We Teach The Right Things, Efficiently.

I don’t go to work thinking that outstanding teaching transforms lives. Is that controversial?

I think expert teaching is more relentless and mechanistic than that. I think expert teaching involves doing the right things well, thoughtfully, over and over again.

I’ve found the right place for me. Paradigm Trust has a teaching and learning ‘motto’ – it’s not about transforming lives; it’s not about being exceptional.We teach the right things. Last year we developed our own KS1-3 knowledge curriculum for science, history, geography and RE. We’ve got the subject expertise and we understand learning. And we’ve been given the time. We have developed training and resources which allow our teachers to teach the right things, efficiently.

We have built Rosenshine’s ten principles into our teaching. Our lesson observations and coaching focus on these. We use the Learning Scientists’ strategies: retrieval practice; spaced practice; interleaving; concrete examples; dual coding and elaboration (here). We think hard about constant assessment and responsive teaching. Our CPD across the trust is built around this. When we invest an hour teaching something, we want that investment to endure.

So I’ve found a place where we don’t have to think about transforming lives through outstanding teaching. We get to teach the right things, efficiently.