by Matt Bromley
Practice does not make perfect, it makes permanent. Whatever you practice to the point of automaticity, you make habitual and can do without active thought. This reduces cognitive load and frees up precious working memory capacity which can then be put to better use.
So, what are the 10 most impactful routines that you can embed in your daily practice from September to help make those routines habitual and lighten the cognitive load?
1 Think backwards
The first classroom routine to embed is to think backwards. In other words, you should have a laser-like clarity about the knowledge and skills you expect pupils to have learned by the end of each lesson and you should then plan backwards from there.
If you can’t articulate what you want pupils to know and do at the end of each lesson, then it’s unlikely that pupils will know what’s expected of them and that the lesson will lead to long-term learning.
When planning, ask yourself: What do I want pupils to know and do at the end of this lesson that they didn’t know and couldn’t do at the beginning?
Then: What do I need pupils to think about during this lesson in order for them to process and encode this knowledge and skills?
You might further consider how you will know if pupils have acquired the knowledge and skills you set out for them to learn, and how you will keep this knowledge and skills accessible to them over the long-term, and how you will help pupils to build upon this knowledge an skills in the future.
To sense-check your planning, routinely ‘drop in’ on pupils and check that they all know:
- WHAT they are learning
- WHY they are learning it
- HOW that learning will be used and assessed later
2 Think big picture
The second classroom routine to embed is to think about the bigger picture so that you regard each lesson, not in isolation, but as one piece in a jigsaw. Put another way, there needs to be a logic to the order and organisation of lessons so that what you teach today builds upon and extends what you taught yesterday and is built upon and extended by what you teach tomorrow. Over time, there needs to be increasing challenge.
In practice, each lesson needs to provide opportunities for pupils to activate their prior knowledge and then add to it, forging ever more complex schema in pupils’ long-term memory.
Think of it like spinning plates: after you set a new plate off spinning, you need to circle back to the all the previous plates you’ve spun and give them a quick turn to prevent them from losing momentum and crashing to the floor.
Sequencing in this way also allows you to articulate that bigger picture to pupils which, in turn, helps build pupils’ intrinsic motivation. It also ensures pupils have the requisite knowledge to be able to understand new concepts – because we all process new abstract information within the context of what is already concrete and familiar.
In other words, articulating the bigger picture helps pupils to cheat the limitations of their working memories and make better sense of the curriculum.
When planning, ask yourself: What are the end points of my curriculum? This could be a scheme of work, a unit or topic, a year or key stage, or an entire phase of education. What matters is that you know what you want pupils to know and do at the end of the sequence.
3 Think high
The third classroom routine to embed is to think high and teach to the top. This involves teaching the sameambitious, broad and balanced curriculum to all pupils, and having high expectations of what all pupils can learn – avoiding the temptation to ‘dumb down’ for some pupils because of their starting points or additional and different needs.
Thinking high also involves teaching a curriculum that is sufficiently broad so as to prepare pupils for what comes next but to teach it with appropriate depth so as to ensure genuine understanding and aid transferability.
Furthermore, thinking high is about making sure all pupils, not just the higher-performing ones, are stretched and challenged – both in terms of the pace and pitch of teaching, and in the feedback given to help pupils improve further.
One great strategy to employ which ensures all pupils are stretched and challenged but avoids some pupils moving too far ahead of others, is peer-teaching. If the pupils who have ‘got it’ teach those who have not, then the ‘got its’ are meaningfully engaged in retrieval practice and deepen their understanding of a concept by explaining it to someone else, while the ‘have nots’ are retaught a concept from a new angle.
Ask yourself: What does excellence look like? What standard of work should I expect from the highest performing pupils in my class? How can I model excellence and deconstruct it, so that all pupils can see how to produce work of a high standard?
Also: How can I maintain the integrity of my teaching sequence without holding some pupils back or allowing others to flounder?
4 Think out loud
The fourth classroom routine to embed is to think out loud.
Firstly, start each new teaching sequence – whether that be a new concept, unit or topic – with clear and insightful explanations. The best explanations are chunked into small steps, make use of analogies and metaphors to compare new, abstract information to what is already familiar and concrete to pupils, and are dual coded, combining verbal and visual information to aid pupils’ cognition.
Starting a new topic with teacher explanations – as opposed to discovery learning approaches – enables you to take ownership of the information flow and ensures pupils do not waste too much time gathering information or develop unhelpful misunderstandings along the way.
Secondly, you should model excellence and, whilst doing so, make your invisible thought processes and decision-making visible to pupils, thus ensuring your implicit expertise is explicit to the novice pupil.
Thirdly, you should engage the class in co-construction, producing a model together. Here, pupils provide the substance whilst you ask probing questions, drip-feed technical vocabulary, and pass the baton between pupils so they can comment on and add to each other’s contributions. You should also use questioning to engage pupils and to provide ongoing formative feedback.
Fourthly, pupils should produce a model independently – so as to engage in the cognitive process by themselves – and gather and act on feedback.
