Module overview

Welcome to the Subject module of the programme. This module invites you to consider your planning and assessment through the lens of the subject or phase that you work in.

It explores evidence and practice in curriculum and assessment in ways that will be of benefit now but will also be useful as your progress through your career.

By the end of this module you will have explored:

the curriculum and what it demands of the individual teacher
your mental model of the subject/phase you teach – breaking down your own understanding – and its implications for your planning
how we can know what pupils have understood, the barriers we face in doing so and how we respond to their needs

In Instruction we asked you to explore some ‘rules of thumb’ of teaching. In Subject we will apply the same rules in more detail and look at how what you are teaching influences how you apply those rules – and when you might need to break them. As a result, this module covers multiple ideas around curriculum, planning and assessment. In the classroom, these ideas will lead to practices that all blend into each other.

However, to help you develop a clear understanding, this module begins with topics focused on curriculum and planning, before shifting to looking at assessment:

topic 1 explores the foundations of effective subject/phase teaching
topics 2 to 6 cover the process of effective planning in your subject/phase
topics 7 to 12 cover the process of effective assessment and how this can further enhance subject/phase teaching

Making it work

This module will support you to think deeply about your subject and will support you to zoom in on how the nuances of your subject or phase influence your planning and assessment.

As with Behaviour and Instruction, we also recognise that there may be aspects of this module that you have less control over. This might include planning pro-formas or the frequency of your assessments. To make the most of this module, we suggest that you use resources and materials aligned with your school curriculum and draw on your mentor and other experienced colleagues to support you in applying and adapting ideas for your classroom. Your growing expertise in your subject will also be of help.

As usual, we intentionally touch on content you’ve learned before. In particular, we will continue to prompt you to retrieve and apply your understanding of how pupils learn because it is so fundamental to effective teaching. Knowing how pupils learn is invaluable but it does not mean a ‘one size fits all’ approach will work across every subject or phase. The knowledge, skills and conceptual understanding in each subject or phase is unique. All subjects have their own way of structuring knowledge and curriculum planning differs by age.

While the early career framework (ECF) refers to ‘good subject and curriculum knowledge’, we know that some teachers – especially primary and early years teachers – may refer to the content they teach as ‘phase’ or ‘topic’ knowledge, as the curriculum they teach includes multiple subjects. In line with the ECF, this module uses the title ‘subject’ to encapsulate all of the content teachers might teach and recognises teachers might use other terms in their setting.

Whilst the Subject module has attempted to explore ideas and practices in ways that will be relevant to all subjects and phases, there will undoubtedly be specific things that just don’t apply.

For this module more than the others, teachers and mentors will need to draw on their own subject and phase expertise to adapt the learning experience where required. You have the responsibility to take ownership of your professional development and make it work, but also the right to support.

Talking to your colleagues and your mentor about the ideas and practices you encounter, seeking their assistance, challenge, feedback and critique, will help you to better understand what ‘good’ looks like for your particular context. Participating in wider networks can also strengthen your pedagogical and subject knowledge.

A reminder of the programme pattern

The learning will be structured in the same way as Behaviour and Instruction, following a weekly rhythm:

a 10 minute video shows what some of the key ECF ideas in the topic look like in practice
a 15 minute evidence summary provides an overview of key research to read relating to the key ECF ideas in the topic
15 minutes of quiz and reflection enable you to check your understanding and consider the evidence in light of your knowledge and experiences
weekly instructional coaching that draws on this material and tailors the weekly focus to your specific context and needs, including the needs of your pupils, with built-in opportunities for practice. This is the main part of the mentoring process

Year one of the programme has been designed with the intention of schools working through one topic per week. However, the programme has been built in a flexible way so that schools can adapt it to their needs and work through it at a slower pace as required, while still ensuring they cover the ECF. Now that we have introduced how the module will work, it’s time to dive into an evidence summary, exploring some of some of the key ideas that underpin the module.

