1. Minimise distractions 🎉 We can pay attention to the four s’s: ✅ Settling: the way we start lessons ✅ Seating: where students are positioned ✅ Silence: don’t be afraid to insist on it for some tasks ✅ Social: making the classroom a learning space, not a social space.

2. Peak interest Humans are naturally inquisitive. Our interest is peaked by a question we do not know the answer to. 🤨 Peaking interest is a subject specific art which requires expertise in the curriculum and knowledge of what makes your students tick. The quick wins…

✅ Novelty: our attention is grabbed by the unusual - an object, an anecdote, a quirky image. ✅ Questions: a well formed question is more intriguing than lesson objectives. ✅ Gaps: drawing attention to what students don’t yet know (perhaps through a quiz) primes interest.

3. Rehearse attention behaviours Students pay attention more if it becomes normal to do so. Creating ‘attention’ habits requires practice. ✅ Look at the person who is talking ✅ Ask if you don’t understand ✅ Underline unfamiliar words as you read a text…

✅ Paraphrase what your partner just told you ✅ Turn-taking in discussion ✅ Questions students need to find the answers to. We can make our expectations clear and provide lots of opportunities to practice these routines. Students can then think hard about their learning.

Teachers pitch lessons better when they: ✅ Carry out frequent, low-stake assessments ✅ Observe students carefully when they complete tasks (move around the class!) ✅ Use methods which check for understanding for the whole class (not just those who put their hand up).

✅ Recognise attentiveness when it happens - make a big deal of it ✅ Narrate the pathway to success - make attentiveness a virtue ✅ Attribute good outcomes to behavioural causes like attention - “well done for getting that right… you must have been really paying attention”.

If you’re running a meeting this week, make it meaningful keep it short, keep it on task and then let people go. Time is precious.

Back to school tomorrow after half-term. Still don't have access to university e-mail for the PGCE I was enrolled on in July and started in September. Been ill for 2 weeks and unable to do any PGCE work (the parts I can do without access to e-mail) or work work. Really stressed.

Is it OK to always start the lesson with copying - as a way of settling the class? Or is it better to do something more challenging and risk having students fail/not buy in to the lesson #edutwitter #aussieED

Teach Johnny Pav How about true/false statements? They can write them down but they are also thinking/recalling at the same time

Teach Johnny Pav What is it that they are copying? Key words here is "always". If just busy work, then nah. If retrieval practice, building vocab, or copying something that links previous lesson to present then okay. The purpose & value of the task is important here.

Teach Johnny Pav my lessons begin with a retrieval quiz - last lesson, last week, last learning cycle, last year. Last question is a 'why...?' question/ thinking hard then they self-mark. Whole thing less than 7 minutes

Teach Johnny Pav If I was observing you getting a whole class copying from the board would be a red flag, many students find it stressful for dyslexic students it's torture for many others it's unthreatening and welcomed but where is the learning happening.

Here’s the next edition of our T&L bulletin, focusing on giving feedback that enables students to master knowledge and skills. It features ideas and advice from EEF, Walkthrus and further reading from Tom Sherrington. 🤓 Link in comments.

Teach Johnny Pav Use a cloze passage instead? Bit of copying something expertly written whilst having to really think too?

Lesson observation this morning, the first of my TE1. Still coughing all over the place and so so tired and feverish. Any tips, please? #PGCE #lessonobservation #PGCEstudent #TE1

Just one of those days when your body veers between glacial and kiln-roasting temperatures. Including during a lesson observation and mentor meeting. #PGCE

Looking for for some new children’s books to read… I’m missing all the books I read last year on my PGCE and the great recommendations. Any suggestions? Currently reading the last bear to my own children.