Spring week 2

Mentor materials

Delivering a carefully sequenced and coherent curriculum

Intended outcomes

The intended outcomes of this topic are for Early Career Teachers to:

Learn how to deliver a carefully sequenced and coherent curriculum by:

• Identifying essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles of the subject and providing opportunity for all pupils to learn and master these critical components
• Ensuring pupils’ thinking is focused on key ideas within a subject
• Using resources and materials aligned with the school curriculum (e.g. textbooks or shared resources designed by experienced colleagues that carefully sequence content).

Activities

Activating key ideas for the topic (5 minutes)

Explain to the ECT that the focus of the mentor topic is to learn how to identify essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles within their subject. As a first step, the focus will be on doing this for a particular scheme of learning or sequence of lessons that the ECT has already taught so that this activity can be related directly to their practice.

Pose the question: what do you think is meant by the term ‘essential’ in the intended outcome statement ‘Identifying essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles of the subject and providing opportunity for all pupils to learn and master these critical components’?

Answer: the most important aspects that will ensure the pupils successfully master the content of the curriculum.

Guidance to mentor:

• The mentor might ask the ECT to give some examples of ‘essential’ knowledge, concepts, skills and principles vs ‘unessential’.
• If they are stuck, the mentor could provide some examples:
  • Knowing how to add, subtract, multiply and divide efficiently – essential
  • Knowing the history of different methods of multiplication – unessential
  • Knowing when and how to use a capital letter – essential- Knowing the etymology of the word ‘diligent’ – unessential
  • Knowing the difference between a short-term and long-term impact in geography – essential
  • Knowing how to communicate your findings from an experiment in a systematic and coherent way – essential
• Note: the mentor could discuss that ‘essential’ knowledge, skills or concepts may change over time. What is not yet essential in Year 2, may become essential in Year 6. The ECT should be determining what is essential for that particular class, year group, phase that they are teaching right now.
• The mentor might also talk about the challenge of fitting all of the subject knowledge into the curriculum time available – you can’t do everything so by identifying ‘essentials’, the ECT can prioritise how to use learning time more effectively.

Identifying essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles of the subject (35 minutes)

Guidance to mentors:

The mentor may not be of the same subject or phase specialism as the ECT. If this is the case, consider:

• Discussing this topic with the Head of Department/phase lead/teacher from the same phase as the ECT

• Inviting an experienced teacher from the department/phase the ECT comes from.

• While the intended outcome statement refers to the subject in its broad sense, in the mentor’s work with the ECT it might help to think in terms of:

  • The overall concepts, knowledge, skills and principles pupils are expected to develop at different key stage end points, e.g. end of Year 6, end of Year 11, end of Year 13 etc.
  • The concepts, knowledge, skills and principles pupils are expected to develop within a particular year, e.g. Year 4, Year 8 etc.
  • The concepts, knowledge, skills and principles pupils are expected to develop within a particular scheme of work/learning, e.g. Volcanoes and Earthquakes, The Cold War etc.
  • The concepts, knowledge, skills and principles pupils are expected to develop within a particular lesson or sequence of lessons, e.g. solving equations.

• There are undoubtedly connections between these. For the purpose of the ECT learning how to identify essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles of the subject, it is recommended that the focus be on a particular lesson or sequence of lessons (up to three).

• For this statement, the terms mean:

  • Concepts: the core ideas pupils need to learn. These are abstract ideas as opposed to facts, e.g. power and democracy.
  • Knowledge: the facts pupils need to learn, e.g. Henry VIII wanted a son for an heir.
  • Skills: the things pupils need to be able to do, e.g. support ideas with evidence.
  • Principles: the underlying foundations of the subject, e.g. the past can be interpreted in different ways.

• The key role for the mentor here is to support the ECT to funnel the many ideas that could be addressed into what is considered ‘essential’. There is further guidance on this within the activity in Handout 4.2.

The mentor should share the definitions of concepts, knowledge, skills and principles so that they are in agreement with ECT about what these mean. The mentor should provide some specific examples and non-examples from their subject to check this understanding.

Ask the ECT to explain which lesson or sequence of lessons they have chosen as a focus for this topic. They should have brought along an overview and/or lesson plan(s) and/or PowerPoint(s).

Use the handout to map all the concepts, knowledge, skills and principles that pupils are expected to develop through the lesson or sequence of lessons. The ECT might come up with a long list. It is the role of the mentor to support them in reducing this to what is essential.

Some questions to support this are:

• What is the ‘one thing’ the pupils need to leave this scheme of learning knowing/being able to do/understand etc?
• What makes you say that this is an essential concept/piece of knowledge/skill/principle?
• If you had to pick one of these things, which would be most important? Why?
• How do these concepts/pieces of knowledge/skills/principles relate to what pupils will go on to learn in the future?

