Teaching Framework

Ensuring a positive climate for learning and an enabling environment for every pupil.

Positive relationships

• Know your pupils – establish a classroom climate based on positive relationships i.e meet and greet, positive language and expectations.
• Make systems visible – rewards and consequences with the emphasis on positive reframing, classroom rules.
• Show unconditional positive regard - principle of fresh starts – every lesson a new beginning.
• Model school values in interactions and behaviours.
• Celebrate each pupil’s achievement.

Routines & procedures

• Use seating plans and groupings according to requirements of the learning in the lesson.
• Strong starts e.g. Do Now, review and practice, sensory starts.
• Strong finishes e.g. final review, plenary, exit tickets.
• Ensure well-defined transitions and routines e.g. entry and exit, movement within room, transition between learning tasks.
• Ensure efficient timetabling and use of tie to deliver the curriculum.

Planning for learning

• Use short, medium and long-term planning systems to deliver the planned curriculum.
• Develop pupil independence through task and structure learning.
• Provide curriculum and opportunities for character development.

Teacher behaviour techniques

• Use least invasive approach.
• Use positivity, praise and modelling to show what students should be doing.
• Respond appropriately when pupils are off task, for example using least invasive and positive framing techniques.
• Use voice to support learning, for example, instructional, praise, story-telling, talk over, chivvying.
• Provide a framework for enabling both pupil accountability and equal participation such as cooperative learning strategies where every pupil has a role.
• Develop pupil independence through task and structure of learning and use of additional adults.
• Use effective strategies to create pace and challenge.

Enabling environments

• Ensure a clean, tidy and well-organised learning environment encouraging pupil responsibilities in maintaining this.
• Create a purposeful classroom environment that supports learning e.g. working walls (where appropriate), accessible resources.
• Follow the school’s display policy and ensure displays are current and reflect the planned curriculum.
• Celebrate pupil’s achievements through explicit praise and reward about effort, learning behaviours and pupils’ work.

Creating and delivering an ambitious curriculum through consistent teaching approaches.

Curriculum design

• Establish what the pupils should know.
• Consider what pupils should be able to do (skills).
• Make it knowledge-rich and aligned with Oak curriculum principles.
• Identify knowledge to be remembered.
• Sequence concepts in small steps.
• Define end points.
  Define elements for stage and age.
• Include experiential learning.
• Adapt to needs and of primary, secondary, special or alternative provision.
• Take into account the context of societal and cultural influence in the location of the school.

Use of lesson structure

• Ensure learning objectives are shared with pupils in lessons.
• Links learning to the bigger picture or long-term learning including end points.
• Plan tasks to ensure learning objectives are met by all pupils.
• Build in time to review and check for understanding against the lesson objectives.
• Adapt teaching as appropriate.

Planning and sequencing of a series of lessons

• Clearly define an ambitious end point in planning.
• Identify prior knowledge needed for the area of learning including concepts, vocabulary and knowledge - check pupil knowledge and address gaps where they exist.
• Consider cognitive load when planning lesson content and communication.
• Teach basic first steps and mental models.
• Break down concepts and skills and map them out in logical steps, that build on the basic first steps and models.
• Plan how to introduce each step to pupils.
• Design practice tasks.
• Decide on the learning objectives for a series of lessons which include:
  
  • specific facts, concepts and procedures pupils need to know and understand.
  • skills pupils need to be able to perform independently.
  • skills pupils need to be able to perform with increased fluency or independence.

Planning for key knowledge, skills and vocabulary

• Plan elements of learning that have value for pupils’ confidence, creativity and collaborative development including:
  • cooperative and collaborative learning
  • oracy
  • self-directed learning
  • reading, including phonics
  • writing
  • numeracy

Presenting learning through explicit and expect instruction

Present and explain using small steps and practice

• Pitch it right – know pupils prior learning; be clear about the learning you want to teach.
• Keep it simple – succinct and clear explanations/instructions; limit the amount of material received all at one time; break explanations down into smaller steps; pay attention to cognitive overload; use dual-coding.
• Address common misconceptions:
  • anticipate common misconceptions in planning and build this into to your explanation
  • provide opportunities to identify misconceptions from examples
  • take time to address the misconception
• Double check pupils understanding
• Make it concrete and real:
  • provide hooks for engagement
  • provide context of new learning or models of worked-out problems
  • use visuals, pictures, video clips, objects and models
  • guide students as they begin to practice
  • compare learning to what they already know/real life experiences.
• Practice:
  • be up close (circulate) to initial efforts to ensure confidence and initial errors are addressed
  • ensure guided practice, close supervision and feedback to encourage increased success rate for pupils
  • make time for independent practice to allow pupils to do the things taught by themselves and to develop automaticity
  • use a range of metacognition techniques to check pupils have learnt material you need them to learn
  • use regular quizzes, mini plenaries, tests to drill knowledge and build fluency.

Modelling and metacognition

• Think aloud and model steps using the metacognition cycle – teach this explicitly to pupils.
• Model carefully chosen metacognition strategies that could support pupils’ organisation of thought, planning, problem solving and/or evaluative techniques.
• Facilitate pupil/group/class discussions, so that pupils can reflect and refine their thought processes about their new learning – unpicking misconceptions as they present or quickly accelerating challenge where concepts are secure.
• Facilitate evaluation of the metacognition techniques used.
• Gather information from the class discussions by constantly checking for understanding and sampling pupil responses.
• Introduce live modelling to share thought processes when demonstrating new learning or new problems. Make thought process explicit - running commentary.
• Use images to support conceptual understanding (dual coding).
• Use end point modelling to show what a good one looks like i.e. WAGOLL.
• Use an ‘I, we, you’ approach.
• Use many worked examples – never too few.

