Thread by @Alexandrapethi2

For those who have asked, here is a summary of my talk at ResearchEd on Saturday. In my session we were looking at how we can promote excellent outcomes for all, including those with SEND, disadvantaged pupils and lower attaining pupils #rED21

I shared a diagram given to me by one of our Trust’s SENDCos that shows if we want to support pupils with SEND, first we need to think about what we can do that helps ALL chd to learn. We underlined Rosenshine’s Principles as we’ve been looking at these in depth in our schools!

I talked about how we must be cautious labelling groups of chd as ‘lows’ and how we need to think about barriers to learning and what we can do to help chd overcome these. Here are just some of the barriers we identified

I asked our teachers to rephrase our language around children with barriers- lower attaining rather than lower ability. If we believe that all chd can achieve, and uphold high expectations for everyone, then chd will rise to the challenge!

We discussed how children learn using a simple model, and how presenting too much information at once can overload our working memories. We also showed how distractions can prevent children thinking about important content and therefore prevent long term learning

We also talked about the importance of background knowledge and how a well-sequenced, knowledge curriculum leaves nothing to chance. We ensure all chd have background knowledge; we plan it that way. All chd are supported to make complex and interesting connections

I also warned against confusing performance and learning. I gave an example of a child Ive been working with who had a book full of completed tasks but couldn’t tell me anything about what he’d learned. We are focused on long term learning, not task completion

I shared many examples of strategies we use @kst_trust primaries, and how support should be flexible. We scaffold pupils to reach our high expectations in a safe way. Any chd can gain support or challenge during the lesson, as required

I finished the session talking about my favourite subject- vocabulary! We looked at how important developing vocabulary is and how a ‘word gap’ can impact negatively on our chd in a number of ways

We need to explicitly teach vocabulary across the curriculum, not just in English lessons. We cannot expect our chd to develop the advanced academic vocabularies needed if we ‘water-down’ disciplines into afternoon topic sessions, and spend them doing loosely linked activities

I shared a wide range of strategies we use at @wlfsprimary @ECFSprimary @KPAschool to teach vocabulary. We also ensure our classroom environment is language rich through the use of working walls in all subjects

And finally, I shared this quote by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Through a knowledge rich curriculum we believe we can open up the world for all our young people. 100 years on, let’s ensure that language is no longer putting limits on our children’s worlds 🌎