Teaching challenge

Mr Mohamed is feeling increasingly effective at managing behaviour and adapting lessons planned by others. In doing so, his subject knowledge has been growing. How can he best use his developing knowledge to plan and deliver effective lessons which develop pupils’ mental models?

Key idea

Understanding curriculum, planning and assessment, as well as the relationships between them, is an important foundation for effective subject teaching which develops pupil mental models.

Evidence summary

The power of subject teaching

Mr Mohamed’s teaching can make a big difference to pupils. It can transform both their academic results and life chances: increasing the likelihood that they attend university and have a higher salary and decreasing the chances they have children as teenagers (Chetty et al., 2014; Slater et al., 2011). Lower-achieving pupils appear to benefit most from effective teaching (Slater et al., 2011).

The expectations a teacher sets are likely to influence pupils’ efforts and responses (Murdock-Perriera & Sedlacek, 2018). Where effective teaching helps pupils achieve success, pupils are likely to display greater subsequent motivation and thus greater effort (Coe et al., 2014). There is strong evidence that effective teaching is underpinned by teacher’s knowledge of their subject(s) and how to teach it (Coe et al., 2014; Ball et al., 2008). To make a difference to his pupils Mr Mohamed needs to develop his subject knowledge.

Subject knowledge is organised in mental models in the mind of the learner – a collection of concepts, knowledge, skills and principles which fit together to provide an overall understanding of an idea (Sweller et al., 1998).

Mr Mohamed needs to both develop his mental model of his subject and consider how to best organise and use this information to develop his pupils’ mental models. For example, he can consider that a common misconception in history is that a church is a physical building rather than a group of people and target this misconception to ensure his pupils gain a correct mental model when he teaches this.

What is curriculum?

A school’s curriculum sets out its vision for the knowledge, skills and values that pupils will learn. There are many reasons for educating young people, and these inform which curriculum content is selected (Wiliam, 2013).

Selection should also be guided by the National Curriculum. The overall aim should be that material is selected based on a coherent vision for pupils’ success. This is curriculum intent: the content selected to be taught and the sequence in which it should be explored, including how content builds in complexity or is revisited (Wiliam, 2013).

The school establishes the curriculum, but every teacher must also think about curriculum because they are the people who are ultimately putting it into practice. Mr Mohamed might not be writing schemes of work but he can bring content to life for his pupils. This is curriculum implementation: the instructional approaches, activities and resources specified to teach curricular intent. Implementation is therefore seen in both medium-term planning, individual lesson planning and the ‘lived’ curriculum of the classroom (Wiliam, 2013).

Mr Mohamed aims to use his subject mental model to implement the curriculum in such a way that it develops pupils’ mental models of his subject and pursues the intended curriculum as closely as possible. This incorporates both the knowledge that he hopes pupils will gain, and the ways he hopes they will be able to use this knowledge. In doing so, understanding the school’s vision and the reasoning behind its curricular choices will be useful.

What is planning?

Planning takes the ideas of the intended curriculum and turns them into learning activities. It must therefore implement the curriculum choices the school has made, drawing on Mr Mohamed’s subject knowledge.

One way Mr Mohamed might effectively plan is by following five habits.

Habit 1

Break down your goal into the essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles of the subject by analysing your assessment and wider curriculum goals for the unit.

Habit 2

Build on prior knowledge by linking what pupils already know to what is being taught and sequencing lessons so that pupils secure foundational knowledge before encountering more complex content.

Habit 3

Make the learning accessible by seeking to understand pupils’ differences including potential barriers to learning and common misconceptions and discussing with experienced colleagues how to help pupils master important concepts.

Habit 4

Build lasting learning by planning for regular retrieval and spaced practice opportunities to build automatic recall of knowledge and supporting pupils to learn key ideas securely.