Having the subject/phase long-term curriculum plan to hand would be helpful here especially if the mentor is from outside the department/phase.

Providing opportunities for pupils to learn and master these critical components (15 minutes)

Now that the essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles for the sequence of lessons have been identified, spend time with the ECT working on what opportunities they will provide in the lessons to enable pupils to master these critical components.

Take the existing scheme/sequence of lessons and ask the ECT to narrate their thought process in relation to the objectives and tasks.

Some question prompts to support this activity:

• Where in these lessons can you provide opportunities and enough time for pupils to learn and master the critical components?
• If you have specific activities in mind, do these support the pupils to achieve the essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles?
• If you don’t yet have them, where could you find some good examples of activities that would support the pupils to achieve the essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles? (Suggestions could include speaking to another teacher, looking in the resource bank, using a textbook.)
• Given that students were at different starting points and progress at a different pace, what will you do to ensure that all pupils are able to learn and master the critical components?

There is also an opportunity here for the mentor to share experience and offer examples.

Planning for action

Mentor to ask some key questions to check what has been understood/taken from this topic:

• What will they do next?
• Who will they speak to?
• What resources will they look at?

There is a further opportunity to apply and practise these knowledge and skills through in Activity 4.4 of the self-directed study materials, particularly ‘Planning backwards’.

In the next topic the ECT will need to bring an example of an upcoming lesson or topic which introduces new content to pupils. Discuss this now so the ECT is clear what to bring.

Securing foundational knowledge before moving on

Intended outcomes

The intended outcomes of this topic are for Early Career Teachers to:

Learn that:

• Ensuring pupils master foundational concepts and knowledge before moving on is likely to build pupils’ confidence and help them succeed
• In all subject areas, pupils learn new ideas by linking those ideas to existing knowledge, organising this knowledge into increasingly complex mental models (or “schemata”); carefully sequencing teaching to facilitate this process is important

Learn how to build on pupils’ prior knowledge by:

• Linking what pupils already know to what is being taught (e.g. explaining how new content builds on what is already known)
• Sequencing lessons so that pupils secure foundational knowledge before encountering more complex content

Learn how to deliver a carefully sequenced and coherent curriculum, by:

• Ensuring pupils’ thinking is focused on key ideas within a subject

Activities

Five quick questions (5 minutes)

Ask the ECT to answer the following five quick questions. They should spend a maximum of one minute per question, and answers should be short (no more than one or two sentences). Review their answers, using it as an opportunity to remind them of some of the information they learned in module 2 that is relevant to this module. Explain to the ECT that this is a practical example of the technique that will be discussed in the topic activity below and is not a test – it is designed to help activate their prior knowledge in preparation for the topic. You will go through the answers together afterwards.

Questions:

1. What is the difference between long-term and working memory?
2. What is meant by cognitive overload?
3. Why is it important to consider cognitive overload when planning?
4. What is one way you can minimise cognitive overload?
5. Why is it important to plan backwards, considering what you want the end learning to be for pupils?

Answers:

1. (In simple terms) Long-term memory is for storage and is virtually infinite; working memory is for processing and is limited.
2. When the capacity of working memory is exceeded.
3. Because if cognitive overload occurs, we are unlikely to be able to transfer new information into our long-term memory… we learn very little.
4. Possible options:
   • Tailor lessons to pupils’ existing knowledge and skills
   • Use worked examples
   • Gradually increase independence
   • Cut out inessential information from explanations
   • Don’t overload slides with too much information
   • Present essential information together
5. Possible answers:
   • We only have so much time to teach pupils so need to focus on what’s essential.
   • It helps to boil the subject down to its ‘essence’ so that pupils understand the core principles that make that subject what it is.

Linking learning to what pupils already know (20 minutes)

Guidance to mentors:

• In this part of the topic, mentors will support ECTs to learn how to link what pupils already know to what is being taught (e.g. explaining how new content builds on what is already known).
• It is important to make explicit links to prior learning but the ECT must not assume that pupils have definitively learned and acquired specific knowledge or skills necessary to new learning.
• An effective way to connect current learning to what has been learned before is to start the lesson by reviewing what was learned in the previous lesson.
• This should build on ideas that the ECT developed as part of their work in module 2.

Read the following statement out to the ECT: we construct new knowledge and understanding based on what we already know. This is because when we learn something new, we need to connect it to existing information within our long-term memory otherwise the information is likely to be forgotten.

Ask the ECT to think back to what they learned about working memory as part of module 2.

