💡 The Big Idea

There are some very strong and detailed questioning routines widely published and identified. Turn and talk, cold calling, mini-whiteboards and think–pair–share are now embedded in many classrooms. They are some of the most effective strategies we have for engaging pupils in thinking.

However, there are some simple traps I have seen teachers get caught into.

Over time, we can begin to use these routines because they are good strategies, rather than because they are serving a clear instructional purpose in that moment. The routine remains, but the intent fades. When that happens, questioning can shift from something that directs thinking to something that simply fills time.

As Daniel Willingham reminds us, “memory is the residue of thought.” If our questions are not directing pupils to think about the right knowledge, then the routine itself is not doing the job we think it is.

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👀 A Closer Look

🧠 The Guess What’s in the Teacher’s Head Trap

One of the most common traps, particularly in primary classrooms, is asking pupils questions about knowledge they do not yet have.

The teacher begins a lesson on states of matter: “Today we’re going to learn about something new. What is evaporation?” A few confident pupils offer ideas. Others stay quiet. The teacher probes: “Not quite… what else could it be?” More guesses follow: “Is it when water disappears?” “Is it when something dries?”

On the surface, this can look like active learning. Children are contributing, the teacher is not talking for too long, and the lesson feels interactive. But if pupils have not yet been taught the knowledge, many of them are not thinking deeply. They are either guessing, copying the ideas of others, or waiting for the teacher to reveal the answer.

This is not active learning. It is active guessing.

If pupils do not have the knowledge, they cannot reason their way to the answer. They can only try to work out what is in the teacher’s head. In these moments, the most helpful thing a teacher can do is often the most direct thing. Teach the knowledge first.

Done well, the same scenario looks like this.

“Evaporation is when a liquid changes into a gas. This often happens when water is heated. When a puddle dries in the sun, the water has not disappeared; it has evaporated into the air.”

Now the questioning can begin.

“Has anyone else seen this happening?”
“So what is evaporation?”
”Which of these pictures represents evaporation?”
“Why might a puddle dry more quickly on a hot day?”

Now pupils are thinking with knowledge, not searching for it in the dark.

🔤 The First Letter Prompt Trap

Another subtle trap is the use of prompts that feel supportive but are not actually connected to the learning. Alex Fairlamb and Rachel Ball explore this in The Scaffolding Effect. Giving pupils the first letter of a word is a good example. It feels like a scaffold, but it does not support understanding. Instead, it turns the task into a word puzzle and does not build scientific knowledge.

For example, a teacher might ask: “What is the process called when water turns into vapour… it begins with E?” Pupils now search for a word beginning with that letter. The clue may help them retrieve the word, but it does not help them think about the science.

A stronger prompt would stay connected to the concept: “What is the process called when water turns into vapour… we know vapour means water as a gas, so can you recall what the process is called?” Here, the prompt is rooted in meaning. It directs pupils towards the relationship between liquid, gas and vapour, rather than simply towards the first letter of the answer.

This links neatly to Rosenshine’s emphasis on checking for understanding. The question should reveal whether pupils understand the content, not whether they can guess the word with a letter clue.

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💬 The Turn and Talk Without Purpose Trap

Turn and talk is a powerful routine, but it only works when the intended thinking is clearly defined. Without a precise prompt, it can quickly drift into low-level conversation or passive participation. Pupils may speak, but they are not necessarily thinking about the learning.

Sometimes, we use turn and talk simply as a way to break up teacher talk. It feels like engagement. It looks like interaction. But if the question is too closed, too short, or lacks direction, it does not lead to meaningful discussion. Without clear expectations or a goal for what pupils should come back with, the routine can become superficial and, ultimately, meaningless.

The difference lies in the level of cognitive demand. A vague prompt such as “talk about this” leaves too much open. A closed question such as “Did the Romans build roads for their army? Now turn and talk” gives pupils very little to work with. The conversation is short, often repetitive, and rarely pushes thinking further.

A stronger approach is to increase the demand and provide structure. For example: “Why did the Romans build roads? I want you to come up with two reasons from what we have learned and be ready to explain them.” You might add, “Write your two reasons on your whiteboard before you share,” so pupils have something concrete to bring back. Now the talk has purpose. Pupils are recalling knowledge, organising their thinking and preparing to articulate it clearly.

The Education Endowment Foundation highlights that classroom talk improves learning when it is structured and purposeful. The routine alone does not guarantee this. The prompt, the question and the clarity of expectations, are what give it direction.

⏱ The No Think Time Trap

Another common issue is the lack of thinking time after a question is asked. In many classrooms, questions are followed almost immediately by looking for answers. This creates the illusion of engagement, but it limits participation and reduces the depth of thinking.

Research by Mary Budd Rowe showed that even a small increase in wait time leads to longer, more thoughtful responses and greater participation across the class. Giving pupils a few seconds to think allows more of them to process the question and formulate an answer.

This becomes even more important when we combine questioning with routines like turn and talk or cold calling. If pupils are asked to speak immediately, many experience a form of cognitive overload. They are trying to process the question, generate an idea and prepare to speak all at once. For some, particularly quieter pupils, this can lead to their minds going blank. They disengage before they’ve even had a chance to think.

A simple adjustment is to build in deliberate thinking time before any response. For example: “Don’t speak yet. Take ten seconds to think.” You might reinforce this with a consistent routine, such as asking pupils to place a finger on their temple as a signal that this is silent thinking time. This removes the pressure to respond instantly and ensures that everyone has something to contribute.

The same applies to cold calling. The strength of cold calling is that it keeps thinking distributed, but it only works if all pupils have had time to think first. Without that pause, we risk catching pupils out rather than drawing thinking out. With it, we create a classroom where every pupil is given the time and space to process before being asked to respond.

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🎯 The Vague Question Trap

Finally, there is the issue of vague questioning. Questions such as “What do you think?” can appear open and inclusive, but they often lack the precision needed to guide thinking. Pupils are left unsure of what to focus on, which can lead to broad, superficial responses that tell us very little about what they have actually understood.

More effective questions are deliberately tied to the success criteria or the specific knowledge component pupils are learning. The question is not random. It has a job to do. It helps the teacher check whether pupils have understood the key idea, can explain the important vocabulary, can apply the method, or can connect the knowledge to an example.

For example, in a history lesson, “What can you remember about Roman roads?” is a little too broad. A more purposeful question would be, “Which reason best explains why the Romans built roads?” or “How did Roman roads help the army control the empire?” These questions are precise because they connect directly to the knowledge pupils are expected to learn.

As Dylan Wiliam argues, the quality of questioning is central to effective formative assessment. Precision matters because it allows teachers to see which parts of the lesson pupils understand, which components need reteaching, and where pupils are ready to think more deeply.

🧠 The Bits That Stick

✅ Questioning routines only work when they are driven by clear intent.
✅ Pupils cannot answer questions about knowledge they do not yet have — teach first, then question.
✅ Avoid “guess what’s in the teacher’s head”; instead, direct pupils’ thinking with clear, knowledge-linked prompts.
✅ Prompts must connect to meaning, not surface clues like first letters or vague hints.
✅ Structured talk only works when the thinking task is precise and purposeful.
✅ Thinking improves when pupils are given time to process before answering.
✅ The best questions focus attention on the exact knowledge pupils need to learn.

In a bit,
Coops 😎

📚 References

• Daniel Willingham (2009). Why Don’t Students Like School?

• Barak Rosenshine (2012). Principles of Instruction

• Alex Fairlamb & Rachel Ball (2019). The Scaffolding Effect

• Mary Budd Rowe (1972). Wait-Time and Rewards as Instructional Variables

• Dylan Wiliam (2011). Embedded Formative Assessment

• Education Endowment Foundation (2021). Improving Literacy Guidance Reports

💡 The Big Idea

Some of the most powerful teaching strategies in a classroom are also the easiest to miss.

They don’t sit in policy documents. They aren’t always labelled on lesson plans. They rarely appear as the “main strategy focus” on a learning walk. Instead, they live in the everyday interactions between teachers and pupils. They are those tiny moments where a response is nudged, a sentence is improved, or a phrase is repeated more precisely than it was the first time.

One of those moments is the simple act of asking a child to say it again, but better.

With the explicit curriculum we teach, pupils are constantly absorbing language from the adults around them. However, this quiet routine becomes one of the simplest ways to strengthen oracy in the moment between and within those explicit teaching points.

Research from the EEF suggests that oral language interventions can have a high impact on learning, with an average of six months’ additional progress, while Voice 21 states that oracy supports not only speaking and listening but also reading comprehension, writing and reasoning.

This post builds on my earlier piece about the hidden curriculum. In that post, I explored the knowledge pupils absorb from us beyond the planned content of timetabled lessons. This is one of them. The small, habitual routine of asking pupils to say it again, but better. Let’s look at it in more detail…

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👀 A Closer Look

The strategy “say it again, but better” can show up in lots of different ways during a lesson and within a school day. Sometimes it pushes pupils to expand an answer. Sometimes it nudges them towards clearer reasoning. Other times, it helps refine grammar or rehearse new vocabulary. The routine is simple. Pupils are encouraged to revisit what they have said and improve it. Let’s look at a few of the ways this can play out in everyday interactions at school.

🧠 The first answer is not always the finished answer

Children’s first answers are often enough to show that they answered the questions correctly, but they are not always enough to prove that they have understood.

“Angry.”
“It was bad.”
”32".

None of these responses is necessarily wrong. They are often perfectly normal first attempts to answer classroom questions. But if we accept every first attempt as final, we miss an opportunity to check true understanding or to offer a more complete answer. That is where this strategy comes in, and a teacher might respond with:

“Can you say that again as a full sentence?”
“Can you say that again and tell me why?”
“Can you tell me how you know you are correct?”

The answer may not change massively, but the explanation and justification reveal whether a child really understands why they are correct. The process pushes pupils into clearer thinking.

Robin Alexander’s work on dialogic teaching has long emphasised that classroom talk is not simply about participation or confidence; it is about using talk to deepen thinking and understanding. Productive classroom talk is cumulative and purposeful, not just conversational. Asking children to restate and refine what they say is one small way of making that happen.

🧱 Building better sentences, not just longer ones

One of the easiest ways to use this habit is through sentence extension.

A pupil says: “The wolf was bad.”
The teacher responds: “Can you say that again, but use because?”

Now the child has to do more than label the wolf. They have to explain.
“The wolf was bad because he wanted to trick the pigs.”

That one extra word changes the thinking. It pushes the child from a simple judgment into causal reasoning. The sentence becomes more complete, and the idea becomes more developed.

You can do the same with other stems:

“Can you say that again using so…?”
“Can you add two reasons to your argument this time?”
“Can you add a fronted adverbial?”

The EEF’s evidence on oral language is useful here again. They note that structured approaches to talk, particularly when embedded in everyday classroom practice, are more likely to have an impact than simply giving children more opportunities to speak. The quality and scaffolding of talk matter.

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🗣 Correcting grammar without killing confidence

Another place this strategy earns its keep is in correcting grammar and colloquialisms.

A child might say: “He done it because he was mad.”

You could correct it bluntly, but sometimes this is too direct. Instead, model and invite repetition: “You mean, he did it because he was angry. Can you say that again?”

Handled badly, a correction like this can shut children down, particularly if their original phrasing reflects accent, dialect, or local colloquial speech. Linguistic research has long reinforced that dialects are not incorrect forms of language but structured systems with their own rules (Labov, 1972).

Handled well, however, these moments become opportunities for oral rehearsal of formal language. The child hears a more formal version of the sentence and then practises using it themselves.

