and to help pupils embed and use knowledge fluently and develop their understanding, and not simply memorise disconnected facts.’

The handbook refers to ‘teachers create an environment that focuses on pupils. The textbooks and other teaching materials that teachers select – in a way that does not create unnecessary workload for staff – reflect the school’s ambitious intentions for the course of study. These materials clearly support the intent of a coherently planned curriculum, sequenced towards cumulatively sufficient knowledge and skills for future learning and employment.’ This should give us pause for thought in relation to random worksheets which neither support ambition nor sequencing. If we are serious about pupils knowing more, understanding more and doing more we need to swap lightweight materials for solid resources which have an honest link back to the domain. This is echoed in ‘the work given to pupils is demanding and matches the aims of the curriculum in being coherently planned and sequenced towards cumulatively sufficient knowledge.’

Reading is prioritised to allow pupils to access the full curriculum offer.

A rigorous and sequential approach to the reading curriculum develops pupils’ fluency, confidence and enjoyment in reading. At all stages, reading attainment is assessed and gaps are addressed quickly and effectively for all pupils. Reading books connect closely to the phonics knowledge pupils are taught when they are learning to read.

A theme running through the quality of education in general and the implementation element in particular, is the importance of pupils being taught concepts. The handbook says ‘this is because research and inspection evidence suggest that the most important factors in how, and how effectively, the curriculum is taught and assessed are that: ‘teachers enable pupils to understand key concepts, presenting information clearly and encourage appropriate discussion’ and ‘teachers ensure that pupils embed key concepts in their long-term memory and apply them fluently.’

The handbook also states that ‘teachers enable pupils to understand key concepts, presenting information clearly and encourage appropriate discussion.’ The teaching of concepts is important because they help pupils to develop understanding in the long term memory which in turns helps them to make connections with new knowledge.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-handbook-eif

[2] https://www.theconfidentteacher.com/2013/12/disciplined-discussion-easy-abc/

The curse of content coverage

‘Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!’

- Charles Dickens 

Whether we are in primary or secondary context, there is a lot of stuff to teach and there’s a temptation to think that covering more must mean that pupils learn more and that we do not have sufficient time. It can be daunting as we survey just how much we have to get through. But let’s take a moment to unpack the content to be taught. For key stage 1 2 and 3 the content is set out in the national curriculum documents. Beyond English and maths which specify the content to be taught in each year, for the other national curriculum subjects the material to be taught is across a key stage. In key stage 1 that’s two years, in key stage two that’s four years and in key stage 3 it is three years. To expand this to the amount of time available in key stage 2, if we assume one hour a week (although many schools collapse the timetable to do an in depth project, the time allocation still broadly holds) And that there are 40 available weeks a year, across 4 years that’s 160 lessons. Even with the content in history, which has more than other subjects, that’s a fair chunk of time.

If the first argument is that we have time, although never enough, across a key stage, the second argument is that we cannot teach the next lesson or part of the scheme if our pupils have not grasped what we are currently teaching. The idea that we should move on because it is on a plan, if our pupils are not secure, is basically saying that the plan is more important than the pupils. We would never say this out loud, but if we are rushing on through to cover the content, then that is essentially what we are doing.

We can see how this happens. When there is an accountability focus on questions such as  ‘Have you finished this unit yet?’, ‘Have your pupils made ‘progress’?’,  ‘What does their progress look like on the spreadsheet?, then the systems within school are putting pressure on the classroom practice to privilege content coverage over learning. It falls into the trap of implying ‘Well they have been taught it, so they should have got it.’

What should we do to avoid the tyranny of content coverage? The first is to identify the concepts and the big ideas within the material to be taught, and to make sure that these are at the forefront of our planning. Why is this helpful in avoiding the curse of content coverage? The temptation is to go straight to the detail of the national curriculum documents when planning. What happens then is that the curriculum can become fragmented and ‘bitty’. It means that it is harder for pupils to make connections and to understand the bigger picture. So, finding the concepts within the curriculum is important for pupils’ learning.

The concepts are important because they contain the big ideas. And when pupils grasp these big ideas it makes learning more efficient. It has to be said that it is hard to make sure that the concepts and big ideas are made available if all they have are piles of worksheets. The problem is that many of these dumb down the curriculum; they make things too easy and put limits on children’s learning. They also often lead to fragmentation of the curriculum which means that pupils don’t get to see the big picture.

At the moment too much curriculum planning is focused on task completion: these are often proxies for learning, rather than leading to deep understanding. To take an example: children who had spent a lesson on homophones in English were asked about what they had learnt about these. Sadly, those spoken to, were not able to say. They looked up at the board to read the learning objectives, stumbled over what it said and were not able to talk about homophones in their own words. And yet all of them had worksheets stuck in their books which had been ticked off. What had happened was that they had completed the task but it had not led to understanding. Such a pity because homophones are really interesting!

