The Salisbury Manor Teaching & Learning Framework

Introduction

This framework sets out the principles of Teaching and Learning at Salisbury Manor Primary, which are underpinned by cognitive science and evidence informed practice. Our approach to Teaching and Learning at Salisbury Manor Primary is about curriculum implementation of powerful knowledge. Effective teaching and learning starts with the curriculum. Teaching and Learning supports our curriculum by ensuring that lessons build on prior learning and provide sufficient opportunity for guided and independent practice.

Framework

The Teaching and Learning Framework is underpinned by 3 key principles:

1. The Curriculum
2. Rosenshine Principles
3. The science of learning

The Framework is not exhaustive and is meant to support leaders to develop an effective approach to teaching and learning.

Curriculum

In developing your teaching and approach, you must ensure that curriculum is your starting point.

7 key things:

• Subject specificity
• Clear sequencing and end points
• Ambition
• Context
• Vocabulary
• Assessment
• Education with character

Subject-specific curriculum

The foundation of curriculum planning is the individual subject. Horizontal and vertical integration can be developed subsequently.

Coherent progression of learning – substantive/ disciplinary/ key concepts and end points

Curriculum sequencing entails mapping out the procedural or disciplinary knowledge (skills) and substantive knowledge (content) across the school curriculum, so that students’ learning builds cumulatively on their prior learning.

Both the substantive knowledge (the factual domain of the subject, such as historical events, dates or names) and the disciplinary knowledge (the methodological domain of the subject, such as source analysis or historical reasoning) should be considered. At Salisbury Manor Primary, we also incorporate a third dimension, which we term vertical concepts. These are abstract notions that emerge from a deeper comprehension of the substantive knowledge. For instance, in history, our vertical concepts include ‘Power, Empire & Democracy’, ‘Quest for Knowledge’ and ‘Community & Family’.

The selection of substantive knowledge is guided by its contribution to the deepening understanding of the vertical concepts.

Being ambitious for all pupils

There are two aspects to an ‘ambitious curriculum for all’. The first is that the curriculum should mean the curriculum in its entirety. The second is that the curriculum should be an entitlement for all pupils, regardless of their starting points.

This means that we do not limit our expectations of what pupils can achieve based on their prior attainment, background or needs. We believe that every pupil deserves access to a rich and rigorous curriculum that challenges them to think deeply, creatively and critically. We also believe that every pupil can make significant progress and achieve high standards if they are supported effectively and motivated to learn. We aim to provide a supportive and inclusive learning environment that enables all pupils to flourish and reach their full potential.

Local context

We believe that every locality is meaningful and that every child should have their lived worlds recognised and valued by their curriculum — across and within the subjects or areas of learning outlined in the National Curriculum.

We tailor the curriculum to suit the lived experiences of our community from Chingford and Waltham Forest by including relevant and engaging topics that reflect the diversity, culture and heritage of our local area. We also link the local and the global, and investigate how our locality has been influenced by historical and geographical events and processes. We aim to cultivate a sense of pride and belonging in our pupils, as well as an awareness and appreciation of other perspectives and experiences. We also offer opportunities for pupils to learn from and contribute to their local community through visits, projects and partnerships.

Subject-specific vocabulary instruction

Tier 3 vocabulary refers to the subject-specific words that are essential for understanding the content and concepts of each discrete lesson. Teaching tier 3 vocabulary in each discrete lesson is important for several reasons. First, it helps pupils to access the curriculum and develop their knowledge and skills in different subjects. Second, it supports pupils to communicate their ideas and arguments effectively and accurately in oral and written forms. Third, it enriches pupils’ vocabulary and exposes them to a range of academic and technical terms that they can use across the curriculum and beyond. Therefore, teaching tier 3 vocabulary in each discrete lesson is a key component of our ambitious and inclusive curriculum at Salisbury Manor Primary School.

Education with character

At Salisbury Manor Primary, we deliver education with character. These wider opportunities equip our young people with the character attributes that will enable them to succeed in later life.

We also value cultural capital, which is the knowledge, skills and experiences that pupils need to access and appreciate the best that has been thought and said in different fields of human endeavour. We expose our pupils to a rich and diverse range of cultural experiences, such as literature, art, music, drama, science and history. We encourage our pupils to develop their curiosity, creativity and critical thinking skills through these experiences. We also help our pupils to understand and respect different cultures and perspectives, and to appreciate their own cultural identity and heritage. By developing their cultural capital and character, we prepare our pupils for their future roles as active and responsible citizens in a diverse and changing world.

Assessment

Pupils make progress when they know more and can do more. If you have a carefully planned, well-sequenced curriculum, with ambitious end points and pupils are keeping up with this, then they are making progress.

Ongoing assessment in lessons should lead to adaptive teaching which enables all pupils to succeed.