The goal is not to criticise a child’s language, accent, or informal speech. Instead, it is about helping pupils develop control over a more formal register of language. Research on code-switching pedagogy shows that explicitly teaching pupils the difference between home language and school language can help them confidently move between the two (Wheeler & Swords, 2006).

I often frame it for children like this:

“At home and with friends we might speak one way. In class we practise another way as well.”

That distinction matters. It tells children that both ways of speaking have value, while also helping them learn the language structures that will support reading, writing, and academic success.

📚 Vocabulary practised in the moment

Say it again, but better is especially powerful when it comes to vocabulary.

A child might say: “The animal at the top eats the others.”

The teacher responds: “Yes, that animal is the predator. Can you say that again using the word predator?”

Now the child repeats: “The predator eats the other animals.”

Vocabulary becomes far stickier when children are required to use it themselves. Voice 21’s evidence summaries repeatedly emphasise that spoken language is central to wider literacy and curriculum access; children need opportunities to hear words and to work with them actively.

In science: “Say that again using evaporation.”
In geography: “Try that again with the word settlement.”
In maths: “Can you explain that again using denominator?”
In English: “Say that again, but use a stronger verb.”

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🌱 A hidden curriculum habit

Say it again, but better can happen during whole-class questioning. It can happen in partner talk. It can happen while circulating during independent work. It can happen in corridors, at the lunch table, or on the playground.

When all staff start using these nudges, the cumulative effect can be huge. Spoken language begins to improve not because of one special oracy lesson each week, but because the whole environment keeps pulling children towards better language.

To me, it is a major part of the hidden curriculum. If adults consistently model, prompt, and rehearse stronger language with children, they develop language knowledge far beyond what is achieved within the structures of a school’s timetabled lessons.

🧠 The Bits That Stick

✅ Spoken language matters because it supports both communication and thinking.
✅ One of the simplest ways to improve pupils’ language is to ask them to say it again, but better.
✅ Small prompts such as “use because”, “say it as a full sentence”, or “use the technical word” help pupils expand their ideas and rehearse stronger language.
✅ Correcting grammar through modelling and repetition strengthens pupils’ academic language.
✅ When this becomes a shared habit across staff, the whole school becomes a place where oracy is quietly, constantly developed.

In a bit,
Coops 😎

📚 References

• Alexander, R. (2020). A Dialogic Teaching Companion. London: Routledge.

• Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). (2021). Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1. London: Education Endowment Foundation.

• Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). (2021). Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2. London: Education Endowment Foundation.

• Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). (2021). Teaching and Learning Toolkit: Oral Language Interventions. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk (Accessed: [4.4.26]).

• Labov, W. (1972). Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

• Voice 21. (2023). Available at: https://voice21.org.

• Wheeler, R. S., & Swords, R. (2006). Code-Switching: Teaching Standard English in Urban Classrooms. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

💡 The Big Idea

In many classrooms, the mini-whiteboard is associated with one thing: quick checks for understanding or ‘Show Me’ as appears to be the most commonly adopted term of phrase.

Ask a question. “3…2…1…show me.” Scan the room.

It’s an incredibly useful routine. In a matter of seconds, teachers can see thirty responses and decide whether to move on, reteach, or probe a little deeper. That alone makes whiteboards one of the most powerful tools in a classroom.

But that isn’t the whole story. Recently, I read a thoughtful post from The Educakers titled Mini-Whiteboards: A Long-Overdue Rant (and Love Letter). The post beautifully captures the practical ways whiteboards appear throughout the day in a classroom — from retrieval starters, sentence practice, idea collection, diagrams and more. As they point out, mini-whiteboards allow teachers to see pupils’ thinking instantly and use that information to adapt instruction in real time.

That framing is spot on. Externally representing thinking makes feedback easier. In fact, this quote summarises the idea neatly:

“Mini-whiteboards are, at their core, instructional decision-making tools. They let you adapt, redirect, or extend — all within seconds.”

- Mini-Whiteboards: A Long-Overdue Rant (and Love Letter) by Educakers

That is an important insight that I want to build on further. When we look at whiteboards through the lens of cognitive science and classroom learning environments, their value even further than checking understanding and supporting instructional decisions. Whiteboards are also powerful tools that allow pupils to externalise thinking.

In a previous post on the Learning Within the Environment model, I wrote about the concept of the external memory field, a term originally used by evolutionary cognitive scientist Merlin Donald. Humans don’t do all their thinking internally. We constantly offload ideas into the world around us - onto paper, devices, gestures, notebooks, and shared visual spaces like display boards.

In the classroom, the whiteboard sits right at the centre of that external memory field. It allows children to take ideas that would otherwise sit inside working memory and place them into the environment where they can be manipulated, edited, refined and built upon.

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👀 A Closer Look

🧩 Whiteboards as instructional feedback tools

In the Educakers post, they highlight several ways mini-whiteboards can appear across a lesson. Retrieval starters, sentence practice, idea collection and visual representation are just a few examples.

These examples illustrate just how versatile the tool really is. Whiteboards allow teachers to quickly see what pupils know, what they misunderstand and what needs revisiting. Instead of waiting until work is completed in books, teachers can respond in real time. Misconceptions become visible. Strong ideas can be shared. Instruction can be adapted immediately.

Seen this way, whiteboards act as powerful instructional feedback tools. They allow teachers to make rapid decisions about whether to adapt, reteach or extend learning within the moment. In the learning model below, this sits within the feedback loop between the external environment and working memory.

But there is another dynamic at play too. When pupils place their ideas on a whiteboard, something else is happening cognitively.

They are externalising their thinking.

🧠 Whiteboards as part of the external memory field

Working memory is limited. Children can only hold a small number of ideas in mind at once. When a task becomes complex - writing a sentence, solving a multi-step calculation, constructing a complex diagram or planning an answer - that working memory can quickly become overloaded. Whiteboards offer a way to ease that pressure.

By writing something down temporarily, pupils move ideas out of working memory and into the environment in front of them. Once those ideas are externalised, they stay in view but free up mental space for other thinking to take place. That thought, now sitting on the whiteboard, also becomes easier to manipulate. A word can be changed. A number can be adjusted or added to. A sentence can be extended. A diagram can be tweaked.

Thinking becomes visible, but also far more editable, malleable, and easier to build on because pupils no longer have to hold the original idea entirely in mind while trying to improve it.

In this sense, the whiteboard becomes part of the external memory field described by Donald. Instead of trying to hold every idea internally, pupils can distribute their thinking across the environment around them. The whiteboard becomes a space where thinking exists outside the mind and, because it does, becomes much easier to work with.

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✏️ Whiteboards as a thinking and drafting space

This is where the whiteboard becomes particularly powerful in primary classrooms.

Unlike an exercise book, the whiteboard carries no sense of permanence. Marks can be wiped away instantly, never to be seen again. Mistakes feel less costly. That simple difference creates space for experimentation, revision and refinement before anything is committed to paper.

In other words, the whiteboard becomes a drafting surface for thinking. In an I Do, We Do, You Do, the whiteboard provides a great space for the We Dos to take place.

Take writing as an example. A pupil might begin with a simple sentence:

The park is dirty.

Once that thought is externalised on the whiteboard, working memory is freed up to think about improvements. The child might add an adverbial phrase:

Sadly, the park is dirty.

Then a conjunction:

Sadly, the park is dirty because people leave litter everywhere.

Then perhaps vocabulary might be improved or additional detail added.

At each stage, the sentence evolves in front of them. Words are erased. New ones are added. The sentence improves gradually rather than being constructed entirely in the mind.

The same process occurs in mathematics. Multi-step problems can be broken down and represented piece by piece. Pupils can sketch diagrams, test calculations and adjust their approach without the pressure of committing every attempt to a page in their exercise book.

The whiteboard becomes a workspace for thinking, not just a place to record answers. And when pupils finally transfer their learning into their books, much of the thinking has already taken shape. They are fully ready for the ‘You Do’.

✨ And so…

As the Educakers post captures so well, mini-whiteboards remain one of the most underrated and essential tools in the classroom because they make pupils’ thinking visible and allow teachers to adapt in the moment.

What I wanted to add through this post is this:

The humble whiteboard might be one of the simplest tools in the room, but when used deliberately, it becomes one of the most powerful ways for children to externalise thought, free up working memory, and refine ideas before they commit them more permanently to the page.

And when you see them that way, not just as “show me” boards, but as thinking boards, feedback enablers, drafting boards, and cognitive support tools, it becomes very hard to imagine teaching without them…

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🧠 The Bits That Stick

✅ As Educakers highlight, mini-whiteboards are powerful instructional decision-making tools that allow teachers to adapt teaching in real time.
✅ Whiteboards also play a deeper cognitive role as part of the external memory field.
✅ By externalising ideas, pupils reduce working memory load and gain space to refine their thinking.
✅ Whiteboards are temporary, they encourage experimentation, editing and improvement before work is committed to exercise books.

In a bit,
Coops 😎

📚 References

• Ball, R. (2024). The Scaffolding Effect: How to Help Students Learn. Woodbridge: John Catt Educational.

• Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). “The extended mind.” Analysis, 58(1), 7–19.

• Donald, M. (1991). Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

• Educakers. (2025). Mini-Whiteboards Are Not Just for Hinge Questions. Substack. Available at: https://substack.com/@theeducakers/p-179163057

• Jones, K. (2019). Retrieval Practice: Research & Resources for Every Classroom. Woodbridge: John Catt Educational.

• Paivio, A. (1971). Imagery and Verbal Processes. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

• Paivio, A. (1986). Mental Representations: A Dual Coding Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Sweller, J. (1988). “Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning.” Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285.

• Sweller, J., Ayres, P., & Kalyuga, S. (2011). Cognitive Load Theory. New York: Springer.

💡 The Big Idea

In a previous post, I argued that dual coding is often misunderstood. It is not about decorating slides with icons or adding a random image next to every bullet point. It is not about making lessons look engaging. When Allan Paivio first introduced Dual Coding Theory, the idea was simple. Information is encoded through both verbal and non-verbal systems, and when those systems are meaningfully linked, recall becomes stronger.

This week, I observed a Year 4 persuasive writing lesson that captured that perfectly. Nothing flashy. I thought it was worth sharing because it shows what dual coding actually looks like in action in a primary classroom.

👀 A Closer Look

The learning outcome was clear. Underneath it sat the To Knows. Some would call them success criteria. In this lesson, they were deliberately framed as a checklist.

Each item had a small empty box beside it.

At first glance, that’s just tidy slide design. But the layout is doing cognitive work. The tick boxes signal that this lesson is about locating features, not following a sequence. The structure quietly hints to pupils what kind of task they are about to do and how they can track and monitor their progress. As I’ve written before when discussing task design, the template shapes the thinking that happens inside it.

Before a single sentence was read, the children already knew they were hunting for features.

Modal verbs: highlighting and strength

The first feature introduced was modal verbs. On the slide, example sentences were displayed, and the modal verbs were bold. That simple typographical choice narrowed attention. Instead of scanning the entire sentence and guessing what mattered, pupils’ eyes were drawn to the key words.

Cognitive Load Theory, particularly in Sweller’s work on worked examples and attention guidance, reminds us that novices benefit when we reduce unnecessary search processes. The bold text did exactly that. It signposted where thinking should begin.

Pairs were asked to discuss what they thought modal verbs were, based on the examples. Then, a horizontal scale on the board from “no” to “yes” was used to place the modal verbs from the sentences along that continuum. As a result, students were visually organising their vocabulary and, therefore, their knowledge of modal verbs in a very explicit way.

