Learning Intentions and Introduction

Session Elements

• reflection
• independent planning

Learning Intentions for this session

You will learn that:

• A school’s curriculum enables it to set out its vision for the knowledge, skills and values that its pupils will learn, encompassing the national curriculum within a coherent, wider vision for successful learning.
• In order for pupils to think critically, they must have a secure understanding of knowledge within the subject area they are being asked to think critically about.
• 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.
• Secure subject knowledge helps teachers to motivate pupils and teach effectively.
• Pupils are likely to struggle to transfer what has been learnt in one discipline to a new or unfamiliar context.

Introduction

Over the last four weeks, you have been considering how pupils learn through building on their prior knowledge and the roles of working memory, long-term memory (2.5) and consolidation (2.7) within this. You have also looked at how retrieval and spacing practice (2.8) allow the mastering of foundational concepts (3.3) and the potential of worked examples (2.9) in developing this.

In this self-study session, you will begin to apply your understanding of how we learn and move on to considering what pupils learn and why.