Pedagogy – Challenge for All

Setting? Seriously? We Need to Think Bigger and Ask the Better Question

When a study blows up there is a temptation to flatten it into one bullet point. What frustrates me about the latest headlines proclaiming that setting “does not hamper progress” is not simply the conclusion itself, but the astonishing narrowness of what is being measured to rationalise a system that stratifies children. A slight increase […]

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Retaining Complexity: Challenging Students Without Compromise

Curriculum, Pedagogy / Morgan Whitfield

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”

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The Harkness Discussion Method: Revolution, Relationships and the Power of the Pause

Pedagogy / Morgan Whitfield

It began with a chance encounter. In the late 1920s, Ned Harkness, a shy boy who had grown up longing for classrooms where he could think aloud without fear, boarded a train that would change the trajectory of American education. By luck, he met Dr Lewis Perry, the principal of Phillips Exeter Academy. Curious about

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Oracy: The Journey of Discovering Student Voice

Pedagogy / Morgan Whitfield

I fainted the first time I ever stood to speak in front of an audience. I was eleven years old, moments away from taking part in a local public speaking competition run by a community charity group. I remember the weight of the room, the polite hush, the hall lights pressing down on me, and

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Moving the Lighthouse: Fidelity in Teaching and Learning

Pedagogy / Morgan Whitfield

This summer I visited East Point Lighthouse on the red shoreline of Prince Edward Island, it was here that I heard the remarkable story of how the entire towering structure was picked up using a capstan and horses, then moved 487 metres east in 1885. The reason? Nautical charts showed the light at the tip

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Adaptive Teaching with Magnificiently Designed Scaffolds

Curriculum, Mindset, Pedagogy / Morgan Whitfield

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

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Adaptive Teaching- Embracing the New Normal

Mindset, Pedagogy / Morgan Whitfield

What is the shift from differentiation to adaptive teaching? Alex Quigley made the argument that differentiation is dead, and that the nail in the coffin came from the 2019 Department of Education’s Early Career Framework. It was here that we finally see that differentiation has lost its usefulness as a concept, despite being so ingrained

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To Set or Not to Set?

Mindset, Pedagogy / Morgan Whitfield

Cards on the table, in my personal experience I have loathed having classes set by ability. When I had my geography classes determined by science sets (a fluke of my school’s timetable) I was so frustrated by how progress and engagement shifted. The dynamics of my classroom seemed to change for the worse. But my

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