We use a range of assessment methods to monitor and support pupils’ learning and progress. These include formative assessment, such as questioning, feedback and self-assessment, which help us to identify pupils’ strengths and areas for improvement, and to adjust our teaching accordingly. We also use summative assessment, such as tests and quizzes, which help us to measure pupils’ attainment and progress against the curriculum objectives and expectations. We use assessment data to inform our planning, intervention and reporting processes. We also involve pupils in the assessment process, by sharing the learning objectives and success criteria with them, and by encouraging them to reflect on their own learning and set goals for improvement.

Research and Further Information

Rosenshine Principles

Rosenshine’s Principles combines three distinct research areas (cognitive science, classroom practices, cognitive support) and how they complement each other by addressing how:

• People learn and acquire new information
• Master teachers implement effective classroom strategies
• Teachers can support students whilst learning complex material

The principles are based on Rosenshine’s extensive review of research on effective teaching and learning, and his observations of expert teachers in action. The principles provide a framework for teachers to design and deliver instruction that is aligned with how the human brain processes and stores information, and that fosters deep understanding and retention of knowledge and skills. The principles also suggest ways for teachers to scaffold and differentiate instruction to meet the diverse needs and abilities of their students, and to promote their engagement and motivation. The principles are not intended to be a rigid or prescriptive set of rules, but rather a flexible and adaptable guide for teachers to enhance their practice and improve student outcomes.

10 key things:

• Review
• Small steps
• Questioning
• Models
• Guided Practice (Kagan)
• Check for understanding
• High success rate
• Scaffolding
• Independent Practice
• Weekly and monthly review

Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning: Daily review can strengthen previous learning and can lead to fluent recall.

• Reviewing previous learning helps students activate their prior knowledge and retrieve relevant information from their long-term memory.
• Reviewing previous learning helps students consolidate their learning and prevent forgetting or interference.
• Reviewing previous learning can take various forms, such as quizzing, summarising, recalling, or applying key concepts or skills.

Present new material using small steps: Only present small amounts of new material at any time, and then assist students as they practise this material.

• Presenting new material in small steps helps students avoid cognitive overload and process the information more effectively in their working memory.
• Presenting new material in small steps helps students focus on the essential features and relationships of the new material, and avoid confusion or errors.
• Presenting new material in small steps requires breaking down complex tasks or concepts into simpler components or subskills, and sequencing them logically and coherently.

Ask questions: Questions help students practise new information and connect new material to their prior learning.

• Asking questions helps students rehearse and elaborate on the new information, and enhance their retention and understanding.
• Asking questions helps students make connections between the new material and their existing knowledge, and integrate them into meaningful schemas or networks.
• Asking questions can take various forms, such as recall, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, or evaluation questions.

Provide models: Providing students with models and worked examples can help students learn to solve problems faster.

• Providing models helps students see how to apply the new information or skills in a concrete and explicit way, and reduces the cognitive demand of problem-solving.
• Providing models helps students identify and follow the steps or procedures involved in solving a problem, and avoid errors or misconceptions.
• Providing models can take various forms, such as demonstrations, explanations, illustrations, analogies, or worked examples.

Guide student practice: Successful teachers spent more time guiding the students’ practice of new material.

• Guiding student practice helps students apply the new information or skills with feedback and support from the teacher or peers, and enhances their confidence and competence.
• Guiding student practice helps students monitor and regulate their own learning process, and identify and correct their errors or difficulties.
• Guiding student practice can take various forms, such as prompting, questioning, scaffolding, coaching, or collaborative learning.

Check for student understanding: Checking for student understanding at each point can help students learn the material with fewer errors.

• Checking for student understanding helps students assess their own level of mastery and progress towards the learning objectives, and motivates them to improve their performance.
• Checking for student understanding helps teachers evaluate the effectiveness of their instruction and adjust it accordingly to meet the needs of their students.
• Checking for student understanding can take various forms, such as observation, questioning, feedback, self-assessment, or peer-assessment.

Obtain a high success rate: It is important for students to achieve a high success rate during classroom instruction.

• Obtaining a high success rate helps students develop fluency and accuracy in applying the new information or skills, and reduces the likelihood of errors or misconceptions.
• Obtaining a high success rate helps students build positive attitudes and beliefs about their own ability and effort, and increases their engagement and motivation.
• Obtaining a high success rate requires setting appropriate levels of challenge and difficulty for each student, and providing sufficient practice and support.

Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks: The teacher provides students with temporary supports and scaffolds to assist them when they learn difficult tasks.