This is dual coding in its truest sense. Abstract meaning mapped onto spatial representation. The scale made the concept visible, structured and organised. Instead of holding the abstract idea of certainty in working memory on its own, pupils could see it too.

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Emotive language: expressing the sentence

Next came emotive language. As each example sentence was read aloud, pupils were asked to show, with their faces, the emotion the sentence created. Concern. Sadness. Pride.

There was a brief moment when a class full of children simultaneously pulled horrified expressions at the thought of animals harmed by litter. It was memorable because it connected language to embodied response.

Research around embodied cognition suggests that physical states and gestures can reinforce conceptual understanding. By pairing the wording with facial expression, the emotional effect of the language was made concrete.

Rule of three: rhythm, fingers and punctuation

When the rule of three was introduced, the teacher read aloud a sentence such as “cleaner, safer, greener” and held up three fingers in time with each word.

It sounds simple, but isn’t that the beauty of it? The rhythm, paired with a physical count, marked the structure clearly. It slowed the sentence down just enough for the pattern to be made explicit.

Then attention was drawn to punctuation. Two commas and a full stop. The commas became visual clues that reinforced the triple structure. The physical gesture and the punctuation worked together to encode the pattern.

Again, the visuals weren’t decorative. They were structural.

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Rhetorical questions: gesture as prompt

Rhetorical questions were approached in a similar way. Pupils were reminded to look for question marks, but also to consider what the question was doing. As the teacher read, “Do we want our school to be full of litter?”, both hands lifted slightly, palms open, as if throwing the question out to an audience.

That small gesture embodied the purpose of rhetorical questioning. It is not about expecting an answer. It is about provoking thought.

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From modelling to independence

The class then moved into a We Do under the visualiser, underlining and labelling features in the first paragraph together. Some pupils colour-coded; others simply annotated. The checklist remained visible, and pupils ticked off features as they found them.

By the time they reached independent practice, the slide had transformed from a display tool to a checklist sat beside them. A printed version to be interacted with.

Dual coding as a scaffold

Later, during independent practice, one pupil forgot what the rule of three was. Rather than re-explaining, the teacher simply held up three fingers. The pupil immediately recalled the concept. Another pupil hesitated over rhetorical questions; the open-palmed gesture was enough to trigger retrieval.

What struck me most was how little re-teaching was needed. When pupils forgot, the teacher didn’t return to lengthy explanations. A finger cue. A scale reminder. A facial expression. Each visual anchor quietly did its job.

This is where dual coding becomes powerful beyond initial explanation. The gesture becomes a prompt scaffold. As Rachel Ball describes in her work on scaffolding, prompt scaffolds nudge recall without taking over the thinking.

Without those paired encodings earlier in the lesson, the prompt would have meant nothing.

🧠 Why this matters

Dual coding in classrooms is often reduced to adding pictures. But as Paivio’s theory suggests, it is the meaningful linking of verbal and non-verbal representations that strengthens memory. When combined with Sweller’s insights about reducing extraneous cognitive load, the picture becomes clearer. Carefully designed visual and physical cues and structures support thinking and make knowledge easier to encode and retrieve.

In this lesson, dual coding wasn’t extravagant or over the top. It was simple and embedded.

The checklist framed the task.
Bold text guided attention.
A scale made the abstract concrete.
Gestures embodied structure.
Punctuation became a visual clue.

And that is the real point. Dual coding is not about decoration or simply removing content. It is about the deliberate representation and organisation of knowledge.

🧠 The Bits That Stick

✅ Dual coding is more than icons; it is the intentional pairing of words with visual, spatial or physical anchors.
✅ Layout shapes thinking. A checklist implies locating and ticking off features.
✅ Spatial tools, like scales, make abstract concepts visible.
✅ Gestures can become powerful prompt scaffolds that support retrieval without re-teaching.
✅ The most effective dual coding feels simple because it is tightly aligned to the knowledge being taught.

In a bit,
Coops 😎

📚 References

1. Paivio, A. (1971). Imagery and Verbal Processes. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

2. Paivio, A. (1986). Mental Representations: A Dual Coding Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

3. Sweller, J. (1988). “Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning.” Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285.

4. Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. (1998). “Cognitive architecture and instructional design.” Educational Psychology Review, 10(3), 251–296.

5. Sweller, J., Ayres, P., & Kalyuga, S. (2011). Cognitive Load Theory. New York: Springer.

6. Sweller, J., & Cooper, G. A. (1985). “The use of worked examples as a substitute for problem solving in learning algebra.” Cognition and Instruction, 2(1), 59–89.

7. Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia Learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

8. Goldin-Meadow, S. (2014). “How gesture works to change our minds.” Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 3(1), 4–6.

9. Hostetter, A. B., & Alibali, M. W. (2008). “Visible embodiment: Gestures as simulated action.” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15(3), 495–514.

10. Ball, R & Fairlamb, A (2024). The Scaffolding Effect: How to Help Students Learn. Woodbridge: John Catt Educational.

💡 The Big Idea

Most of us have had this moment.

You model something clearly at the front of the room. The explanation flows, the worked example looks great, and the whiteboard work has been spot on. You send them off to work feeling quietly hopeful… then you start circulating and realise what’s ending up in the books looks nothing like what you just did.

On the board: a neat example, laid out cleanly, well spaced, each step visible.

In the books: numbers wandering across the page, writing squeezed into odd corners, conjunctions missing and task formats that don’t quite line up with what you showed.

They have seen it, and they may have even understood it in the context of your input, but the context has changed just enough to make the knowledge transfer hard.

From a cognitive science angle, that gap matters. When the model and the task don’t quite match, children are forced to spend precious working memory figuring out things that are different from what they saw you do - where to start, how to lay it out, and what kind of answer is expected. For novices, especially, that extra load can be a significant factor that blocks success.

It is a bit like giving someone driving lessons on a quiet straight road, then sending them to take their test at a busy roundabout and being surprised when it doesn’t go to plan.

That is what this post is all about.

👀 A Closer Look

When the model and the task don’t match

On the surface, “I’ll model it, then you try” sounds perfectly reasonable. First we show them how to do it; then they try to do it. Then they try to do it. The problem creeps in when the example and the task quietly drift apart.

We model a calculation on a big whiteboard with clean lines and plenty of space, then ask children to repeat it on tiny squares in their books.

We craft a beautiful sentence on a projected slide, then send them off to squeeze their own version underneath three other tasks on a photocopied worksheet.

We demonstrate one style of comprehension question, then hand them a sheet full of completely different style questions.

For confident learners, they can often bridge that gap. For everyone else, it creates what Sweller would call extra “extraneous load” – mental effort that doesn’t actually move the learning on. The structure they saw does not quite map onto the structure they now have to use.

If modelling is meant to be a worked example, a concrete, visible version of what good looks like, then the thing they watch needs to resemble, as closely as we can manage, the thing they will actually do next.

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Same surface, same structure

One of the easiest wins is simply to match the surface.

If you want children working on squared paper, model on squared paper.
If you want joined handwriting on lined paper, model on lined paper.
If you want dates, titles and learning outcomes set out a particular way, show that exact layout, under the visualiser, in a real book.

It sounds basic, but it makes the task feel more familiar before they have even started. The page layout becomes part of the scaffold. Children are not wasting time wondering “Where do I put this?” or “Do I start here or there?” because they have literally just seen you do it.

Under a visualiser, this is straightforward, but even a slide can be made to resemble a student's book.

Over time, this is not just about neatness. It is about using the page as part of the thinking space. In other posts, I have talked about the extended mind, the external memory field, handwriting and how layouts are all ways children offload and organise their thinking. Modelling how to lay out the work on a page is modelling the thinking too.

Thinking aloud about where things go

We often use Think Aloud to explain why we chose a strategy or a word. We can extend exactly the same idea to the way we use the page.

“I’m choosing this method because it will be more efficient.”
“I’m picking this word because it makes the character sound afraid.”

What we perhaps also need to extend this to is thinking aloud about spatial decisions:

“I’m starting over here so I have space underneath for my calculations.”
“I’m keeping my digits lined up in the middle of the squares so the ones stays under the ones column”
“I’m leaving a line before my next paragraph to show the reader I’m moving to a new idea.”

Those tiny comments do an important job. They tie together what we are doing with how we are organising it on the page. Children start to see that the layout is not cosmetic. It is part of the thinking.

In metacognitive terms, we’re modelling how an expert uses the page deliberately, not just how they get the answer.

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Matching the question types and the moves

The next blocker to a strong handover is when we model one really clear example, then give children ten problems that all look and feel different. Or we solve a lovely, rich reasoning problem together, then hand them a set of questions that require them to do something different. The moves they have just watched do not line up with the moves they now need to make.

A more helpful approach is to treat the model as a direct rehearsal for what comes next. If the independent task is:

• “Explain why…” questions in maths, the model should include an “Explain why…” question.

• interpreting a tricky bar chart, the model should involve a similarly tricky bar chart.

• If we want children to include a specific sentence type, we need examples and models of these to show them

The worked example effect in the research is clear. Novices benefit when they see a fully worked version of the exact kind of problem they will soon tackle, with the steps made explicit. Once they have a few successful reps under their belt, then we can sensibly vary the format, increase complexity, or remove some of the support.

Match the cognitive moves in the model to the cognitive moves in the task.

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I Do, We Do, You Do…the same thing

Building on the previous point. The same applies to the I Do, We Do, You Do structure. It is meant to be a gradual release of responsibility, not three separate tasks bolted together.

Too often I see the following:

• I Do this style of question,

• We Do a slightly different style,

• You Do something completely different again.

A more useful version looks more like:

• I Do one example of today’s task, in the exact layout pupils will use, narrating the key decisions.

• We Do another one or two together, still in the same format, with pupils contributing more of the thinking and perhaps practising in a semi-permanent space, such as on a whiteboard

• You Do further examples that are close cousins of what we have just done with the same structure independently.

The task stays broadly the same. What changes is the level of support.

That consistency is what reduces cognitive load. Children do not have to keep re-learning the rules of the game every five minutes. They can focus their effort on the thinking – the calculation, the inference, the sentence construction – because the way the task is structured and the strategies needed to be successful are similar to what has been modelled and practised.

Replicating is a scaffold; it doesn’t need to be forever

I can already hear the pushback.

“If your model looks too much like the task, aren’t you just giving them the answer?”
“Isn’t that spoon-feeding?”
“Where’s the challenge if the I Do, and You Do look the same?”

Honestly, I think that misses the point.

If the model is genuinely challenging, then the work is challenging. All we’re doing by aligning the model and the task is removing the guesswork around how to get started and what it should look like. We’re not lowering the bar; we are modelling a bar that has been set exceptionally high and helping children reach it.

In Primary, most of the challenge gap isn’t about raw difficulty, where children are given an unfamiliar task and challenged to guess how to complete it. It’s about clarity. Our most confident pupils can often bridge a messy handover and make that jump. They can look at a lovely model on the board, then a totally different task in their book, and still work out how to transfer it. Our less confident pupils can’t. When the I Do and the You Do are too far apart, we’re not stretching the high attainers – we’re creating extra hurdles for everyone else.

That’s where replicating comes in. It’s a scaffold. As pupils gain confidence and fluency, they should start to take more control. That’s part of becoming an expert learner. But early on, most children benefit from something solid to follow.

Just as you wouldn’t hand a novice cook a fridge full of ingredients and say “improvise”, it makes little sense to hand novice learners unfamiliar challenges and watch them struggle. First, we show them a reliable recipe. Then we rehearse that recipe a few times, pretty closely, before asking them to have a go on their own.

