š” The Big Idea
Thereās no shortage of research-informed strategies for teaching and learning. From retrieval practice strategies to scripted modelling and questioning routines, and beyond, most are grounded in the science of learning. Itās an exciting time to be in the profession. Teaching is becoming increasingly codified, and teachers are engaging in high-quality conversations about practice like never before.
But many of these strategies come from a generic or secondary-age perspective.
In primary, we teach children who are not just less experienced learners, they are still becoming learners. Their cognitive, emotional, and social development is unfolding in real time. That means we canāt simply apply these strategies as they are. Instead, we have to translate them through the lens of child development and the realities of the primary classroom.
š A Closer Look
Being research-informed in primary isnāt just about understanding how learning happens, itās about understanding who is doing the learning too. Children in primary develop and change so quickly. What works in year one quickly becomes less effective in year 2. It is only towards the end of KS2 that everything seems to stabilise more, which allows a more consistent approach to teaching and learning across year five and year six.
Therefore, to teach primary well, we need to combine the science of learning with what research tells us about child development, behaviour, and early cognition. Itās this blend that truly defines research-informed practice in primary.
Below is a whistle-stop tour of eight strands - or key principles if you will - of core developmental considerations that expert primary teachers instinctively account for when delivering these research-informed strategies, not to dilute them, but to apply them with precision.
š§ 1. Developing Attention
Attention is still developing in the primary years. Younger pupils are highly distractible, rely on external cues to stay focused, and often attend in short bursts. Sustained attention must be built gradually, not assumed.
That means modelling needs to be short and direct, with clear cues and changes in tone, visuals, or positioning to help refocus wandering minds. Guided practice should be tightly scaffolded and chunked into manageable parts, with frequent checks for understanding. Transitions between tasks should be considered as attention resets.
As Posner & Rothbart (2007) highlight, self-regulation of attention increases significantly between the ages of 4 and 10 and teacher direction plays a central role in this development.
š§± 2. Cognitive Load & Working Memory
Primary children have reduced working memory capacity, with research pointing towards children often only able to hold 3ā4 items at once (Alloway et al., 2006). That makes them far more vulnerable to overload, especially when juggling instructions, content, and process at the same time.
This is where explicit chunked modelling, worked examples and backwards fading are vital. The narration of thinking about the task and cognition needs to be made explicit, which is why teachers thinking out loud is so important. Childrenās tasks should be stripped back to ensure they are thinking only about the intended learning and only building complexity once understanding is secure.
š 3. Learning to Regulate
As Vygotsky noted, regulation is first external and then internalised.
Self-regulation is the ability to manage attention, emotion, and effort. This is still very much developing across the primary years. Children rely on co-regulation (Calkins & Hill, 2007).
This has implications for any high-challenge activities too. Tasks like retrieval or cold calling must feel emotionally safe to be effective. The best primary teachers embed calm, predictable routines and build a culture of psychological safety throughout their practice. The words they use at all points during the teaching process matter.
š 4. Multi-Novices & Short Feedback Loops
In primary, pupils are novices across the curriculum, in every subject. Theyāre novices in reading, writing, speaking, and often sitting still. A well-mapped out curriculum should identify all of the knowledge components needed to establish the solid foundations on which all other learning is built.
At this early stage, misconceptions are easily established. That means they need tight, short feedback loops that help children see success quickly and act on next steps. In lower primary, written feedback often arrives too late. By the time itās read, the moment (and the learning) has passed.
Live feedback, low-stakes retrieval, and short, actionable next steps allow learners to adapt in real time. Shute (2008) emphasises that timely and specific feedback is most effective, especially for novices who may not be able to self-correct independently.
šŖ 5. Egocentric Thinking
Primary pupils (especially under age 7) often assume that everyone sees the world as they do. This egocentrism, described by Piaget, isnāt selfishness; itās a normal part of development.
But, it is worth considering that the way we communicate and motivate students will naturally adapt as we move through primary. We have to explicitly teach and vocalise the decentration of childrenās viewpoints and behaviours.
It also means tasks that rely on empathy, abstraction, or perspective-taking need strong scaffolding. Teachers can support this by modelling inner thought, using sentence stems (e.g. āI think they feltā¦ā), and retelling events from multiple points of view.
š§ 6. Moral and Social Development
Primary pupils are still figuring out fairness, justice, and how they fit into the world. Their reactions to feedback, group work, or disagreement are often emotional before rational. Learning to wait, share, respond to constructive feedback and explain how they are feeling are being learned alongside academic content.
Strategies that rely on mature collaboration (e.g. peer feedback or group discussions) must be explicitly modelled and taught as behaviours and should not be assumed.
š§āāļø7. Embodied & Language-Based Learning
If you want to learn the true meaning of the word rough, you need to hug a tree!
Children think with their bodies as well as their minds. Gestures, physical tools, and oral rehearsal arenāt added extras ājust to make it funā. They are cognitive supports. As Emma Turner says, manipulatives outsource cognitive load and provide an accurate depiction of expert schema. They support the organisation of knowledge.
But it's not just objects; Goldin-Meadow (2005) showed that gesture and movement lighten cognitive load, too. Goswami (2008) noted that young learners develop concepts through action, not just instruction.
