The most effective lessons for more able and talented learners are those that are planned. Here is some useful guidance for lesson content:
- breadth – going beyond the prescribed curriculum
- depth – within the curriculum and increasing the level of challenge
- acceleration – covering work quicker than others
- independence – link to personalised learning agenda
- reflection – making understanding explicit
The lesson structure should display key teaching skills:
- differentiating work
- setting effective classroom tasks
- questioning effectively
- defining learning objectives
- explaining effectively
RELEVANT DOCUMENTS AND LINKS
- Thinking skills – adding challenge to the curriculum – Overview of thinking skills and how to promote and encourage thinking in the classroom.
- KS3 module: Questioning – Training module from Key Stage 3 on improving questioning techniques in school.
- Accrediting prior learning – What are the best strategies to use to find out what students already know about a topic and how do you respond to this? This document includes some information on mind mapping.
- Aide memoires – A document to aid task design and help your students to benefit even more from the lesson.
- Complexity – Find out how you can effectively introduce complexity into students” thinking and learning.
- Diagramming – Diagramming involves representing a written text in diagrammatic form. Some examples are shown here.
- Strategy: most difficult first – An initial step towards more formal compacting, this is most effective with skill-based assignments. This is an overview of the strategy.
- Planning checklist – Map of the issues to consider when planning lessons for more able and talented students.
- Review of provision strategies – Review of the different strategies teachers may need to employ to teach more able and talented children in different contexts.
- Bloom’s Taxonomy – The Three Little Pigs – Using The Three Little Pigs with Bloom’s Taxonomy activity.
- Lesson observation schedule – Template form for observations about the effectiveness of the provision for more able and talented pupils.
