A close friend of mine, an English teacher who possesses the extraordinary power of making literature feel vibrant and dynamic, once inherited a notoriously boisterous Year 9 class. They were labelled underachievers, the kind of class that staffroom lore had already written off. The prevailing advice was to keep things simple with them. Choose “accessible” […]
Retaining Complexity: Challenging Students Without Compromise Read More »
The science department at my school recently made a bold and refreshing decision. Rather than approaching Years 7 to 9 as a prelude to the real work that begins in examination years, they reframed Key Stage 3 as an opportunity to create scientists. They asked themselves what it would look like if students arrived in
Adaptive teaching relies on scaffolds. In fact, Alex Quigley has written about how necessary they are as part of the 4 S’s of Adaptive Teaching- Scaffolds, Scale, Structure and Style. Let’s explore further how we can best create and deploy scaffolds that enhance adaptive teaching. We do not want to fall into the trap of
Adaptive Teaching with Magnificiently Designed Scaffolds Read More »
An enriched curriculum enhances the content we teach with depth and complexity. There can be demand that we march through the curriculum, so how do we create opportunities to pause and make linkages? Often we think of curriculum as a mountain to climb, each step we get progressively closer to the top. The route up
Cultural Representation and Powerful Knowledge Read More »