Teaching & Learning

Teaching and Learning

Our three underpinning principles of our Teaching and Learning Strategy are Retention, Skills and Challenge. I have explained each one below in more detail:

Retention – lessons are carefully planned to ensure deep learning takes place through revisiting and connecting prior knowledge. This means we provide many opportunities for pupils to learn the same concept, over time and in different contexts. We assess the pupils' recall of critical knowledge regularly in fun ways to ensure this is added to pupils' long-term memory. Every lesson at Northfield begins with a retention task: an activity that revisits prior critical knowledge so that pupils can check their recall.

Skills - pupils are given opportunities in lessons to develop their skills in communication, literacy, numeracy, ICT and collaboration. We carefully plan, teach and then assess skills so that we can develop them over time.

Challenge - we care about the progress of all our pupils, which is why learning in lessons is chunked with carefully planned support or activities to stretch learners. We ensure that our planning considers individual starting points so all pupils are able to make progress, regardless of ability. Whilst teachers use a variety of strategies within lessons to help challenge pupils, there are two common approaches adopted by all teachers: Push Your Thinking (PYT) tasks – tasks focused on eliciting deeper levels of thought and challenge; and breaking tasks up into three layers of challenge, in the form of: Critical, Enhanced and Advanced – a concept focused on empowering pupils to challenge themselves in lessons, by selecting the task they feel is most appropriate and beneficial to them.

Whilst Retention, Skills and Challenge act as the framework for every lesson, we also place a great emphasis on metacognition and the concept of pupils thinking about their learning. After more formal assessments, pupils complete evaluations where they reflect upon their learning. Needing to display resilience and honesty (two of our three Core Values), pupils objectively evaluate their academic strengths and weaknesses, as well as reflecting upon their Attitude to Learning (ATL) grade. In essence, pupils are afforded the opportunity to think about why they received a particular mark, how their preparation went ahead of an assessment, and how they can continue to improve. By candidly appraising themselves, pupils progressively become more resilient, seeing criticism as constructive and an opportunity to better themselves, both academically and attitudinally.

Mirroring this process, teachers evaluate their classes throughout the academic year, ensuring lessons are challenging and appropriate for the needs of the pupils they teach, ensuring weaknesses are addressed and critical knowledge is acquired. As a result, from the pupils to the teachers, we are a reflective school that continuously strives for excellence both in and outside of the classroom.

Jamie Dunn
Assistant Headteacher – Teaching and Learning