Habit 5

Increase complexity by providing opportunities for all pupils to learn and master essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles of the subject, ensuring pupils link new ideas to existing knowledge, organising this knowledge into increasingly complex mental models through drawing explicit links between the new content and core concepts and principles and slowly withdrawing concrete examples and drawing attention to the underlying structures of the problem.

Mr Mohamed notices quite a lot of overlap between the habits of planning and content covered in the Behaviour and Instruction modules. There also don’t appear to be clear-cut answers for how to implement these habits in his subject planning. He intends to discuss with his mentor what these might look like for his context, and how he can try these out of the next term.

What is assessment?

To assess is to draw conclusions from evidence: inferences about what pupils have learned (Wiliam, 2010). Mr Mohamed might ask himself how much his pupils have understood in an activity, at the end of a lesson or at the end of the year.

Effective assessment practices allow him to make inferences which truly reflect pupils’ understanding.

Effective assessment builds on a well-specified curriculum so Mr Mohamed’s efforts at planning will support his assessment to be more effective and efficient.

Making these inferences can be difficult. Mr Mohamed must be careful that the inference he is making reflects what he really wants to know and that he is not distracted by poor proxies for learning (Coe, 2013). For example, not assuming that just because pupils are busy that they are learning. It also means recognising that pupils may perform better in the short term but then forget what they studied (Soderstrom & Bjork, 2015).

To help, he should choose, where possible, externally validated materials – such as standardised test created by external bodies or groups of schools and administered in controlled conditions, perhaps at the end of the year – if he needs to make a summative judgement about how much his pupils have learned over a period of time with greater confidence.

Assessment and feedback

Effective assessment can also be used much more frequently to allow Mr Mohamed to adapt his teaching and respond to pupils’ needs.

This form of assessment is the main focus of the Subject module. Teachers can regularly collect information on pupil learning in a lesson, for example through questioning a number of pupils to check for understanding after conveying new content.

They can use their inferences from this data formatively to adapt their teaching and respond to pupils’ needs where necessary (Christodoulou, 2017). Evidence suggests that among the most powerful ways to respond to pupil needs is to offer feedback. Effective feedback is motivating, guiding pupils on where they have succeeded and what they need to improve (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). It also leads pupils to act to close the gap (Sadler, 1989).

There are many ways to give effective feedback and Mr Mohamed’s choices should reflect what his pupils need and the importance of taking a sustainable approach. For example, he might offer verbal feedback or give abbreviated feedback using a marking code (EEF, 2016).

These approaches are quick to do while giving pupils valuable information, encourage pupil effort and improve their learning. Mr Mohamed can work with colleagues to think about how he could ensure his assessment and feedback are efficient. He hopes to use it to support his pupils to monitor and regulate their own learning (EEF, 2017), helping them to become successful independent learners.

Linking curriculum, planning and assessment

For assessment, planning and curriculum to be effective, they must be coherent. For example, teaching resources should align with assessments – the tests pupils sit should reflect what they have been taught – and both should align with the curriculum (Oates, 2011). Equally, Mr Mohamed should avoid letting summative assessments – like SATs and GCSEs – shape all his planning. Instead he should aim to use the knowledge of his subject to teach and assess a coherent, broad and balanced curriculum.

Nuances and caveats

No exam can test everything that matters in a subject. Exams ‘sample’ from the subject: they choose a handful of questions to test key ideas. This is an effective and efficient way to assess but if this guides all of a teacher’s planning, they are likely to overlook basic ideas (which are implicit in exam questions), broader ideas (which lay the foundations for future study) and interesting ideas (Christodoulou, 2017). Mr Mohamed must avoid the trap of letting assessment narrow his teaching.

Key takeaways

Teachers can be responsive subject teachers by understanding that:

effective teaching develops pupils’ mental models of the subject
effective planning is based on the school curriculum and the teacher’s subject knowledge: this allows teachers to sequence and plan teaching
effective planning uses and builds upon effective assessment. The information this provides guides teachers’ planning and allows them to target support through responsive teaching
effective planning and assessment can be sustainable

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