🧠 The Bits That Stick

✅ The way we lay out our models isn’t cosmetic; it shapes how easily pupils can transfer what they see into their own books.
✅ Matching the surface and structure – same paper, same layout, same question type – cuts down unnecessary cognitive load and makes the handover smoother.
✅ Thinking aloud about where things go on the page helps children see layout as part of the thinking, not just tidiness.
✅ I Do, We Do, You Do works best when it is “same task, fading support”, not three different tasks in quick succession.

In a bit,
Coops 😎

💡 The Big Idea

In a previous post, I argued that how we introduce a learning outcome matters just as much as the words themselves. In another, we dug into success criteria. When to share them, how to phrase them, and how to avoid turning them into wallpaper at the beginning of a lesson.

This time, I want to zoom in on something smaller but quietly powerful: How we represent the Learning Outcome and Success Criteria on the board or slide and how that changes depending on the kind of knowledge we’re teaching.

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👀 A Closer Look

First of all, let’s quickly recap the types of knowledge we’re dealing with and what that means for learning outcomes and success criteria.

We’ve got:

• Declarative / substantive knowledge – the stuff pupils need to know: facts, concepts, vocabulary, principles.

• Procedural knowledge – the stuff pupils need to do: methods, routines, strategies, ways of working things out.

Some lessons lean heavily one way or the other. Sometimes you’re teaching a clear procedure (long multiplication, a calculation method, using a map and key). Sometimes you’re building up information or facts pupils need to know by the end (causes of flooding, features of myth texts, parts of a plant). Sometimes, it’s a bit of both. For example, knowing what an adverbial phrase is and using it in writing.

That’s where the closed vs open objectives distinction comes in.

• With closed objectives, success is pretty much binary. By the end of the lesson, pupils can either do the thing or they can’t. This lends itself to procedures and certain declarative lessons. The success criteria here should reflect the specific knowledge or steps needed to be successful.

• With open objectives, success is more qualitative. There isn’t one “right” answer, but a range of stronger and weaker responses. This is usually where children are demonstrating a combination of both procedural and declarative knowledge. Writing a set of instructions, for example, will involve a range of knowledge components, and different children will be expected to demonstrate these to different depths. Success criteria here looks more like checklists, toolkits or menus that support choice.

Once you see that pattern, it becomes clear that not every lesson needs the same three-bullet-point success criteria sitting under a learning objective. If some lessons are about knowing specific information, others about knowing a process, and others about including and demonstrating a broader set of knowledge components (as in writing or art), then the way we represent the Learning Outcome and Success Criteria should differ.

Which leads to the question at the heart of this post:

How do we make sure the layout of Success Criteria matches the shape of the knowledge structure?

For me, that’s meant settling on three simple formats that cover most lessons:

• A Box Grid for closed, chunked success criteria

• A Sequence Grid for closed, sequenced success criteria

• A Checklist for more open-ended success criteria

Same outcome structure. Different layouts. A better match between what’s on display and what we intend encode into the children’s heads.

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👀 Why the Layout Matters

When we share Success Criteria visually, we’re giving pupils a structure that helps organise their thinking. From a cognitive science angle, that structure nudges how children store, connect, and later retrieve what they’re about to learn. It’s the same argument I made in Designing Tasks That Help Children Organise Knowledge. The frames you choose quietly shape the thinking that happens.

If I write four separate facts as a numbered list, I’m implying there’s an order.

If I list the steps of a process as loose bullets, I’m hiding the fact that sequence is everything.

The format sends a message about how the knowledge works, even if we never say it out loud. So instead of one default template, we need a small set of templates that help teachers represent the lesson’s knowledge type more explicitly. So what might these look like? Well, let’s have a look, shall we?

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🧊 Chunks of Knowledge: The Box Grid Frame

The first template is the simplest: a Box Grid Frame – usually three or four boxes under Success Criteria. We use it when the knowledge is made up of distinct but related chunks, and pupils need all of them by the end of the lesson.

Think of a geography lesson on rivers. The learning outcome might be:

To describe how a river changes from source to mouth.

Under Success Criteria, the boxes might read:

• source and upper course features

• middle course features

• lower course and mouth features

Nothing fancy. But that grid does three useful things.

First, it signals that the knowledge is a set, not a sequence. These are three aspects of the same idea, not three steps to follow.

Second, it forces us to be selective. If you can’t fit the key knowledge into three, four or, at a stretch, five boxes, it might be a sign that the outcome is too big for one lesson.

Third, it gives pupils a visual model of what success will look like. By the end, they should be able to say something about each box and they can see which bits they feel confident with and which might need revisiting tomorrow.

Later in the unit, that same Box Grid might also reappear as a retrieval structure. This time, the boxes are empty or half complete, and the pupils fill them from memory. The success criteria has quietly turned into a task.

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🔁 Sequences and Processes: Sequence Grid Frame

The second template looks almost identical – boxes in a row – but with one addition: arrows. This is the Sequence Grid Frame.

This is for lessons where a sequence or process matters. The knowledge is still chunked, but each chunk leads to the next. Swap them round, and you change the meaning.

Take a science lesson on changing state. The outcome might be:

To explain how water changes state in the water cycle.

The Success Criteria boxes, joined by arrows, could be:

• evaporation →

• condensation →

• precipitation →

• collection and flow

Here, the arrows show this isn’t just four facts to remember; it’s a process that moves in a particular direction and order. They hint that later pupils may need to reconstruct it from memory, predict what comes next, or explain why a missing step breaks the system.

Again, the template can become a task. You can:

• give them jumbled steps to reorder

• leave one box blank for them to complete

• ask them to sketch a quick doodle for each stage

A quick note on transient processes
One of the big issues with teaching processes is the transience of information. As Oliver Caviglioli often points out, spoken explanations disappear as soon as they have been said. By making a process visible, it becomes more concrete. However, when modelling, once a method (like column addition) is finished, all you can really see is the final answer, not the steps that have taken place in the build up. A sequencing frame removes this transience. By making each step visible and keeping all of them on show at once, step 1 doesn’t disappear when you move to step 2 and 3. Pupils can see the full process. They can see the different steps of knowledge needed to be successful.

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✅ Checklist Criteria: The Checklist Frame

The third template swaps boxes for simple tick boxes. This is the Checklist Frame. It comes out when the lesson is focused on including or demonstrating knowledge that is assessed more subjectively. These are things pupils need to include in their writing, spot in a text, or check for in a practical task like throwing a ball in PE.

Imagine a Year 5 writing lesson:

To write a persuasive opening about deforestation.

Under Success Criteria, instead of four floating statements, you’ve got a neat checklist:

• a persuasive opening with a clear viewpoint

• at least one rhetorical question

• emotive vocabulary linked to the rainforest

• 2nd person (“you”) to address the reader

• a quote with speech marks

• a model verb

• at least one persuasive connective (because, therefore, as a result)

• a final sentence that calls the reader to act

Each statement sits next to a small empty box that pupils can check against. As you model a paragraph or share an example under the visualiser, you can tick them live:

“We’ve got our viewpoint. Tick. We’ve used a rhetorical question. Tick. Have we used enough emotive language yet? Maybe not – let’s tweak that sentence…”

By the time pupils move into independent writing, the Checklist has turned into a tool they can pick up and use. It works just as well at the end, too, when they reread and tick what they’ve managed to include.

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🧠 Helping Children Notice the Shape of Knowledge

What I like about these three templates – the Box Grid, the Sequence Grid, and the Checklist – is that they quickly become familiar.

Teachers become more confident with understanding the knowledge types, and students become more familiar with what to do with them. They see four boxes with arrows and think, ‘Ah, a process.’ They see a Box Grid and think and see the chunks of knowledge required. They see tick boxes and think, ‘These are the things I need to include or check for today.’ There is a metacognitive element to it, too.

They’re learning to recognise the shape of different kinds of knowledge. That’s schema work again. And it links straight back to the wider idea I keep coming back to: we don’t just fill children’s heads with information; we help them organise that knowledge so they can do something useful with it. And the success criteria is perhaps a good place to start.

🎯 The Bits That Stick

✅ The way we lay out Success Criteria and information can shape how pupils understand and remember it.
✅ Use a Box Grid when the lesson is about connected chunks of knowledge; use a Sequence Grid when it’s a process; use a Checklist when pupils need to include or spot features.
✅ Recycle the same layouts as task frames
✅ Simple patterns help children recognise how knowledge is structured.

In a bit,
Coops 😎

💡 The Big Idea

We’re one week into Term 2 here in Panama. The rain has pretty much moved over for the dry season, the humidity has dipped just enough to notice, and the school feels like it has settled back into a slightly cooler rhythm.

It’s that strange January moment where you’re looking forward to a fresh year while still very much in the middle of the school one. You’re thinking about new starts and new habits, but also how to build on everything Term 1 has already set in motion.

I’ve found myself thinking a lot about what’s changed for me this year. I haven’t just started a new academic term, I’ve moved continent, started at a new school, settled into a new home and a new way of life. Our weekends look completely different. We’ve traded deserts and Middle Eastern beaches for jungles, rainforests, and the Pacific coast.

On paper, my job looks very similar. I am still a primary headteacher in an international, English curriculum school. Before Panama, I spent eleven years in the UAE doing the same thing: curriculum, teaching and learning, safeguarding, parents, behaviour, the usual headteacher stuff. Here, it could feel like a different skyline, but with the same job title.

But the culture feels different.

The rhythm of the day, how long people stay, how staff talk about workload, what parents expect, and how weekends are used. All of that has shifted. And that has forced me to take a look at some of my own habits and assumptions. How long I stay on site. What hard work looks like. How much structure staff really need. Where family life fits in.

This post is a bit different from normal. It is a reflection on that first term. What has felt familiar. What has felt completely new. And what it has nudged me to rethink leadership, time, school culture and me.

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👀 A Closer Look

Hours do not equal impact

I’ve never really believed that staying longer in school made me better as a leader. But it felt like the culture in Dubai. I felt that, as the leader, I always needed to be the last one out of the door. One of the first things I have noticed here is that whether I leave at 3:30, 4:30 or 5:30, the actual impact is surprisingly similar.

In the UAE, long days felt normal. Late meetings, evening events, spending another hour on that document. There is a real energy to that culture and a lot of positives, but it is very easy to slide into a mindset where being physically in the building equals being more effective.

In Panama, partly because of the culture (and the heavy afternoon traffic jams) and partly because of where we live, my pattern has shifted. Some days I stay later. But most days I leave earlier, get home, have time with the girls, go for a run (or not), eat something nice, and then pick things up again later if I have to.

What I have found is that I am often sharper when I do this. The jobs get done more quickly. The thinking is better. The ideas are slightly better, too.

The big realisation for me this term has been that leadership impact is not a simple equation of number of hours = better leadership. It is much more about where your energy and attention are going. A well-rested headteacher who has had some time with their family and thirty minutes of fresh air will probably make better decisions than the one who has been in the office since 6.30 and didn’t leave until it was dark.

I am not pretending I have cracked the work-life balance thing (and I do sometimes like to stay late so I’m on my own and can focus), but I have noticed that it quite often makes no difference to the quality or amount of work I achieve.

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Transience and the case for clarity

One thing my twelve years in international education have absolutely confirmed for me is just how important explicit curriculum and teaching frameworks are.

This was true in Dubai, and it’s just as true here in Panama.

