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  • Support for early career teachers
  • Teach First
  • Year 1: First half-term: what makes classroom practice effective?

    • Related Early Career Framework strands

    How pupils learn

    2k. Increasing challenge with practice and retrieval as knowledge becomes more secure (e.g. by removing scaffolding, lengthening spacing or introducing interacting elements).

    Subject and curriculum

    3.5 Explicitly teaching pupils the knowledge and skills they need to succeed within particular subject areas is beneficial.

    3k. Ensuring pupils have relevant domain-specific knowledge, especially when being asked to think critically within a subject.

    Classroom practice

    4.4 Guides, scaffolds and worked examples can help pupils apply new ideas, but should be gradually removed as pupil expertise increases.

    4.8 Practice is an integral part of effective teaching; ensuring pupils have repeated opportunities to practise, with appropriate guidance and support, increases success.

    4.9 Paired and group activities can increase pupil success, but to work together effectively pupils need guidance, support and practice.

    4.10 How pupils are grouped is also important; care should be taken to monitor the impact of groupings on pupil attainment, behaviour and motivation.

    4.11 Homework can improve pupil outcomes, particularly for older pupils, but it is likely that the quality of homework and its relevance to main class teaching is more important than the amount set.

    4b. Enabling critical thinking and problem solving by first teaching the necessary foundational content knowledge.

    4d. Providing sufficient opportunity for pupils to consolidate and practise applying new knowledge and skills.

    4e. Breaking tasks down into constituent components when first setting up independent practice (e.g. using tasks that scaffold pupils through meta-cognitive and procedural processes).

    4l. Planning activities around what you want pupils to think hard about.

    4o. Considering the factors that will support effective collaborative or paired work (e.g. familiarity with routines, whether pupils have the necessary prior knowledge and how pupils are grouped).

    Managing behaviour

    7d. Checking pupils’ understanding of instructions before a task begins.