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  • Support for early career teachers
  • Teach First
  • Year 1: Second half-term: how to design a coherent curriculum
    • Summer week 6

    Mentor materials

    Discussion - building spaced exposition and retrieval practice into a scheme of work

    Practice focus

    Interaction:

    Discussion

    Outcome:

    • To have built spaced exposition and practice into a scheme of work
    • To have built retrieval practice into a scheme of work

    Stimulus

    In the online study materials, your teacher was asked to review their scheme of work, considering the questions below:

    • Where will you build on pupils’ prior knowledge?
    • Where would it support pupils’ understanding to use worked and partially completed examples
    • How will you build in spaced exposition and practice?
    • Where will you build in retrieval practice?

    When thinking about the last two questions, they were promoted to think more broadly about where their scheme fits into the wider curriculum. For example, they may have wanted to include practice of information taught in a previous scheme of work, or the retrieval of knowledge previously taught. They were informed that working with colleagues to facilitate this, will support the overall sequencing and coherence of their curriculum.

    They were then asked to prepare to share their evolving scheme of work with you.

    Review and discuss their scheme of work.

    Praise, probe and set precise actions

    The following practise should be focused around the outcomes of the probe and precise actions, so that it is specific to your teacher’s developmental needs. However, below are some practise ideas based on the online study content to support you if needed.

    Plan and practice ideas

    Practise either:

    • Improving the spaced exposition and practice in the scheme of work
    • Improving planned retrieval practice across the scheme of work

    Key questions and talking points

    1. Where will you draw explicit links between the new content and the core concepts and principles of the subject?
    2. Have you included worked and partially completed examples? Where/why?
    3. Have you built in spaced exposition and practice? Where/why?
    4. What knowledge are you asking pupils to recall and why throughout the scheme?
    5. Does your scheme ask pupils to practise or recall knowledge/skills from previous schemes of work? Why/why not?
    6. How have you balanced exposition, repetition, practice of critical skills and knowledge over the course of the scheme?