In many international schools, staff movement is simply part of normal life. People come to Panama to travel and see the world. It is a transient place. Once, bucket lists and itineraries have been ticked, people move on. New colleagues arrive from different schools and systems, different training routes and sometimes different first languages. There is constant movement. In Duabi we had native Arabic teachers teaching their language. Here it is Panamanian teachers, teaching theirs.

For new staff, that leads to huge cognitive load in the first term particulalrly. New school. New country. New culture. New language. New safeguarding systems. New parents. Probably a new flat and a new route to work. It is a lot.

From the pupils’ side, none of this is their problem. They deserve a consistent experience whether the teacher in front of them is in year one or year ten at the school.

That is where playbooks, how-to guides, a detailed curriculum and explicit teaching and learning policies really matter. Not as paperwork for the sake of it, but as heavy scaffolds for the system.

If a new Year 3 teacher can sit down with:

• a clear curriculum map and units

• a simple, clear teaching and learning model

• a handful of well-explained teaching routines for checking understanding, modelling, and independent practice

then they have something to support them. It may be the only thing they have that is familiar. It takes some of the uncertainty away and lets them put their energy into the class in front of them, instead of trying to guess how to fit into the school system.

It also means that as staff come and go, children experience continuity. The faces might change, but the routines and expectations feel familiar.

That’s been a big focus of my work again last term: establishing a playbook, making the invisible systems visible, and writing things down in a way that helps a new staff member who has just landed (jet-lagged, head full of Spanish vocab and immigration forms) feel like they’ve got something solid to start with.

Culture, context and giving yourself permission to adapt

The other thing I am learning is that you cannot pick up a school culture from one country and drop it onto another, even if the place looks similar.

Regulators are different. Expectations around hours and availability are different. Attitudes to holidays and family time are different. Even small things, like when parents are most likely to email, or what time staff socialise, shift the feel of the place.

If you try to recreate your old timetable, your old way of working, this is how and when we communicate to parents and staff, you are probably going to clash with the new context or burn yourself out trying to maintain something that no one else asked you to maintain.

Last term was a good reminder that leadership is not about importing what happens somewhere else, here. It is about holding on to your core values and non-negotiables of what research tells us works and being flexible about the rest.

For me, that has meant:

• Keeping a relentless focus on teaching and learning.

• Holding a high bar for behaviour and kindness.

• Protecting staff meeting time for genuine CPD, not admin.

But being much more open about when I work, how visible I need to be, and what productivity looks like in a different climate and culture.

🎯 The Bits That Stick

✅ Hours don’t equal impact – how you use your energy and attention matters more than how long you stay.
✅ In transient international schools, clear curricula, playbooks and routines aren’t “nice to have”; they’re stabilisers for everyone.
✅ Children deserve continuity, even when the adults around them are changing.
✅ You can’t airlift one school culture into another – keep your core values, flex the rest.

In a bit,
Coops 😎

For those of you who do not know me, I was a Primary Headteacher in Dubai for 5 years, and I’ve had the joy of organising ResearchEd Dubai for the last two. I’m now a Primary Headteacher in an English curriculum school in Panama City, after moving across the world with my family to Central America for a new adventure!

I’ve been sharing teaching ideas for a while in different formats, but 2025 was the year I brought WAGOLL Teaching to Substack so it could be easier for busy educators to access. The aim was simple: more primary voices and research-informed practice that feels usable on a Tuesday afternoon in a primary Year 2 class.

I’ll be honest, posting still gives me a little spike of anxiety. My writing confidence is a work in progress. But the feedback this year has been amazing, and I’m genuinely grateful to everyone who’s read, shared, subscribed, and especially those who’ve joined WAGOLL+ and backed the work.

In 2025, the WAGOLL Teaching community grew to 8,264 subscribers. Thank you, properly, to everyone who clicked that subscribe button.

This post is a quick rewind of the year: the most-read articles, the WAGOLL+ posts that helped the community grow, and the top Books That Stick reviews. If you’re new here and want the next posts straight to your inbox, you can subscribe below.

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📬 Free Articles

These were the posts that seemed to land most with teachers this year. If you only read a handful, start here:

⭐ WAGOLL+ Articles (Paid Subscribers)

If you’ve ever wondered what WAGOLL+ is like, these are the posts that were written to support WAGOLL+ subscribers in the classroom. They’re designed to be more practical, classroom-ready, and easy to apply in individual classrooms.

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📚 Books That Stick (Top 5 of 2025)

These are the book posts that were read the most this year. I’ve added a one-liner on what each one is actually useful for:

🧱 Where It All Started

These were part of the early “why WAGOLL exists” thinking, around codifying practice and making great teaching easier to share:

Before You Dash…

If you’ve read, shared, replied, or subscribed this year, thank you. I really mean it. Primary education deserves the same level of research-informed conversation as any other phase, while still keeping one eye firmly on child development, age and stage, and the reality of classrooms.

In 2026, I’m doubling down on what’s worked: more practical toolkits, more Playbook-style routines, and hopefully a few more guest voices so it’s not always just me banging on.

If you want the weekly posts in your inbox and the WAGOLL+ vault of resources, then please subscribe.

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In a bit,
Coops 😎

💡 The Big Idea

Handwriting is more than just neat work and tidy books. It’s a powerful tool for learning. In a world of touch screens and voice notes, it might feel like handwriting is losing its place. But research suggests that, especially in primary, it still has a big role to play.

When we teach handwriting explicitly, we’re building motor memory, supporting spelling and phonics, and strengthening the link between thinking and writing. Every letter they form is an act of sequencing and organisation.

As I’ve written before about organising and connecting knowledge, children think in the space around them. Handwriting is one of the most accessible forms of that extended mind: putting thoughts down in a stable, visible form so they can be checked, reshaped, and built on.

In fact, studies show that writing by hand can boost memory, reading fluency, and even conceptual understanding. It’s a physical act of learning.

Children also enjoy handwriting. It feels satisfying, it gives immediate visual feedback, and it’s something they can see themselves getting tangibly better at.

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👀 A Closer Look

Handwriting, Memory and the Extended Mind

When children write by hand, they’re building a bridge between what lives in their head and what appears on the page in front of them.

In earlier posts, I’ve argued that we can support enhancing children’s working memory by extending their thinking through the use of the environment around them. Once pupils are reasonably fluent in transcription, writing becomes part of that extended mind. They can jot, cross out, list, draft and redraft. The page becomes a workspace for thought, not just a place to prove they’ve finished something.

If every letter is still an effort, that workspace is either restricted or non-existent. All their working memory is swallowed by the act of forming letters, leaving very little spare capacity for other thinking. But as the load of transcription is lightened, writing turns into a tool for extending thought.

This is exactly the point made in the DFE’s Writing Framework and the research on the simple view of writing: fluency in spelling and handwriting frees up working memory so that composition and other thinking can take centre stage.

Organising Knowledge

Zoom in and handwriting looks like strokes, joins and curves. Zoom out and it’s all about structure. Again, I’ve discussed structure, sequencing and organising ideas already.

At letter level, pupils are linking phonics knowledge to movement patterns. They learn that the sound /ai/ might be written as ai, ay, or a_e; that some letters regularly show up as neighbours in English (str, spr, thr), and that certain combinations almost never sit together. Seeing those patterns in script reinforces what they’ve met in their phonics sessions. A child writing train, rain, Spain, again in a line is rehearsing letter formation, joining and spelling patterns all at once.

At word level, handwriting helps children chunk language into meaningful units. Consistent spacing shows where one idea ends and the next begins. Correctly spelt high-frequency words like the, of, and, because start to “look right” in their joined form. Children also begin to notice that some words travel together (because of, in front of, as well as) and the way they space and group them on the page mirrors the structure of the sentence in their head.

By sentence and text level, writing is doing a lot of knowledge organising on their behalf. Paragraph breaks, new lines for dialogue, headings and subheadings all act as visual signals of how ideas are grouped and sequenced. When children learn to leave a gap before a new paragraph, to start speech on a new line, or to use a subheading to tidy up a page of notes, they’re learning how to structure thoughts so that it makes sense to themselves and the reader.

All of this loops straight back to my earlier posts on organising and connecting knowledge. How children place ideas on a page, word by word and line by line, is part of how they build and structure what they know.

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Why Explicit Teaching and Modelling Matter

None of this will happen by accident. If we want handwriting to support memory and thinking, telling children to write neatly isn’t going to cut it. Children need to see the whole act of writing, not just the finished line on the page. That includes how you sit so writing feels comfortable, how you tilt the paper so your arm can glide, and where each letter starts and joins.

Digital tools like handwriting repeaters can help here. Pupils can watch a letter form again and again while they copy. But nothing really replaces seeing you write in real time. Under a visualiser, they see the full picture: how you sit in the chair, how the paper is angled (not straight at 90 degrees, but slightly tilted depending on whether you’re left- or right-handed), how one hand guides the page while the other writes, and how your pencil moves across the line.

Layering in a bit of thinking aloud helps too.

“I’m tilting my paper so my arm can move smoothly. Watch how my hand stays under the line so I don’t smudge it”

Research on explicit instruction and the simple view of writing all point in the same direction: children benefit from seeing the full process, slowly and repeatedly, not just being told to improve their handwriting.

So what might a handwriting lesson look like? The script below takes that idea and turns it into something practical – a short, repeatable routine you can use every day to teach posture, position, and letter formation explicitly, without it taking over the timetable.

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✏️ A Daily Handwriting Routine (10–15 minutes)

You can drop this in once a day as a short, focused slot. The script is flexible, but hopefully, it shares some key ingredients for explicit handwriting teaching. Swap in whatever letters, joins, or patterns you’re working on.

1️⃣ Getting Ready to Write (30–60 seconds)

Start every session by resetting the writing position. Keep it quick and consistent so pupils internalise it.

“Before we write, check your writing body. Feet flat on the floor. Back straight against the chair. Paper slightly tilted. One hand writing, one hand guiding the paper. Pencil resting gently in your fingers. Show me you’re ready.”

As they do this, walk or scan the room and feedback small adjustments such as tilting a page, moving a chair in, or loosening a tight grip.

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💡 The Big Idea

Dual coding is often presented as a simple rule: combine words with images to enhance memory and reduce blocks of text to reduce cognitive load. Think: icons next to definitions and vocabulary, diagrams paired with explanations and simplified text in your PowerPoint.

And yes, this helps. Since moving to Panama City to lead an English Curriculum International School, I have very much appreciated icons kindly positioned next to Spanish signs to help me settle into the Latin American world. But stopping at this level of dual coding in the classroom misses something much deeper.

Because dual coding, when reduced to a presentational tips and tricks, loses sight of what it’s really about: how we organise information, offload thinking, and use the space around us to learn more effectively.

It’s not just about adding visuals and reducing blocks of text; it’s about how we arrange, sequence, and interact with information. That means, when we consider dual coding as part of our teaching practice, we should consider much more than the icons we use on a slide or worksheet.

The interactive screen. A mini-whiteboard. A scaffold. A word bank. A timeline. A visualiser. A pupil’s desk. As I argued in A Learning Model Within the Environment, thinking doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens in partnership, not just with others, but with the tools, surfaces, gestures, and layout we use to organise our knowledge. That’s dual coding, too.

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👀 A Closer Look

Let’s go back a step. Dual Coding Theory comes from Allan Paivio’s work in the 1970s. He suggested that the brain processes information through two systems: a verbal one and a non-verbal one. So, when pupils both hear an explanation and see a diagram, they encode that knowledge twice, making it more likely to stick.