• Providing scaffolds for difficult tasks helps students bridge the gap between their current level of ability and the desired level of performance, and enables them to complete tasks that they could not do independently.
• Providing scaffolds for difficult tasks helps students gradually acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to perform the tasks autonomously, and fosters their self-efficacy and metacognition.
• Providing scaffolds for difficult tasks requires identifying the sources of difficulty or complexity in the tasks, and providing appropriate cues, hints, prompts, or strategies to assist the students.

Require and monitor independent practice: Students need extensive, successful independent practice in order to develop well-connected and automatic knowledge.

• Requiring independent practice helps students consolidate their learning and transfer it to new contexts or situations.
• Requiring independent practice helps students develop well-connected knowledge that is organised into meaningful schemas or networks.
• Requiring independent practice helps students develop automaticity in applying their knowledge or skills with minimal cognitive effort.
• Monitoring independent practice requires providing students with clear expectations and criteria for success.
• Monitoring independent practice requires checking students’ work for accuracy and completeness, and providing them with timely and specific feedback.

Engage students in weekly and monthly review: Students need to be involved in extensive practice in order to develop well-connected and automatic knowledge. The principles do not seek to provide a checklist to be followed in order in every lesson.

• Engaging students in weekly and monthly review helps students reinforce their learning and prevent forgetting or interference.
• Engaging students in weekly and monthly review helps students develop well-connected knowledge that is organised into meaningful schemas or networks.
• Engaging students in weekly and monthly review helps students develop automaticity in applying their knowledge or skills with minimal cognitive effort.
• Engaging students in weekly and monthly review can take various forms, such as quizzes, summaries, recall, or application of key concepts or skills.
• Engaging students in weekly and monthly review requires planning and sequencing the review activities to align with the curriculum objectives and expectations.

Research and Further Information

Science of Learning

All staff should have knowledge and understanding of the way in which the science of learning reflects your teaching and learning approach.

The science of learning is underpinned by metacognition.

Metacognition is the awareness and regulation of one’s own thinking and learning processes. It involves planning, monitoring, evaluating and adjusting one’s own learning strategies and behaviours. Metacognition is essential for effective and efficient learning, as it helps learners to set goals, select appropriate methods, identify and overcome difficulties, and reflect on their progress and outcomes. Metacognition also supports learners to transfer their learning to new contexts or situations, and to develop lifelong learning skills. Therefore, developing metacognition in our pupils is one of our key aims at Salisbury Manor Primary School

Metacognition

Metacognition is thinking about thinking. It is an increasingly useful mechanism to enhance student learning, both for immediate outcomes and for helping students to understand their own learning processes.

Metacognition involves two main components: metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation. Metacognitive knowledge refers to what learners know about themselves as learners, about the tasks they face, and about the strategies they can use. Metacognitive regulation refers to how learners monitor and control their own learning activities, such as planning, checking, evaluating and revising. Both metacognitive knowledge and regulation can help learners to improve their performance, motivation and self-efficacy. Metacognition can also foster deeper and more meaningful learning, as learners can connect new information to their prior knowledge, apply their learning to different contexts, and reflect on their learning outcomes.

Research and Further Information

There are 7 key strands to the science of learning.

7 key things:

• Spaced learning
• Interleaving
• Retrieval Practice
• Cognitive load
• Working with schemas
• Multimedia learning
• Embodied learning

Spaced Learning

Spaced learning is a learning method that involves repeating the same material over spaced intervals of time, rather than studying it all at once. Spaced learning is based on the principle that material is more easily learned and remembered when it is broken apart by intervals of time. Spaced learning helps learners avoid cognitive overload and strengthen their memory by allowing them to forget and relearn the material. Spaced learning also helps learners make connections between the material and their prior knowledge, and transfer their learning to new contexts or situations. Spaced learning can take various forms, such as quizzes, summaries, recall, or application of key concepts or skills. Spaced learning can be implemented in different settings, such as classrooms, online courses, or self-directed learning.

Interleaving

Interleaving is a learning method that involves sequencing learning tasks so that similar items are mixed with slightly different types of items instead of being grouped together. Interleaving helps learners to compare and contrast different items and to identify their unique features and relationships. Interleaving also helps learners to enhance their memory and transfer their learning to new situations by making them switch their attention and retrieve information from different categories. Interleaving can be applied in various domains, such as language learning, history, physics, music, and sports. Interleaving can improve retention, acquisition, and performance of new information and skills, but it is not always the best option, and its effectiveness depends on the nature of the material and the level of the learners.

Retrieval Practice

Retrieval practice is a learning method that involves asking students to recall what they have learned, often through low-stakes testing, so that it becomes deeply embedded and easier to remember. Retrieval practice helps students to strengthen their memory and understanding of the curriculum content, and to identify and correct any gaps or misconceptions. Retrieval practice can also help students to make connections between different topics and to transfer their learning to new situations. Retrieval practice can be implemented in various ways, such as quizzes, summaries, discussions, or games. At Salisbury Manor Primary, we use retrieval practice regularly and systematically throughout the year, to help our students achieve their learning objectives and prepare for their assessments. We also use retrieval practice as a form of feedback, to inform our instruction and intervention processes. We aim to make retrieval practice a positive and engaging experience for our students, by providing them with clear expectations, success criteria, and support.