We need to think about the hidden gems which are the concepts. They are important because when children have a grasp of the concepts their learning is likely to be more secure than if they have just completed a few answers on a worksheet. Going through a lot of content gives the impression that we have covered a great deal, when in fact, all that has happened is that children have completed some exercises, a lot of them shallow, which give a superficial impression of learning. What happens when we do this is that they are not able to say, in their own words, what they have learnt and how it relates to a bigger picture. When we make sure that curriculum plans support conceptual development, we are both making planning easier and making learning deeper.

Why is this? Well the concepts act like holding baskets for a lot of information and detail. When children understand concepts, it makes new knowledge stickier. If pupils have access to, understand and are able to use the conceptual, technical vocabulary expertly and confidently, we are leading them into the territory of long-term memory. In addition, when we are planning learning, it is important and efficient to identify the key concepts we want pupils to learn. When we identify these and do work around their original meanings will take pupils deeper into their understanding of the subject.

The problem with racing through content is that it puts a heavy load on the short term memory which can only hold so much information (about four items at any one time) compared to the long term memory which appears to have no limits. The only chance we have to help our pupils shift what they are learning into the long term memory is to focus on the concepts and bigger picture, rather than a racing through the material. Because if we are skating across the surface, then how are we building for long term understanding? To a place where our pupils know more, understand more and can do more?

I might have taught it, but have they got it?

There is a joke about two men in a bar. One says to his friend ‘I’ve taught my dog to speak French.’ ‘Really?’ says his mate, ‘let’s hear him then.’ ‘I said I taught him, I didn’t say he’d learnt it’ comes the response. There is something important in this anecdote and it is this: that the fact that I have taught something does not mean that my pupils have ‘got’ it. And they are unlikely to have really learnt something unless they produce something worthwhile with the material they are studying.

In the video explaining the rationale for the national curriculum, Tim Oates talks about curriculum ‘products’. When he talks about products he means the things which pupils write, say, draw, the low stakes tests they complete or the things they make. All these provide insights for the teacher into the extent to which pupils know, understand and can do something on their own terms.

First, to consider writing. In many parts of the sector, there is a temptation to get through the writing as fast as possible. A written piece of work requires considerable background knowledge, discussion of that knowledge and rehearsal in order for it to come together. Too often, pupils are set off on a writing task without sufficient ‘food’. By food, I mean the stimulus, exposure to and discussion of vocabulary, use of spelling, punctuation and grammar to support meaning and modelling by the teacher. English teacher Matthew Pink has quite rightly said ‘Showing kids a pre-prepared model answer and asking them to write a paragraph off the back of it is no different from showing them a picture of Duck l’Orange and sending ‘em to the kitchen to knock one up. Teachers must get in her habit of live modelling whenever it is required.’

Writing is slow and it is difficult. But when pupils are supported and guided through the writing process carefully, the product of writing is likely to reflect what they really understand.

So we need to move away from a temptation for children to complete work, which might not be original to them, such as completing closed questions on a worksheet, for example, and to conclude that they have understood, just because they have completed it. Completion of a task and understanding are not the same thing, but they are often confused. So a child is praised for having finished, before it has been checked whether they have understood it or not.

Next, to what children say: it is the responses which pupils give which provide insight into whether they have understood something. If we are going to find this out, we have to spend time during the lessons asking children questions and listening carefully to their answers. This needs to happen more. Under the pressure of time, it is tempting to either take the first correct answer from one or two children and assume that everyone has ‘got’ it; or to complete some of the answers if they are struggling; or to take incomplete or partial answers and assume that they know the rest. What quite often happens is that children are praised for an incomplete answer and then the lesson moves on. This is not good, on several counts: first, the teacher’s information is incomplete - in the rush to move on to the next part of the lesson, the brief incomplete response is taken to have more significance than it does: it is nothing more than an incomplete response and it is not enough information to judge whether to move on or not. The second reason it is not good enough is because we often need to rehearse and say our thoughts out loud before committing them to paper. As James Britton argued ‘writing floats on a sea of talk'. So by short-cutting the responses we not only have incomplete information about the security of children’s learning, we also are denying them the chance to practise articulating their thoughts. And the third reason why it is not good enough is because pupils have the right to have their ideas heard by others. By moving on too swiftly we are cutting down their ability to refine their language and to deepen their understanding.

The importance of speaking is emphasised in the national curriculum for English. We are doing our children a disservice if we do not both provide them with opportunities and also expect them to articulate their ideas. Many children come from backgrounds which are language poor. If we either expect partial answers, or don't ask them to speak out loud in full sentences, using subject specific vocabulary then we are denying them the opportunity both to engage deeply with the material and also to perform well in the subject when it comes to exams.

In some, but not all, areas it is possible to gain an insight into children’s thinking through their artwork or artefacts. If they have made a representation of a key idea from literature, or history, or science through sketching or through creating something and are able to talk about what they have produced and how it relates to the subject matter, then it follows that we can gain information about what they understand and where the gaps might be.