It’s worth noting: this isn’t the same as working memory models like Baddeley and Hitch’s, which describe short-term processing systems like the phonological loop and visual-spatial sketchpad. But both theories point to the fact that we don’t just think in our heads, we think through images, space, speech, and structure.

Dual coding starts to become more powerful when we consider what might happen when learners start interacting more with the information on the page, around the classroom, on their desks or elsewhere within their environment.

Take manipulatives in maths. Or whiteboard jottings. Or a well-designed writing scaffold. These aren’t just helpful props. They’re ways of externalising and prompting further thought (as highlighted in the learning model above), freeing up working memory and allowing the learner to see, manipulate, and refine what they’re trying to understand.

This again echoes what Merlin Donald called the External Memory Field. These are the diagrams, gestures, notes, tools, and space that we all use to offload our thoughts into the environment.

And yet in schools, we often limit dual coding to slide design. Icons. Simplified symbols. Which are helpful… but not the whole story. So, in Primary, what can we start considering to take Dual Coding to the next level?

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Designing for Dual Coding

Dual coding lives in the environment and the task design. It’s not just what teachers present, it’s what pupils do with information within the environment too.

🧱Organising Space to Organise Thinking

How things are arranged for children can be extremely powerful. A list of vocabulary words is useful. But rearrange those words in order of intensity, and suddenly, pupils can see the spectrum. They develop a deeper understanding with very little additional cognitive load.

good, outstanding, fantastic, unbelievable, amazing, super, phenomenal

good → super → fantastic → amazing → outstanding → phenomenal → unbelievable

That’s dual coding. Using spatial layout to reduce effort and improve clarity.

📐 Templates and Scaffolds as Thinking Structures

Graphic organisers, grids, sentence frames, and tables. These are not just supports for weaker learners. They are containers for knowledge. They help pupils group, sort, sequence, and apply ideas.

Take, for example, the classic history timeline. Asking children to write a list of key events helps with sequencing. But, ask the children to sequence events using the template below builds a deeper concept of time between events than a simple list would.

Referring back to my post on Designing Tasks That Help Children Think, when we design tasks that structure thinking, we make the thinking process more visible and provide further opportunities to restructure and deepen knowledge, again with little additional cognitive load.

And other thinking structures, like below, offer children a workspace to connect and build knowledge, not just a worksheet.

🧠 Dual Coding as Metacognitive Practice

When pupils edit their writing by highlighting powerful verbs; when they explain a science experiment using a labelled diagram; when they organise their history knowledge into a timeline, they’re making decisions about how to show their thinking.

That’s metacognition. They are making choices about how to present and represent their thinking.

Even in Early Years, you’ll see it. A child might not yet have the vocabulary for “floating” or “sinking”. But when they push one object under the water and leave another to rest on top, while saying, ´Look, this one does this, but this one does this’, they’re exploring and representing their thinking using the space around them.

And it’s something we should model as teachers. In maths, we already do this instinctively: when we ask pupils to place one digit in each square in their maths book, we’re not being pedantic, we’re helping them organise their understanding of place value to calculate accurately.

But we could do so much more across the curriculum.

Modelling how to organise and manipulate thinking has real value. It’s a habit of experts. A strategy for learners. And a powerful way to link representation with understanding. It’s about teaching children to ask:

• What’s the best way to represent this idea?

• What layout will help me understand, explain, or apply it?

• What tool helps me think more clearly about this?

👐 Gestures and Movement as Knowledge Mappers

When we talk about dual coding, most people picture diagrams, icons, or display slides. But movement, especially gesture, is another powerful, underused form of visual-spatial representation.

As I explored in Gestures: A Primary Classroom Hack for Organising Knowledge, gestures are cognitive tools too. They help teachers and learners externalise thinking, map ideas in space, and support the organisation and understanding of knowledge.

Importantly, gestures aren’t about simplifying learning; they’re about changing the mode through which thinking is communicated and understood.

Take a sequencing example. Instead of saying:

“First we did X, then Y, then at 2pm, we did Z…”

You gesture:

“We did this [step left], this [step again], and this [final step].”

The same depth of information is conveyed, but not all of it is carried through speech. You’ve moved part of the message into physical space, reducing verbal load while retaining complexity.

And so…

That’s my vision. And it goes far beyond icons.

Dual coding isn’t about dumbing things down; it’s about redistributing cognitive demand so that verbal and visual-spatial systems work together. It is not simply about pairing text with pictures. It’s about how learners access, construct, manipulate, and present information.

Whether through diagrams, physical modelling, graphic organisers, or visual routines, we’re teaching children to think in the space around them, to offload, organise, and clarify their thoughts.

(Though, as you can probably tell… I do love an emoji icon or two. 😉)

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🎯 The Bits That Stick

✅ Dual coding is more than pictures + words. It’s about how information is arranged, interacted with, and offloaded into the world around us.
✅ Tools like scaffolds, diagrams, and writing frames help organise knowledge and reduce cognitive load.
✅ Dual coding supports all learners, not just as a presentational trick, but as a thinking strategy.
✅ How pupils present their thinking is part of the learning process. And it’s deeply metacognitive.
✅ When we design tasks and environments that promote this, we don’t just help pupils remember. We help them understand.

In a bit,
Coops 😎

📚 References

1. Paivio, A. (1986). Mental Representations: A Dual Coding Approach.

2. Donald, M. (1991). Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition.

3. WAGOLL Teaching. (2024). A Learning Model Within the Environment

4. WAGOLL Teaching. (2024). Designing Tasks That Help Children Think

💡 The Big Idea

recently highlighted how scaffolds are often poorly understood and have been based on very little research. Reduced to a clumsy formula: give support when pupils struggle, remove it when they succeed, scaffolds have potentially been widely misused.

I’ve never really seen scaffolds as something just for struggling learners. As I argued in A Learning Model Within the Environment, scaffolds are tools for organising knowledge and ways of offloading thinking into the space around us. Whether it’s a model text, a worked example, or a multiplication square, a scaffold can guide thinking, spark recall, or shape the performance of a particular process.

Scaffolds aren’t just stabilisers for novices. They’re part of an expert’s toolkit, too.

👀 A Closer Look

In his recent Substack article, questions the common way scaffolding is described in teacher guides and CPD: a kind of support you add when students struggle, and remove when they succeed. He describes ‘the rule itself is too mechanical for something as complex and dynamic as human learning.’ It’s a familiar narrative, though and one that’s been shared so widely it’s often embedded into teaching and learning policy.

There is some merit to the idea. Scaffolds can absolutely help students who are struggling, and they should be supported when the time is right. It also clashes with the principle of desirable difficulty — if we immediately rush in with support the moment a child struggles, we risk removing the very kind of productive challenge that strengthens memory and long-term learning. As Robert Bjork put it,

“Conditions that make performance improve rapidly often fail to support long-term retention and transfer, whereas conditions that create challenges and slow the rate of apparent learning often optimise long-term retention.”

Scaffolds for struggling students is also a fairly two-dimensional view. Scaffolds aren’t just rescue tools. They’re part of how we all think and perform.

As I explored in A Learning Model Within the Environment, we don’t just think in our heads, we think through the environment around us. Cognitive scientists like Merlin Donald call this the External Memory Field - the diagrams, lists, timelines, models, manipulatives, and notes we use to offload thinking and make abstract ideas concrete. Children, like adults, benefit from these supports not because they’re weak, but because they’re learning.

Scaffolds are cognitive tools. They allow us to manage working memory, hold more in mind, and structure our thinking. In this way, they’re metacognitive too. We want children to think: What tools will help me complete this task? What support do I need to move my thinking forward?

But somewhere along the way, scaffolding got caught up in the world of differentiation. It became common to hand more support to “low ability” pupils and strip it away from the more confident. But I’d argue the opposite might be true: higher attaining pupils might benefit just as much, sometimes more, from well-designed scaffolds that deepen, extend, or refine their thinking.

So rather than viewing scaffolds as temporary support wheels, maybe we should start seeing them as thinking structures. Tools for learning. Tools that help all children to take what’s in their head, and organise it more clearly. Or to prop up some thinking so that students can think more deeply about other aspects of their learning.

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So What Are Scaffolds For?

Let’s take a moment to unpack what scaffolds actually do for learners:

🧠 To Support Thinking

Scaffolds can reduce the mental load by offering partial knowledge, allowing pupils to focus on retrieving, generating, or manipulating ideas instead of holding everything in working memory.

Example: A partially completed table in science helps pupils focus on applying vocabulary, not formatting the structure.

📦 To Organise Knowledge

They act as containers for information. Think Venn diagrams, grids, sentence frames, graphic organisers, so pupils can sort, label, and chunk ideas in ways that support retrieval and long-term memory.

Example: A character map in English or a place-value chart in maths.

🔁 To Sequence Processes

Some scaffolds show steps in a process or help learners arrange those steps into a sequence they can follow or reproduce.

Example: A writing flow chart, or visual checklist for a science investigation.

🎯 To Model Expert Performance

Scaffolds can include worked examples, annotated model answers, or sentence starters that highlight the features of high-quality thinking and performance.

Example: A model paragraph with key techniques labelled, or a colour-coded maths solution.

🛠️ To Prompt Strategy Use

Scaffolds can nudge pupils towards using the right strategy at the right time, like a “strategy strip” on a desk or a visible thinking routine embedded in a wall display.

Example: Reminder cards on a working wall that list: “Writing figurative techniques such as similes, metaphors, personification, or alliteration.

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🎯 The Bits That Stick

✅ Scaffolds aren’t just for struggling learners; they’re tools for all learners to organise, connect, and apply knowledge.
✅ They act as external memory aids, helping offload cognitive load so pupils can focus on the right things at the right time.
✅ We should model how to use scaffolds and when to let them go, because that’s what experts do too.
✅ Reframing scaffolds as part of metacognitive practice helps shift them from “support” to “strategy.”

In a bit,
Coops 😎

📚 References

1. Hendrick, C. (2024). The problem with scaffolding. Substack

2. Donald, M. (1991). Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition. Harvard University Press.

💡 The Big Idea

When we think about feedback, we often picture written comments – kind, encouraging, but time-consuming. What if there was a more efficient, more effective way to support pupil progress?

Marking codes aren’t about shortcuts. They’re about clarity. They give children a shared language for understanding feedback – one they can respond to and act on.

Rather than a sea of red pen or a vague “try harder next time,” we use a simple set of visual symbols that help children understand what needs improving. More importantly, they help children do something about it.

👀 A Closer Look

We use a shared Learning Feedback code that children get to know over time. It’s visible in classrooms, modelled in lessons, and used consistently in books.

But it’s not about proving feedback. It’s about acting on it. That’s where our pink pen of power comes in. When children receive feedback via a symbol – whether live during the lesson or in their books – they grab their pink pen and:

• Edit spelling or punctuation

• Add a word or sentence

• Improve a phrase

• Extend an answer

• Reflect on teacher questions

🖍️ This visual layer of response – in a different colour – helps children see the progress they’re making. It makes improvement visible.

🔁 Built to Be Progressive

The beauty of marking codes is that they grow with the children. In EYFS and KS1, we might start with three or four simple symbols: SP (spelling), ✓ (well done), and a simple correction circle. But as children progress, we introduce:

• Grammar and punctuation symbols

• Strengths and EBI tags

• More ambiguous prompts (e.g. circled errors for the pupil to spot and fix themselves)

Not all codes are used every time. It’s a menu, not a checklist. It helps pupils focus on what matters most.

