Pearson-Exploring-Effective-Pedagogy-in-Primary-Schools

• Teacher is very aware of children’s strengths and weaknesses and gives appropriatesupport and asks questions to suit those she chooses to answer, often naming themrather than choosing volunteers (S07, COS-5 (2):5)• Knows children well. Directs some questions – and frames some for particular children(S07, COS-5 (7):5)• Sure of her understanding of the children, their levels and needs. Also in her ability toextend appropriately (S01, Literacy IEO:3)• Teacher encourages all to contribute ideas throughout. Children listen well to eachother. Teacher uses children’s names to get them to contribute (S02, Literacy IEO:3)• Teacher says to all about boy at front “Very good boy spending his time reading whilsthe’s waiting.” This is one of the very shy boys, less confident. She boosts his confidencehere (S05, Literacy IEO)Teachers in poor schools provided teaching and learning resources that were less varied, lessengaging and less likely to be appropriately differentiated. The teachers themselves were lesssensitive to their pupils’ individual needs and more detached from their learning experiences.Year 5 teachers in excellent schools excel at:• Providing a good variety of high-quality teaching resources• Understanding and responding sensitively to the needs of their pupils8. Making links explicitOn the whole, there were few instances of teachers making extra and cross-curricular linksexplicit. Teachers in excellent schools were better able to and more consistent at making linkswith areas outside the specific lesson. In classrooms in excellent schools, teachers made crosssubjectand extracurricular links explicit for their pupils. They specifically pointed out the linksbetween what children were doing in a particular lesson and what they were learning in othersubjects. They also helped their pupils to see the connections between what they learn inschool and their lives and the world outside of school. Teachers in these schools made linksbetween academic subjects, and between academic subjects and life outside the classroom,clear by pointing them out as part of their teaching (e.g., suggesting the children might enjoyrereading the stories they are writing now later on in their lives) or by using practical activitiesthat linked a lesson objective to the outside world.Evidence from Research | 29