Many schools are now experimenting with thinking about real audiences for children’s work. Much of what is asked of children in schools is isolated knowledge and skills. While there is nothing wrong with this per se, the purpose of learning takes on a new dimension when we ask ourselves, where could this go, who else needs to know about this, are there links we could make with this knowledge with the wider community? Who might be an external audience for what we have done?

These are some of the things they are doing: creating a class blog, preparing an exhibition with detailed notes for visitors, preparing samples of their work for governors, taking part in local and national competitions, linking with the local community on arts and environmental projects, younger children sharing their work with older pupils, and vice versa, asking family to come into school to see their work. Children are only able to engage with these wider audiences if they have something authentic to share, based on solid foundations of deep knowledge.

Are our resources useful and beautiful?

It is as important to think about the implementation of the curriculum, as it is to think about the intent. Schools have spent considerable time and thinking about the vision and purpose of the curriculum in their context. And have followed this with the same exercise about the vision for individual subjects. This is helpful in clarifying the purpose of the curriculum within each setting.

However, what has emerged is that in some schools, the ambitions expressed in the vision have not always been translated into the quality of plans and materials provided for pupils. So I think it is important to have some principles underlying this aspect of work. I believe there are a number of things to bear in mind when planning and here are three suggestions: first, materials should privilege thinking over task completion; second, they should provide the stepping-stones to mastery and third, they should be beautiful.

Why should materials privilege thinking over task completion? Because too many tasks and worksheets focus on completion of the exercise, as opposed to making children think. This happens when the tasks involve activities such as completing the gaps, without having to think too hard. These are often ticked off, but when pupils are asked about what they have learned, or to recall information at a later date, they are not able to say. Cloze passages and gap-fills fail to embed information into scheme: they present vocabulary as a problem to be solved like a crossword puzzle, not part of a wider learning scheme. This kind of proxy means that misconceptions can go unnoticed, pupils get a false sense of security and the teacher signs off work, often putting it on to a spread sheet, when in fact very little has been really learnt.

To give an example. A pupil in Year 4 was talking about the work she had been doing in English. There was some imaginative writing, however the book contained some work on homophones a few lessons earlier. A worksheet had been completed, ticked off and no doubt satisfied the teacher that the child understood homophones. However, when asked to say what she had learned about homophones, she was not able to say. This was because the completion of the task trumped her understanding. And similar examples can be found across phases and subjects, where basic comprehension tasks are used to demonstrate mastery and progress.

So, we need to be careful that if worksheets are completed, there is plenty of discussion about what the actual work is about - in this case, the interesting case of words with different spellings sounding the same. This important aspect of grammar had not been unpicked, the etymology of homophone (sounds the same) had not been explored and yet the child and teacher had a false sense of achievement, having completed the task correctly, when in fact she did not really grasp what it meant. This is a shame.

The second principle is that work offered to pupils should provide the stepping-stones and a route to mastery. For a pupil to have mastered something, they have to have really grasped it. They know it, understand it and are able to talk about and do something with it on their own terms. The paradox of mastery is that the more we know and understand something, the more we realise how little we know. Why is this? Because as we delve deeper into a concept or big idea we realise how many possibilities there are and how far these ideas might go. This is both an exciting and scary place to be. It is also the place from which intellectual curiosity and cultural literacy is built. Without this scary leap into the unknown education would just be a life-long handholding exercise, as it is mastery that leads to the ability to satisfy and indulge in academic curiosity. So it is important that the goal of mastery should be at the forefront of planning, so that we are not seduced by proxies for learning.

And finally, I am making the case that the materials offered to our pupils should be beautiful. Not just aesthetically, but in the sense that they are absolutely fit for purpose. The reason for beauty being an important consideration is that I believe that our pupils deserve the best. And this doesn’t usually mean costing a lot; it means that they have value. Value in the sense that they make them think and that they lead to deeper understanding.

William Morris made the case that we should have nothing in our homes that is not either useful or beautiful, and I think that this is a useful lens through which to consider what we offer our pupils. Is this useful - in terms of making them think, and does it lead to mastery? And is this beautiful, not in terms of decoration or glitter, but is it beautifully and clearly presented, along the principles of Oliver Caviglioli’s work? Marie Kondo, the organizing consultant has also worked on this principle on decluttering. While it might apply to peoples’ homes, I think it is also useful when thinking about the materials we offer pupils. Kondo asks ‘Does this bring me joy?’ and we might ask ‘Will I enjoy offering this to my pupils and will they get something worthwhile out of it?’ I think that there is a case to be made for having a spring clean of many of the resources we offer children. And these principles apply to power points. Adam Smith has made a powerful case for revisiting this aspect of our practice.

And the final reason for arguing for beauty is that Plato in Republic XIII argued that in order for children to learn they need to play with lovely things. Now playing is not mucking about, it is exploring, engaging with and thinking about stuff. And I would argue that the things also include books, words and language.

So, to draw this together. I think it is important that we pass a quality control lens over anything downloaded from the internet that does not meet these criteria. And that means that a lot of second-rate stuff should be hitting the bin: a glance through some of the materials online through these three lenses will expose some of the low-quality materials currently being offered to pupils.