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🤝 Feedback, Not a Monologue

Some symbols, like “Does this make sense?” or “Add more detail”, invite thinking. They’re intentionally open-ended. But these work best alongside verbal feedback or a quick model on the board. Codes aren’t replacements for conversations, they’re catalysts.

They also empower peer and self-assessment. Children can use the same code set when reviewing their own work or supporting a partner, reinforcing the same shared language and expectations.

💬 Example:

• “Can you spot any SP codes in your partner’s writing?”

• “Give an EBI to go with your WWW.”

• “Add your pink pen corrections where the teacher circled.”

📚 What the Research Says

The EEF’s Teacher Feedback to Improve Learning report highlights the importance of:

• Actionable feedback

• Student response

• Reducing teacher workload

Marking codes hit all three. They’re quick, targeted, and – when embedded into classroom routines – lead to improved pupil outcomes without adding hours of teacher marking time.

This also aligns with UK DfE workload guidance, which urges schools to reduce written marking and focus on impact, not quantity. Symbols offer that middle ground – visible feedback that promotes action, but keeps marking manageable.

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🎯 The Bits That Stick

✅ Marking codes provide a shared language for feedback and response
✅ They help pupils make visible improvements using pink pen edits
✅ Codes are progressive and flexible, not one-size-fits-all
✅ They support peer and self-assessment, not just teacher feedback
✅ When paired with modelling or verbal clarification, they deepen understanding
✅ They reduce teacher workload while improving pupil ownership of feedback

In a bit,
Coops 😎

💡 The Big Idea

Not everything children learn comes from the main input or the core curriculum. Some of the most powerful learning happens in the in-between moments. In how teachers speak, what they refer to, and what the classroom environment makes possible.

Over time, these nudges, habits, and off-the-cuff interactions form what’s often called the hidden curriculum. The knowledge children acquire without being formally taught lessons on it, but is still made explicit through the environment around them. A culture of excellence can deliberately shape those hidden moments to build knowledge and fluency.

This post explores how a well-designed environment, consistent teacher habits, and purposeful classroom talk can teach more than we realise.

👀 A Closer Look

Let’s break it down with some examples from across the curriculum and school day:

🕒 Time as a Concept: Teaching It Slowly

Time is notoriously challenging to teach. But, usually, it is because the students have little prior knowledge to build on. No prior contextual understanding. Instead of rushing into telling-the-time lessons, embed time awareness daily:

• Refer to the clock regularly: “We’ve got 3 minutes left…”

• Use transitions as time checkpoints: “It’s just after break — that means it’s nearly 11.”

• Build classroom rituals that rely on time: “We always do spelling at 10:30.”

• Use visual clocks or countdowns so children feel the passing of time.

Over the year, this builds fluency, not just with clocks, but with time as a concept.

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🔡 Embedding Spelling and Vocabulary in the Everyday

Spelling rules and vocabulary don’t only belong in isolated phonics or, spelling or vocab lessons. Strong teachers model spelling strategies all the time:

• Saying aloud how to break a tricky word when writing live on the board

• Purposefully making errors inked to current spelling rules

• Modelling how to check a word using the working wall or dictionary, regardless of if it is within an English lesson or not

• Explicitly pointing out root words, suffixes, or prefixes during reading ro conversations

Spelling becomes something woven into all written and spoken interaction. In class, in assembly, on the playground and in the corridors.

🌡 Science Through Long-Term Experiences

Some scientific ideas are better learned slowly. Through lived experience. For example:

• Track daily weather and temperature in class. Compare over the term.

• Grow plants, measure height weekly, and graph results.

• Integrate mini investigations into routines — “What’s the average class temperature this month?”

• Use time-based experiments to observe change: rusting metal, water levels, or compost breakdown.

Instead of teaching all these in standalone lessons, let the environment and school context become the experiment subject. It lightens the curriculum load and provides more authentic experiences.

🔢 Line-Up Learning and Transitions with Purpose

Line-up routines don’t need to be silent; they can be smart opportunities for retrieval and fluency building:

• “Let’s count in 3s as we head out.”

• “Before each of you lines up, you are going to double a number for me.”

• “Give me a sentence using today’s vocabulary word.”

One teacher doing this every day is good. A whole school doing it is powerful. These micro-interactions build retrieval, fluency, and quick-fire thinking.

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🧠 Language, Interaction, and the Social Curriculum

Children pick up more from how adults speak than we realise. Every interaction is a chance to model curiosity, vocabulary, kindness, and professionalism:

• Positive challenge pupils who use vague or imprecise language.

  • Pupil: “There was just stuff everywhere.”

    Teacher: “Stuff? What kind of stuff? Do you mean rubbish, resources, or something else?”

• Model complete sentences in casual conversation.

  • Pupil: “This feels weird.”

    Teacher: “Why is it weird? Is it because this material feels strange because it’s stretchy and rough?”

• Reflect academic language back to them.

  • Pupil: “It was good because it worked.”

    Teacher: “Ah! So you’re saying the strategy was effective? That’s a better way to explain it.”

• Use staff-to-staff dialogue as a model for respectful discussion.

  • Teacher A (to Teacher B): “Thanks for covering that duty. I really appreciated it.”

    Teacher B: “No problem! Let me know if you need a hand again this week.”

    Pupils nearby hear tone, gratitude, and professionalism modelled.

All of this reinforces expectations and language awareness in and out of lessons.

🎯 The Bits That Stick

✅ Some learning can and should be embedded in the culture of the classroom.
✅ The hidden curriculum is the in-between, but it doesn’t have to be accidental. We can shape it.
✅ When we’re intentional with routines, language, and environment, the learning multiplies.
✅ These small nudges compound over time, forming schema.

In a bit,
Coops 😎

💡 The Big Idea

You’ve probably seen the posters: “3 Before Me!” It’s well-meaning. It's trying to promote independence, cut down on lots of kids queueing at your desk, and get children to realise that they’ve got more resources than just the adult in the room. But I’ve got a few questions about it.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a clear routine. But 3 Before Me makes a few assumptions that don’t always hold up in practice. And when it becomes a “stop bothering the teacher” strategy, it might be doing more harm than good.

This post is part reflection, part provocation.

👀 A Closer Look

At its core, 3 Before Me is a routine that encourages pupils to seek out three sources of support before approaching the teacher. These usually include:

1. Asking a peer

2. Checking the board or working wall display

3. Looking back at your book and tasks from the day before

Some versions throw in tech, anchor charts and a classroom help station. The idea is simple: don’t rely solely on the adult, use your environment to develop independence.

And that’s fair enough… to a point.

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🎯 But…

If a child is unsure what to do in a task, we’ve got to ask why. Have they had enough input? Has the modelling been clear? Have we checked their understanding?

Because here’s the thing:
👉 If we’ve done a strong “I Do” and “We Do,” then pupils should be relatively clear on what to do.
👉 If they’re not clear, they might still be in the “We Do” stage and shouldn’t be flying solo yet.
👉 And if they’re really lost, wandering around trying three other things before coming to the teacher might be wasting valuable time.

Sometimes, “3 Before Me” becomes a way to delay support and isn’t building independence at all.

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💡 The Big Idea

Sometimes in teaching, instead of modelling at the front, bringing children together around a central focus is better. A Gather Around is a simple strategy where pupils physically gather around a table, space, or demonstration to observe something meaningful, intriguing, or beautiful together.

It’s perfect for moments where:

• A process or event can’t (or shouldn’t) be broken down into small parts.

• The experience itself (watching, wondering, noticing) is the learning.

• You want to spark curiosity, focus attention, or make something memorable.

Gather Around works because it taps into joint attention, social learning, and our natural human response to shared experiences. These are the moments children remember - the wow moments that stick. The episodic memory that knowledge can be built upon.

👀 A Closer Look: The Script for Gather Around

Here’s your step-by-step script to bring Gather Around to life in your classroom:

Step 1: Set the Space

• Arrange the focal point: This could be a table, tray, floor area, or outdoor spot.

• Create clear boundaries: Use a rope, tape, cones, or floor markers to show children where to sit, kneel, or stand.

• Consider visibility: Think about height and positioning.

• Prepare resources: Have everything you need within reach before you call the children over.

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📚 Catch Up on the Series

Missed a part? Here’s what we’ve covered so far:

💡 Let’s Get Stuck In

If we want teachers to embed strategies that actually improve teaching, then professional development can’t be a one-off. It needs to be sustained, focused, and contextualised. This year, we’ve introduced a six-week PD cycle for all Year 1 to Year 6 staff. It’s built on three pillars:

1. One clear priority for everyone.

2. Shared understanding of what it looks like.

3. Time to adapt and apply in context.

The goal is to help every teacher not just know a great strategy, but use it, shape it, and make it stick. This post builds on earlier WAGOLL posts around Get It, See It and ADAPT Meetings to show how we’ve pulled it together into a rhythm that works.

*Context: My current school is a 7-form entry International School with Heads of Year overseeing each year group. Even if the model isn’t quite right for your context, hopefully it still proves useful.

👀 Inside the Six-Week Cycle

This PD cycle runs across six weeks and rotates through three key learning formats: whole-school focus, year group adaptation, and professional learning groups (PLGs). Each cycle builds towards deeper embedding of one strategy. Here’s how it works:

🎯 One Teaching Priority

Each cycle has a single teaching priority. For example: Checking for Understanding. Everyone focuses on this across the six weeks. This keeps things simple, aligned, and focused.

Week 1️⃣: Get It, See It

We kick things off with clarity. Teachers explore what a single strategy that Checks Understanding looks like when it’s done well, using videos of colleagues, video clips, and practical classroom examples. Staff unpick the ingredients of effective implementation. An example of this might be a session looking at Hinge Questions.

It’s about seeing good examples (not necessarily perfect ones because they still need to feel real). It’s about seeing it in action, asking why the different steps to the strategy matter, and connecting them to student learning.

Week 2️⃣: Adapt It

Now it gets contextual. In ADAPT-style meetings, year groups and specialist subject teachers meet with their Heads of Year to discuss:

• What does this look like in Year 2 maths?

• What tweaks do we need for our EAL-heavy cohort?

• Where in the lesson do we build this in?

• How can we plan this into this week’s lessons

This is where shared language and strategy meet contextualised knowledge, and the embedding of change begins.

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Week 3️⃣: Year Group PD

This week gives each team space for their own priorities. It could be moderation, book looks, assessment planning - whatever is timely for them. This breather ensures we’re not layering too many new things all at once. It also means there is a two-week period for staff to trial and tweak strategies.

Week 4️⃣: Get It, See It (Round 2)

Here, we return to our focus. But this session is more about reflection and refinement.

We use real classroom clips of our teachers attempting the strategy, pupil work, and example resources. It isn’t always the best bits. We want staff to be vulnerable and share their challenges. The times the strategy hasn’t landed or hasn’t worked as well. This allows for problem-solving and the sharing of experiences to overcome these.

We use this session to also tackle early misconceptions that may have appeared within the early implementation of a strategy. This avoids lethal mutations in the long run. It’s about staying true to the intent, learning from each other, and making sure we all move forward with clarity to embed the strategy well.

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Week 5️⃣: Adapt It (Again!)

Now teams implement and adapt again. Year groups take what’s worked and what hasn’t, and they embed tweaks into future planning. It is another opportunity for year groups to have ownership because what works in Year 6 does not necessarily work in Year 2 without adaptation.

Week 6️⃣: Professional Learning Groups (PLGs)

These groups focus on whole-school work that’s important, but not urgent: curriculum review, task design, policy tweaks. It ensures big-picture progress continues alongside day-to-day improvement. I’ll write more on this in another post.