š§ø 8. Learning Through Play
In the Early Years and KS1, play supports everything from language development to problem-solving and self-regulation (Whitebread et al., 2012). Itās where children test ideas, practise roles, rehearse language, and develop independence. It is the teaching of all the previous Primary Considerations, all rolled into one.
Structured play, free-flow opportunities, and playful task design provide children with agency and emotional safety. They offer space to fail, try again, and work things out on their own terms.
That doesnāt mean giving up rigour or devaluing the role of the expert teacher in the room. Quite the opposite. An expert primary teacher designs environments and plans tasks that are rich in rigour and cognitive challenge, but are presented in a medium that invites children to engage through play or playfulness.
šÆ What Does This Mean for Codified Strategies?
So what does all of this mean when weāre standing in front of a class of five to eleven-year-olds, trying to implement research-informed strategies like cold calling, retrieval, or whiteboard work?
Take cold calling ā a strategy where the teacher selects pupils to answer questions without waiting for volunteers. The idea is simple: if any child might be chosen to respond, every child has a reason to think. Itās designed to increase accountability, reduce passivity, and ensure that thinking isnāt limited to the few eager hands in the air.
But in a primary classroom, cold calling cannot be lifted from a playbook and dropped in without adaptation. Without developmental sensitivity, it risks becoming a ālethal mutationā and a source of anxiety.
This is where the eight principles of child development come in, not to make the strategy softer, but to make it work for the age and stage of the children. As an example, hereās how they help us reframe and rework something as seemingly simple as cold calling.
š Cold Calling: Primary Considerations
š§ Developing Attention
Are pupils tuned in when we ask? Have we posed the question in a way that hooks their focus and gives them time to engage with the thinking before expecting a response?
š§± Cognitive Load
Is the question manageable? Are pupils juggling too much, trying to recall the content, manage the pressure, and plan a response? Can we reduce load through whiteboards, pair rehearsal, or visual prompts?
š Learning to Regulate
Do children feel safe enough to take a risk? Have we normalised wrong answers, modelled vulnerability, and created a culture where trying is valued? Do we need to prewarn any individuals that they are one of the selected students so they can prepare?
š Multi-Novices
Have we modelled the thinking first? Have pupils had enough guided practice to approach the question with confidence, or are we cold-calling on shallow knowledge?
šŖ Egocentric Thinking
Can children listen to someone elseās answer, reflect, and respond, or are they still developing the ability to decentre and consider other viewpoints? How do we narrate that?
š§ Moral and Social Development
Does the classroom feel fair? Do all children get a voice? Have we scaffolded peer response so that unexpected answers are met with curiosity, not laughter or dismissal?
š§āāļø Embodied & Language-Based Learning
Do the children need a chance to move, gesture, or rehearse the idea before we ask them to say it out loud? Is there a physical or spoken bridge between thinking and speaking?
š§ø Learning Through Play
Can we reframe cold calling as a game, a challenge, or a shared puzzle? Could we roll a cube, pass an object, or ācatch the questionā, building familiarity through joyful interaction?
š§µ The Role of the Expert Primary Teacher
I want to be clear: codified strategies arenāt the problem specifically. Theyāre grounded in solid cognitive science. But they do need to be adapted and applied through the lens of child development and shaped by what we know about the age, stage, and needs of the children in front of us.
That doesnāt mean we need to run every decision through a developmental checklist. That would be too much. Much of this thinking becomes embedded through experience, culture, and strong routines.
But the best primary teachers donāt lift strategies off the shelf and use them without thought. They consider how the strategy will land for their class at this moment in their development.
They consider the primary child. Proper research-informed practice!
š§ Wrapping It Up
Being research-informed in primary means combining cognitive science with child development.
Strategies like cold calling and whiteboard work must be adapted for the age and stage of the children in front of us.
The eight developmental principles provide a lens to help us apply strategies with precision, not a checklist to follow blindly.
Expert primary teachers donāt just use strategies, they translate them for the children in front of them.
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This post is part of a growing series unpacking what research-informed practice looks like in a real primary classroom.
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š References
Alloway, T. P., Gathercole, S. E., Kirkwood, H., & Elliott, J. (2006). The cognitive and behavioural characteristics of children with low working memory. Child Development, 77(2), 282ā298.
Calkins, S. D., & Hill, A. (2007). Caregiver influences on emerging emotion regulation: Biological and environmental transactions in early development. In J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of Emotion Regulation. New York: Guilford Press.
Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). Hearing Gesture: How Our Hands Help Us Think. Harvard University Press.
Goswami, U. (2008). Cognitive Development: The Learning Brain. Psychology Press.
Piaget, J. (1955). The Childās Construction of Reality. London: Routledge.
Posner, M. I., & Rothbart, M. K. (2007). Educating the Human Brain. American Psychological Association.
Shute, V. J. (2008). Focus on formative feedback. Review of Educational Research, 78(1), 153ā189.
Turner, E. (2021). Initium: Cognitive Science and Research-Informed Primary Practice. John Catt Educational.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Whitebread, D., Coltman, P., Jameson, H., & Lander, R. (2009). Play, cognition and self-regulation: What exactly are children learning when they learn through play? Educational and Child Psychology, 26(2), 40ā52.
Wow thank you! Very helpful. Starting the homeschool journey with two five-year-old boys. One struggles a lot with self regulation. Interested in learning more about how āthe words they use at all points during the teaching process matter.ā Could you share some of those words?