Questioning

• Ask questions to check for understanding and determine how well the material has been learned in order to be informed about their next step of instruction.
• Use a range of questioning techniques including cold calling, reinforcing questions, no opt out, probe, think-pair-share, show me, call and response, why and how.

Ensuring an ambitious curriculum for all through skilled inclusive practices

Scaffolding Access/Resource

• Develop knowledge of individual pupil need in order to match the range of access/resource scaffolds correctly and use the following, where necessary, for individuals or groups of pupils:
  
  • whiteboards, work sheet, word banks, keywords, word map, dictionaries, thesauruses, enlarged text/font size, writing frames, graphic organisers, sentence stems, colourful semantics; number lines, dienes, hundred square, numicon, place value markers, charts; a range of visual supports, overlays, objects of reference, objects on stands, switches/pointers; pencil grips, sloping boards, specific seating, foot stools, laptops/IPAD, adaptive equipment; symbols, PECS, communication books, communication aids/devices, eye-gaze; wellbeing support resources, behaviour support resources, sensory support resources, sensory support resources; support of an additional adult.

Scaffolding questioning

• Use questioning to interject at the optimum time to shape thinking for all pupils at different stages of achieving the learning intentions and utilise blank level questioning:
• Level 1 – Naming        Level 2 – Describing        Level 3 – Retelling        Level 4 – Justifying

Scaffolding groupings

• Review data to decide which pupils to group together and consider which flexible grouping model will execute the learning intention most effectively.
• Consider both mixed ability groups and ability groups to give more able learners the opportunity to share their ideas and lower ability learners a way of collaborating and learning from their peers.
• Set guidelines of how groups will interact through allocating roles e.g. time keeper, resource manager, volume controller, recorder, leader, presenter, designer and researcher.
• Utilise other flexible grouping strategies such as snowball technique, rainbow groups, Kagan.

Scaffolding use of additional adults

• Ensure the adult is clear about what they need to do - prompt/instruction cards can be a useful tool.
• Provide the optimum level of support with questioning or interjections - no over reliance on adult support to undertake the activity.
• Focus on developing learning and independence rather than task completion – use of ‘wait’ time to observe pupil’s independent attempt at the learning task.
• Share adult support between teacher and additional adult over the course of the lesson.
• Teacher to monitor additional adult input to ensure it is focused on addressing misconceptions, gaps, and errors – including reviewing the ‘wait’ time strategy undertaken by additional adults.

Personalised provision

• Differentiation of learning and personalising of provision may be required when the above scaffolding strategies are not working for a pupil. Strategic school decisions about the curriculum content and/or how the curriculum is executed throughout a pupil’s school career may involve:
  • curriculum pathway/flightpaths – clear intents, curriculum implementation and impact for pupils at different starting points within their learning
  • various option pathways at EYFS, KS1 to 5 – clear intents, curriculum implementation and impact for pupils at different starting points within their learning
  • ‘Hidden Curriculum’ – clear value intents, implementation, and impact for pupils at different starting points within their resilience and mental wellbeing
  • alternative provision – clear intents, curriculum implementation and impact for pupils who need a curriculum alternative to the formal school curriculum and may access the schools’ resource provision, SENCO base, nurture base and/or receive external input.

Enabling pupils to know more and remember more through assessment for learning techniques

Formative assessment

• Use to inform the teacher about their pupils’ performance, knowledge and skills, then use to plan lessons or remediation to improve pupils’ learning.
• Give pupils advice on how to improve, particularly verbal ‘in the moment’.
• Ensure pupils act on that advice by using materials provided by the teacher, going to the teacher for help, or working with other people.
• Use purposeful verbal feedback and time-efficient written feedback in line with a school feedback policy that prioritises principles of effective feedback.
• Teachers and additional adults use formative assessment to:
  • plan lessons
  • adapt lessons to fill gaps in knowledge or skills
  • re-teach
  • check for understanding

Summative assessment

• Ensure general quality control and provide a picture of how well a pupil (or group of pupils) has performed over a time period on a set of learning goals in a particular subject by:
  • low-stakes quizzing
  • baseline, midpoint and endpoint testing
  • using past papers/mocks to prepare for statutory assessment.

Checking for understanding

• Use both formative and summative assessment approaches to check for understanding including:
  • Retrieval practice – recalling something learnt in the past and bringing it back to mind; ‘do nothing new, just review’; retrieval rather than re-exposure; do now, daily, weekly, monthly reviews; use of home learning to recap and review; skills that have been identified that need more practice.
  • Use peer-support retrieval learning.
  • Spaced or distributed practice – spacing retrieval practice both within and between lessons; interleaving – mixing the practice of different bodies of knowledge.
  • Use of hinge points – natural pauses or slight change of topic to check understanding.
  • Elaboration - describing and explaining something learned to others in some detail.
  • Using misconceptions or contrasting range of examples or non-examples.
  • Use effective questioning techniques that demonstrate that questions have been pre-planned to meet the needs of all pupils. For example, challenge and stretch questions, scaffolded questions or tailored cold-call.

Use of data or prior attainment

• Use of data and tracking to define next steps for individuals, groups or whole classes.
• Baseline or pre-tests to check for pupils’ understanding of the curriculum.