While teachers want to stretch and challenge their pupils, as well as having targets to meet, these expectations can backfire when it comes to students with special educational needs. SEN pupils need a sustained approach to their reading. Being given the same material as their fluent-reading peers could fail in the long run. If learners…

Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who died in 1938 but his work lives on in classrooms across the world. Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory has been hugely influential since the 60s and breaks down into three main areas: The importance of social interaction in development The “More Knowledgeable Other” The Zone of Proximal Development The…

With an epidemic of testing in our schools there is a movement against all the tests and in favour of less assessment. It is assessment that these tests are for – to keep check of pupils’ progress. But so much time is devoted to passing the tests that it takes away from actual teaching time….

“Docendo discimus” said the Roman philosopher Seneca: by teaching we learn. This old wisdom has been proved true in more modern times and the phenomenon is known as the Protégé Effect. Some of the first indications came from studies that looked at links between birth order and intelligence. Two separate studies showed that first borns…

A lot of the time the terms “teaching” and “learning” are used interchangeably as if they mean the same thing. But that isn’t completely true. There are little differences between the words that are important. The differences are even greater when it comes to our SEN children. “Teaching” is about instruction, transmitting information. It has…

We all learn more when we are interested, having fun and repeating information. How many songs do you remember the lyrics to years after you first heard them? The ‘forgetting curve’ has been featured on the blog before because it is so essential to understanding how children retain information. Also called the learning curve or…

The forgetting curve has been featured on the blog before because it is so essential to understanding how children retain information. Also called the learning curve or Ebbinghaus’ theory, after its creator Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist living in the late 19th century, the forgetting curve shows how quickly memories are lost – but also,…

As well as learning styles, which we talk a lot about on the blog, there are learning stages. These different frameworks try to explain how we learn and how we can make the most of the process for the best results. In children it is especially important so that we can create the best teaching…

There’s a new buzzword in teaching and learning: metacognition. It means understanding your own thought processes – thinking about thinking. Now being taught in schools all over the UK it is expected to spread to many more. Introducing metacognition to the classroom improves results and gives children a valuable insight into their own learning, improving…