Cognitive load

Cognitive load refers to the amount of mental effort that is required to process information in working memory. Working memory is the part of our memory system that holds and manipulates information for a short period of time, usually a few seconds. Working memory has a limited capacity, which means that it can only handle a small amount of information at a time. Sweller, a cognitive psychologist, argued that instructional methods should avoid overloading working memory with unnecessary or irrelevant activities that do not directly contribute to learning. Instead, instructional methods should aim to reduce cognitive load and optimize working memory resources for meaningful learning.

Working with schemas

Schemas are mental structures that organize and store information in our long-term memory. They help us make sense of new experiences by connecting them to what we already know. Schemas can be modified or restructured when we encounter new or conflicting information that challenges our existing beliefs.

Schemas are important for both cognitive psychology and education, as they influence how we perceive, remember, and learn new things. Cognitive psychologists study how schemas are formed, activated, and changed in different situations and contexts. They also investigate how schemas affect our memory, attention, reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making.

Educators use schema theory to design effective teaching and learning strategies that help students build and use schemas. They also help students to develop metacognitive skills that enable them to monitor and regulate their own learning processes. Some of the ways that educators can apply schema theory in the classroom are:

• Activating prior knowledge before introducing new topics or tasks
• Providing clear explanations and examples that link new information to existing schemas
• Using graphic organizers, diagrams, or maps to visualize and organize schemas
• Encouraging students to compare and contrast different schemas or perspectives
• Providing feedback and guidance that help students to revise and refine their schemas
• Using retrieval practice, spaced repetition, and interleaving to strengthen and consolidate schemas
• Fostering a growth mindset that promotes schema adaptation and expansion

Multimedia Learning/ Dual Coding

Multimedia learning is the process of learning from multiple sources of information, such as words and pictures. Dual coding is a theory that explains how multimedia learning works by assuming that there are two separate channels for processing verbal and visual information in the human mind. According to dual coding theory, learners can benefit from combining verbal and visual materials, as they can use both channels to encode and retrieve information more effectively.

However, multimedia learning also has some limitations and challenges. One of them is the cognitive load theory, which suggests that each channel has a limited capacity for processing information, and that learners can be overwhelmed by too much or irrelevant information. Therefore, multimedia learning should be designed in a way that reduces extraneous cognitive load and optimizes germane cognitive load, which is the mental effort required for meaningful learning.

Another challenge is the redundancy effect, which occurs when learners are presented with redundant or duplicated information from different sources, such as text and narration. This can cause a split of attention and interfere with learning outcomes. Therefore, multimedia learning should avoid redundancy and use complementary or integrated information instead.

Some examples of multimedia learning and dual coding in the classroom are:

• Using diagrams, graphs, charts, or maps to illustrate concepts or processes that are explained verbally
• Using animations, videos, or simulations to demonstrate phenomena or procedures that are difficult to observe or perform in reality
• Using images, icons, symbols, or colors to highlight key words or concepts in texts or slides
• Using sketches, drawings, or doodles to summarize or review main ideas or facts
• Using gestures, movements, or actions to accompany verbal explanations or instructions
• Using mnemonics, acronyms, or rhymes to help learners remember verbal information
• Using music, songs, or sounds to enhance verbal messages or emotions

Embodied Learning

Embodied learning is a pedagogical approach that emphasizes the role of the body and emotions in the learning process. It is based on the idea that learning is not only a cognitive activity, but also a physical and affective one. Embodied learning recognizes that learners are not passive recipients of information, but active agents who interact with their environment and construct meaning through their senses, movements, and feelings.

Embodied learning can have various benefits for learners, such as:

• Enhancing motivation, engagement, and enjoyment
• Developing creativity, imagination, and expression
• Fostering collaboration, communication, and empathy
• Supporting physical, mental, and emotional well-being
• Facilitating deeper understanding and retention of information
• Promoting critical thinking and problem-solving skills

Some examples of embodied learning techniques are:

• Using arts and design-based activities, such as drawing, painting, sculpting, or crafting, to explore concepts or express ideas
• Using physical education and sports activities, such as running, jumping, dancing, or playing games, to practice skills or demonstrate knowledge
• Using gestures, movements, or actions to accompany verbal explanations or instructions
• Using music, songs, or sounds to enhance verbal messages or emotions
• Using role-playing, drama, or storytelling to simulate situations or scenarios
• Using outdoor spaces, nature, or objects to observe phenomena or experiment with materials

Research and Further Information