🔁 Coaching Cycles

Alongside the six-week PD cycle, every teacher takes part in two rounds of one-to-one coaching using StepLab. This provides:

• A focus on individual goals

• Personalised feedback

• A clear connection to the wider PD focus

This means teachers are developing on personal priorities as well as whole-school teaching strategies. These priorities can be aligned or can be different based on need.

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🧠 The Bits That Stick

Research from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) highlights the importance of clarity, feedback, and sustained focus in professional development. Our cycle draws directly from this:

• One focus

• revisited over time

• Adapted collaboratively

• Supported by coaching

It is not perfect by any means, and the cycle still needs to be responsive. But already, we’re seeing more confident teachers, stronger conversations in year group meetings and strategies to support Checking Understanding becoming part of the daily routine.

Professional development is about habit-building. And with a systemised cycle that builds the right rhythm, it’s possible.

In a bit,
Coops 😎

🔒 Ready for More?

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📝 More from WAGOLL Teaching

• The Ultimate List of Books for Research-Informed Teachers ➡️ We’ve pulled together The Ultimate List of Books for Research-Informed Teachers - a handpicked collection of must-reads to boost your practice, challenge your thinking, and keep you at the cutting edge of education.

• Exploring Success Criteria - Make Them Dynamic and Accessible ➡️ By presenting success criteria in a more dynamic and relevant medium, meaning can be made, and links can be made to prior learning. Success criteria need to be made domain, subject, and age group specific.

• Retrieval Practice: 7 Activities That Work in Primary ➡️ A handy list of retrieval activities for Primary children

📚 References & Influences

1. Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). Effective Professional Development Guidance Report (2021). https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/effective-professional-development

2. Tom Sherrington. The ADAPT Model – from Walkthrus (2020). https://teacherhead.com/2020/09/06/adapt-a-model-for-professional-learning-and-collaboration/

3. Steplab. Steplab Professional Development Platform. https://steplab.co/

💡 The Big Idea

"I do, we do, you do" is a familiar phrase in teaching, but sometimes pupils need a more gradual handover of responsibility. That's where backwards fading comes in. This is a modelling approach where you start by demonstrating the whole process and then slowly step back, giving pupils more to do each time. It's like teaching a child to ride a bike by running alongside them, then letting go a little more each time until they're pedalling away on their own.

This strategy works beautifully for processes pupils need to replicate over and over. Things like column subtraction, sentence construction, or even a song verse.

👀 A Closer Look: The Script for Backwards Fading

Let's say we're teaching column subtraction with exchanging in Year 3. Here's your step-by-step plan:

Step 1: Full Model (I do it all)

🗣 "Watch carefully. I'm going to show you the whole process from start to finish. Your job right now is to watch and think about each step."

• Model the full calculation, narrating your thought process.

• Point out where you exchange and why.

• Use a visualiser or paper to replicate the student’s workbook as much as possible

• Track steps using a list of steps you either have displayed earlier or co-construct with the class as you model.

✅ Key tip: Keep the language consistent every time you model.

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June is a busy month as we approach the end of the school year. Its always an exciting time in school with performances and celebrations to mark the end of another year. This month, we’ve been diving into all things modelling, revisiting what great PD looks like, and launching some new routines to help teachers structure talk, singing, and instruction more effectively. There’s a real buzz around WAGOLL+ with exclusive routines and guides on teaching strategies. If you missed anything in the whirlwind of end-of-term madness, here’s your chance to catch up…

📬 Free Articles

We’ve opened up some big ideas this month for every subscriber to access and use. From modelling to meaningful talk, and coaching frameworks to thinking aloud, these posts are packed with practical examples you can apply right away.

⭐ WAGOLL+ Articles (Paid Subscribers)

If you’re part of WAGOLL+, you’ve unlocked four chunky posts this month that go even deeper. Each one is packed with classroom routines and planning scripts to help you level up your instruction. If you’re not in WAGOLL+ yet… this is what you’re missing…

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📚 Books That Stick – June’s Recommendations

Each month, I share the education books that have genuinely shaped my thinking. These aren’t just bookshelf warmers; they’re books I go back to most months. Here’s what made the list in June:

🔜 Coming Up in July

🗂️ More WAGOLL+ Vault Resources
📚 More Book Reviews
🧩 Task Design Meets External Memory Field
🚀 More on Modelling and Explaining

Thanks again for reading, sharing, and supporting. If you’re not already a WAGOLL+ subscriber, now’s a great time to upgrade and unlock more teaching tools each week.

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In a bit,
Coops 😎

💡 The Big Idea

One of the most powerful ways we help children learn isn’t by showing them the polished final product, but by letting them in on the thought process bit: the thinking behind it.

Again, as Oliver Caviglioli says:

‘Students don’t need to see how intelligent you are. They need to know how you became intelligent.’

Thinking Aloud, or as the EEF put it, “making metacognition visible”, is a strategy that lets us show how we make decisions, wrestle with options, and adapt when things go wrong.

🧠 Why Thinking Aloud Works

For children still building their schema, who are still figuring out how to approach a maths problem, infer from a text, or craft a strong opening sentence, hearing an expert narrate their thinking helps them see the thought behind the process. It’s not just what to do, but why and how.

The EEF blog highlights that think-alouds support metacognitive knowledge by helping pupils understand the goal, the strategies available, and why one might be more useful than another. Bradford Research School add that without care or planning, a think-aloud can easily become a ramble. And they’re right, there’s a fine line between modelling thinking and just talking out loud.

That said, while it’s important to plan your thinking aloud carefully, especially when you’re new to it, that doesn’t mean scripting every line. In reality, that’s not sustainable. The key is clarity and timing. Knowing what thinking needs to be made explicit is important. Identify the moments in your lesson where decision-making matters or when student decision-making isn’t where you want it to be, and so you need to improve it. You’re not planning a full speech; you’re spotlighting the specific expert thinking that pupils need to see.

🎯 Let’s Break It Down: What Good Thinking Aloud Sounds Like

Thinking Aloud isn’t one technique. It looks different at different moments and in different subjects. It can be scripted or spontaneous, verbal or visual, whole-class or one-to-one. Sometimes it’s built into a model. Sometimes it’s a passing line of feedback that stops a misconception in its tracks.

Here are a few ways great teachers use Think Alouds:

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🔍 Justifying Choices

When you explain your reasoning aloud, you’re giving pupils access to the decision-making process that usually stays hidden. It’s not just about the end result, it’s about showing how you weigh options, test ideas, and make strategic choices.

“I’m going to use a short sentence here to build tension…”
“This method is less messy and it helps me spot the pattern.”

This is especially powerful in writing and problem-solving tasks where there’s more than one right way to do things. You’re showing that expert thinking involves judgment, not just recall or a process.

😅 Dealing with Mistakes

Modelling how to deal with mistakes is useful too. A Think Aloud that acknowledges an error and walks back through the thinking of how to recognise and correct these builds internal feedback loops.

“Oh! That didn’t work. Let me go back and check where I went wrong.”
“I thought this would be the fastest way, but it’s not working, let’s try something else.”

This also builds resilience, classroom culture and shows pupils how to respond productively when their first attempt doesn’t work out.

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🧭 Navigating Uncertainty or Cognitive Overload

There is a self-regulation to this one. Many primary pupils can freeze at the first sign of ambiguity or intimidating tasks. For example, large amounts of text or unfamiliar problems. Thinking Alouds give them a way into how to approach this. When you model the wobble, pausing, re-reading, trying again, you’re normalising the fact that thinking and learning is messy.

“I’m not sure what to do next… let me reread the question and think it through.”
“I could go this way or that way… what would make most sense?”

This is especially useful in open-ended tasks or multi-step problems where the path isn’t obvious.

📚 Bridging to Prior Knowledge

Sometimes, the best thinking aloud is just making a connection to what has been taught previously. Whether it is referring back to a previous piece of work or a previous method, verbalising explicit links to prior learning builds connections.

“This reminds me of what we did last week…”
“We used this strategy when we did multiplication. Let’s try it here.”

This helps children build schema by linking new learning to what they already know. It’s about sticking knowledge to existing knowledge.

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🚫 Addressing Misconceptions

Think Alouds also give you a chance to surface and tackle common errors before they happen. You might deliberately talk through a misconception and then correct it, to model the thought trap and how to avoid it.

“It might be tempting to just add these numbers together, but that would only work if they were the same units…”
“You might think this is a story because it starts with ‘Once upon a time,’ but actually it’s a recount, here’s why.”

This is powerful for shaping attention and steering learners away from inaccurate thinking before it crops up.

🎬 How to Plan It (Lightly)

You don’t necessarily need a script, although one might help when you first start creating Think Alouds. A few sentences or notes might do. Think about the key points in your lesson where your thinking could be helpful:

• Where’s the cognitive load heaviest?

• Where might pupils get stuck?

• What expert decisions do you make that are worth making visible?

Then focus on just one or two moments to think aloud clearly and slowly. As you get more confident, it becomes second nature, just part of how you teach.

🎯 A Timely Think Aloud

Finally, it is worth noting that you don’t need to do all your modelling, narrating, and thinking aloud in one go. Trying to do everything at once can overload the kids and you. Sometimes you just want pupils to see the steps first. No over-talking, no extra information, just the process laid out clearly. Other times, the focus may be all about the thinking, the ‘why’ behind the ‘how’.

The best lessons often shift between modes: a crisp, step-by-step model followed later in the lesson by a quick narrated version midway through a task to address something pupils are struggling with. You might not even know what needs a Think Aloud until you see what children get stuck on. Then you can jump in with a short, targeted Think Aloud focused on that bit of the process.

So don’t feel you have to bundle it all together. You might model fluency first and only add the Think Aloud later to unpack the trickier parts.

🧠 The Bits That Stick

✅ Thinking Aloud makes invisible decisions visible
✅ It supports metacognition and builds schema
✅ Plan your moves, but stay flexible and responsive
✅ Use it to show how you became an expert, not just that you are one

In a bit,
Coops 😎

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📌 Here’s What You May Have Missed…

📚 References

• Education Endowment Foundation. (2022). The What, Why, When, and How of Using a Think Aloud in Maths.

  https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/news/eef-blog-the-what-why-when-and-how-of-using-a-think-aloud-in-maths

• Bradford Research School. (2023). How to Plan a Think Aloud.

  https://researchschool.org.uk/bradford/news/how-to-plan-a-think-aloud

💡 The Big Idea

Talk is essential for learning, but structured talk is where the magic happens.

We often use Think, Pair, Share to encourage discussion. But for many primary children, jumping from thinking straight into conversation, especially about abstract or opinion-based questions, can be overwhelming. The cognitive load of forming an idea and trying to say it well under pressure is high.

That’s where Write, Pair, Share comes in.

By writing first, children can rehearse their ideas privately, build a sentence, and see their thinking before they’re expected to say it aloud. This strategy helps children, especially those who struggle with language or confidence, organise their thoughts before navigating the social complexity of discussion.

👀 A Closer Look

✅ Writing first reduces pressure and supports working memory
✅ It gives children time to construct better answers and clarify their ideas
✅ It provides an opportunity for feedback and scaffolding before sharing
✅ It makes thinking visible, which means you can check for understanding while they write

This structure is especially powerful when the task involves:

• Sharing opinions

• Interpreting ideas

• Comparing concepts

• Using precise vocabulary in full sentences

• Not trying to answer questions that have one set answer

✍️ Write, Pair, Share: The Routine

Here’s a step-by-step guide to running it in your classroom:

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