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Musings from Henry Huxtable

Attention, meaning & consolidation: matching technique to purpose 

A reflection on a blog post by David Didau and how it impacts on our practice.  

  • Use research and theory to argue logically. 

  • Get below the surface of ideas and theory and come up with their own conclusions. 

  • Use deduction and inference to make predictions and solve problems. 

As part of being an independent thinker, milestone 3 from our learning characteristic asks us as individuals to follow the three steps above. This is something I have struggled with in the past as it can be difficult to blend our independent thought with risk taking in environments that can rely so heavily on consistency and matching approaches.  

Sometimes doing something different or coming up with our own conclusions can seem like a deliberate objection to policy or guidance whereas really it is this process that generates new waves of thinking and refreshing approaches. The key issue is that the first bullet point needs to be followed. 

I recently read a blog by David Didau on the limited use of teaching pedagogical strategies: https://learningspy.co.uk/english-gcse/attention-meaning-consolidation-matching-teaching-to-purpose/ 

As I was reading this first line I started to question the validity of such a blog post rejecting such an important practise. But really, the article questions the efficacy of something that people have done before, is it still relevant and is there a better way? David seems to have found a better strategy that I believe will support the practice of more experienced teachers in uplevelling their staff to achieve their goals and vision across their school. 

David highlights the following principles taken from Mary Kennedy’s 2015 paper, Parsing the Practice of Teaching as being important to his aims when instructing others on how to teach: 

  1. Portraying the curriculum (finding ways to bring subject matter to life) 

  1. Enlisting student participation (making sure that students are engaged in meaningful activities) 

  1. Exposing student thinking (finding out what students are thinking) 

  1. Containing student behaviour (making sure that lessons are safe and not disrupted) 

  1. Accommodating personal needs (ensuring students are not alienated by any of the above) 

He then goes on to explain how he reduces this list further to attention, meaning & consolidation and matching technique to purpose. This got me thinking about our trust wide teaching principles and how do we view these as values and principles rather than a framework to base our teaching and learning on. This will be something I am excited to develop further as we move into the Summer term. 

A further article I have found useful to consider whilst considering creative development as a teacher and a professional is the following: 

https://learningspy.co.uk/featured/earned-autonomy-and-shared-responsibility/ 

Written by Henry Huxtable, Assistant Academy Head

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