You may want to remind the ECT that:

• The long-term memory organises information into schemata (complex mental models like groups)
• This makes it easier to remember information
• New information is learnt by connecting it to existing schema which extend and adapt to incorporate the new information
• For example, when you learn a new word in Spanish (Rojo - red) your schema on “Spanish vocabulary – colours” is added to.
• You might find it easier to learn the word ‘rojo’ if you also speak Italian and knew that red was ‘rosso’ in Italian. The two words are similar and so you are more likely to connect the information and therefore less likely to forget it.

Pose the questions:

• What are the implications of how we construct new knowledge and understanding when teaching new content?
• What do you do in your classroom practice to connect what you are going to teach the pupils to what they already know?

Consider the simple five quick questions activity from the start of this topic.

Explain that there are a number of ways that this activity can be done (and of course many other activities that they can use to link new learning to what pupils already know). The benefits of five quick questions are that:

• You can mix up the questions easily, to include content from the last lesson or content from previous terms or years.
• It can be used at the start, end or middle of lessons to quickly check pupils’ knowledge and understanding.
• It can be used as a retrieval practice activity to activate information you require for the new learning from their long-term memory.
• It gives you a quick assessment of what pupils know, what misconceptions they may have and how secure their existing knowledge is.
• It gives you information about the individuals in your class so you know who you might need to give some support or scaffolding to.
• The important thing is what you do with the information once you have it.

Ask the ECT to share a lesson or a topic they will be teaching soon that includes new content.

Pose the question: in order to make the link to prior learning, what information would you want to check pupils already know before you start teaching this new content? (the ECT can generate five quick questions they would want to ask).

Follow up questions:

• How can you make sure you find out which pupils actually know this and aren’t simply copying their neighbour?(Suggestions you could make: pupils write answers on a whiteboard, pupils submit answers virtually, pupils write their answers down and swap them, pupils complete the questions as homework or independently and you take in, wider point on classroom culture and explaining that this is low-stakes so pupils feel safe to be honest)
• What if pupils have different levels of understanding or prior knowledge – how can you help everyone to be secure?(Suggestions: use the information to know which pupils need a scaffold such as a vocabulary sheet, group the pupils according to the information and perhaps give a short teacher exposition or model an answer for those that need it)

Once you have established what pupils already know, you need to link it to the new learning.

Some ways which you could do this include:

• Beginning expositions by referring to the prior knowledge – “Remember yesterday how we explored the role the King in establishing laws… today we are…”
• Use consistent vocabulary, which you may have included in the 5 quick questions – “Today we are continuing to think about the ‘liquification’ of gases…”

Ask pupils questions which link the content back to previously learn material – “What do you notice about how these patterns are the same or different to the ones we looked at yesterday?” Ask your ECT: How will you link the new learning to the prior knowledge?

Sequencing lessons so that pupils secure foundational knowledge before encountering more complex content (25 minutes)

Guidance to mentors:

• In this part of the topic, the mentor will support the ECT to learn how to sequence lessons so that pupils secure foundational knowledge before encountering more complex content.
• This should build on ideas that the ECT developed as part of their work in module 2.
• Foundational knowledge means the basic concepts, knowledge, skills and principles (link back to topic 4.1) that a pupil needs to grasp in order to progress to more advanced learning within the subject. The mentor should ensure that they are in agreement with the ECT about what is meant by the statement.

The mentor should share with the ECT a lesson/sequence of learning either of their own or from their department where material is sequenced so that pupils master foundational concepts before being challenged with more advanced learning. The mentor can also use Handout 4.3, which provides an exemplar sequence for a Key Stage 3 geography lesson.

Questions to support:

1. Are pupils being required to master foundational concepts first? If yes, what are they? If yes, does this happen within lessons, over the course of the sequence or both?
2. How has the teacher planned to assess whether the foundational knowledge is secure before moving on?
3. How has the teacher planned to support pupils who have not secured the foundational knowledge at the same rate as their peers?

Look together at the lesson or topic which the ECT has brought with them. Discuss how they should sequence the lesson / sequence of lessons to ensure that pupils secure foundational knowledge before encountering more complex content.

Planning for action

Ask the ECT to share their reflections on how to sequence lessons from foundational to complex following today’s topic. What will they do next?

Look forward to next week’s topic on uncovering pupil misconceptions.

In the next topic, ECTs should have the opportunity to interview a more experienced colleague from within their subject area. The mentor should support in inviting a colleague to this topic. It could, however, be the mentor if they are from the same subject/phase etc.

Give the ECT Handout 4.4 so that they have a chance to prepare any questions they wish to ask.

Ask the ECT to send questions to the interviewee in advance so that they can think about the answers before the topic.