by Nick Cale

What Does This Look Like in the Classroom? Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice.

Carl Hendrick, Robin Macpherson, and Oliver Caviglioli (2017). Melton: John Catt Educational.

It’s rare to find a book about education that talks to you from the very first chapter, but this one does. Whether you are a PGCE student, ECT, experienced teacher, Head of Department or a Senior Leader, there will be something in this book to give you pause to reflect on your practice and ideas for how to enhance it. What Does This Look Like in the Classroom? Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice combines straight-talking, sensible advice and guidance, with research findings from heavyweights such as Wiliam, Christodoulou, Bennett, Berry, Murphy and Quigley. It discusses the research itself, and how to action the findings in order to have a real impact in your classroom.

Each chapter is presented as a conversation between one of the authors and two researchers, and begins with an introduction to the theme by one of the authors. This dialogic style means the language carries no ego; rather, the authors offer a simple presentation of distilled research and how to implement it as a teacher – the book developed, after all, on a nagging feeling Hendrick couldn’t shake at a conference, where he was listening to an accomplished speaker but wondering what this actually looks like in the classroom. The chapters each cover a fundamental aspect of teaching practice: Behaviour; Reading and Literacy; SEN; Motivation; Memory and Recall; Classroom Talk and Questioning; Learning Myths; and Independent Learning. This structure means that it is not necessary to read it from cover to cover (although I would recommend doing this!) – but instead you can dip in and out of areas as and when you want to know more about them.

To give one example, there is even a chapter for those that feel that they are on the wrong end of the work-life balance: Assessment, Marking and Feedback. It is estimated that £2.5 billion per year of teacher time is wasted in the marking process and the curation of feedback, all due to the ineffective impact that it has on student progress. Wiliam posits that a set of marked books may not be an effective proxy for good teaching – one of the surprising elements to feedback, according to the research, is not only that a lot of it has no impact, but sometimes it can actually do damage: when feedback is given with too much frequency, students become too dependent on the teachers.

The book concludes with a round-table discussion between all of the authors on the topic of Independent Learning – it is an apt way to round off the book and Lemov summarises his stance by saying that 'the most important part of independent learning is writing; it’s the coin of the realm.'

However, even the best books have some ‘even better ifs’! For one, there are some strange font selections in the book that make the bite-size tips at the beginning of each chapter difficult to read, especially if you are reading this with a bedside light, as I am sure many teachers will do! It was also published in 2017, and while Parmar and Picardo’s chapter on technology is excellent, technology is – as we all know – often out-of-date before it hits the open market. Life in a postlockdown classroom, with the significant leaps forward that teachers were thrust into, leaves this chapter feeling in need of a revised, 2022 version. But this can be the only real criticism: overall, it is a fabulous book that everyone in the teaching profession should read and enjoy.

BIO Nick Cale began his career as a French and German teacher and is currently the Deputy Head: Curriculum and Assessment at Berkhamsted School. He has a strong interest in using pupil data to facilitate better pupil outcomes and he has developed an innovative data-tracking tool in conjunction with Microsoft's Power BI.

The Boy Question: How to Teach Boys to Succeed in School.

Mark Roberts (2021). London: Routledge.

The Boy Question is the sequel to Boys Don’t Try in which the authors focus on debunking myths and common misconceptions around boys’ attainment. In this book, Mark Roberts has written an evidence-informed, yet practical and insightful, book centred around nine topical issues pertaining to the gender attainment gap. The essence of this review focuses on Part A and Part B as I felt this is most important to the central issue of improving boys’ attainment and most applicable to my craft of the classroom.

Part A: Motivating boys to work hard The academic literature suggests that boys lag academically due to peer pressure, negative teacher expectations, counterproductive boy-specific engagement strategies, and lack of intrinsic motivation. Roberts suggests some practical solutions to these issues and the one that resonates with me most was rather than focus on trying to ‘hook’ struggling switched off boys, they instead need to taste success in your subject: 'The effect of achievement on self-concept is strong than the effect of self-concept on achievement'. Once pupils have a flavour of success then their self-efficacy will grow (10). I have been actively trying to take on board the suggestions offered of ‘rephrase to amaze’ and ‘feed for fulfilment’ to provide a short-term sense of achievement that can be built up over time to develop self-efficacy. I particularly like the ‘rephrase to amaze’ in which you simply take part of their answer that is factually correct and retort back to the class with an improved version using subject specific terminology. I have noticed that some of the lower achieving boys have started to actively engage and volunteer in class more frequently and the construction of their written language is far better.

Roberts suggests that the use of model answers allows the more reluctant, demotivated boys to emulate success enabling them to grow in confidence. Factoring the use of modelling into my lesson plans has had significant benefits. Adopting an approach of ‘monkey see, monkey do’ provides an opportunity for pupils to help construct exemplar answers. With effective questioning you can draw on pupil input, so they get the satisfaction of doing something well and slowly but surely develop belief in their ability. In time, I have found this an effective tool to refer to as a springboard for success and instilling accountability in their learning. Not only can I see the benefits to pupil learning outcomes but also in my delivery and subject expertise. The process of constructing answers requires a thorough understanding of the assessment objectives and subject content, something that has proven invaluable with new exam board.

Part B: Instilling high expectations in boys Reassurance was offered in Roberts’ words that 'no matter how good the teaching can be, their performance could be undermined by poor study behaviours'. The aforementioned poor study skills centred on two main aspects (though as a disclaimer this is a generalised stereotype): boys invariably start their revision or homework much nearer the deadline, and secondly, they have an inaccurate inflated perception of their own academic ability. Despite good intentions to adapt effective study skills due to the last-minute panic this is often fallen by the wayside and discarded, relying heavily on ‘last minute cramming’ and rereading notes and textbooks. This is widely acknowledged as less effective than low stakes spaced and retrieval practice.