Research underpinning our curriculum

The challenges to scholars making rapid progress are often more similar across disciplines than different:  

• poor knowledge retention
• poor literacy
• inability to move from knowledge retention to application
• poor metacognitive skills

The solutions to these problems are far more effective when they are simple, systematic and satisfactorily implemented:

• a focussed and coherent curriculum
• clear, prioritised lessons
• purposeful reading and writing

• Lessons should insist on 100% cognitive engagement by 100% of scholars.    
• Classrooms are characterised by a strong culture of error, where no scholar opts out.
• The format of lessons are standardised to reduce extraneous cognitive load.
• Routines and systems help to accelerate learning.
• Joyful routines create a climate where scholars enjoy learning.

• Novice learners are not the same as experts, and so should not be taught as such.    
• Tasks should be practiced in small parts, before being built up to more complex tasks.
• Prior knowledge is a key indicator of future learning.
• Intelligence is not fixed, but thinking you are intelligent makes you so.

• Knowledge sits at the root of critical thinking.    
• Recall as the route to retention

• Daily review of important prior learning.
• Exposition broken into clear, metacognitive steps.
• Deliberate practice as the most direct route to mastery.

• The curriculum as a model for progression.    
• Formative assessment as a tool to improve the quality of instruction in the classroom.

• Pedagogical knowledge (specification mastery) is as important as general subject knowledge in accelerating scholar progress.

• High quality explanations where all scholars participate lead to rapid progress.
• Clearly sequenced curriculum programmes, with frequent opportunities for knowledge recall and application of knowledge in controlled practice are those that lead to the highest outcomes.