Ask yourself: What key information do I need pupils to know upfront? What vocabulary do I need them to possess? How can I share this in an accessible way without overloading pupils’ working memories?
Then: How can I model excellence live in front of pupils? What steps will I demonstrate and how I will narrate my progress? How can I model metacognition and show pupils how I deal with setbacks and improve my work as I go?
5 Think differently
The fifth classroom routine to embed is to think differently by planning a variety of learning activities for pupils to engage in over time – with teacher explanations and modelling ‘chunked’ with questioning, practice activities, or group discussions which aid pupils’ retention and increase their attention spans.
Each lesson does not necessarily need to be varied and I would never prescribe a set lesson structure. But, over a sequence of connected lessons, I do think there should be opportunities for pupils to become increasingly independent and to engage in activities which allow them to become owners of their own and others’ learning. Pair work, group work, whole-class discussions, self- and peer-assessment, and suchlike, are all great ways of ensuring pupils are active participants in the process of learning, not just passive recipients of information. The trick is to gradually hand ownership of learning to pupils by starting a new teaching sequence with the greatest level of control and slowly passing the reins to pupils as they complete tasks for and by themselves.
6 Think repeatedly
The sixth classroom routine to embed is to think repeatedly by planning opportunities for pupils to engage in some form of retrieval practice – and thus the building of schema – in every lesson. The shape and form of this retrieval practice – and when it happens within the lesson – is dependent on the context and so pragmatism is key, but retrieval practice needs to take place frequently to prevent knowledge decay and to help pupils connect prior learning to new learning.
Thinking repeatedly is about engaging pupils in activities that require them to activate prior learning then add to it in order to spin ever-more complex webs of knowledge in long-term memory. These mental maps – or schema – help pupils to think more efficiently and effectively.
Retrieval practice does not have to be convoluted, nor does it have to involve lots of planning. In fact, one particularly impactful form is free recall whereby you greet pupils at the door at the start of the lesson and give each of them a blank piece of paper. When they sit down, the task is to write down everything they can remember from the previous lesson. You might use this to unpack prior learning and to unmask any misconceptions, but you don’t necessarily have to do anything. The simple act of pupils retrieving from long-term memory what they’ve previously learned, and writing it down, is good enough!
7 Think equitably
The seventh classroom routine to embed is to think equitably by teaching all pupils the same curriculum, thus ensuring equality, but making sure those pupils with additional and different needs are supported to access that curriculum through adaptive teaching strategies, thus ensuring equity.
Thinking equitably is about giving those who start with less more help to access the same curriculum as their peers. The ‘more’ might take the form of task-scaffolding whereby pupils are given more detailed instructions, additional information such as a word bank, worked examples, or partially completed tasks (perhaps with stem sentences) in order to help them get started.
The key to success is that any additional scaffolding you put in place falls away as quickly as possible, ensuring pupils become increasingly independent and can do the work for and by themselves. Otherwise, we are in danger of perpetuating learned helplessness.
8 Think forward
As well as knowing the bigger picture of learning, pupils also need to know how, when, and why they will be assessed and how prior learning will be activated and built upon.
Pupils should only be assessed when that assessment will lead to feedback, and feedback should only be given when there is time given in lesson for them to process it, question it, and act upon it.
The results of assessments should then be used as learning opportunities – for example, in the form of whole class feedback on the most common errors – rather than simply to draw lines in the sand. In other words, feedback should be formative with actionable next steps.
The eighth classroom routine to embed, then, is to think forward – to ensure that pupils are given feedback on which they can and do act in order to make progress.
In fact, the best feedback offers both feedback and feedforward: it tells pupils where they are now, where they were and therefore how far they’re come, and what they need to do to make further such progress.
9 Think habitually
As I said at the start of this article, practice makes permanent – habits are key to helping new teachers develop automaticity and thus to reducing cognitive load. And what’s good for goose is good for the gander: the more pupil habits we can establish, too, the lower the demand on their working memory will be, and thus the more able they will be to rise to the challenge of hard work.
Think: what do I want all pupils to do every lesson? Whatever can be standardised and practised to the point of automaticity, should be!
As a starting point, I’d suggest you practise how pupils enter your classroom, how you start lessons, how resources are handed out and returned, how pupils engage in whole class discussions (hands up or no hands up, active listening, commenting on what others say not how they say it or who they are, etc.), how pupils self- and peer-assess and peer-teach, how pupils respond to feedback, how pupils try to overcome difficulties by using coping strategies and wall displays etc. before seeking help from you, and so on.
You might also think about the social norms you want to establish in your classroom and the rewards and sanctions you apply when pupils do or do not confirm to those norms – working within the confines of your school’s policies, of course.
Time spent practising daily routines at the start of the year or term will pay dividends later because you won’t have to repeat instructions or tackle low-level disruption/non-compliance.
10 Think… and feel
The final classroom routine to embed is perhaps the hardest to teach but the most important: showing warmth towards pupils and visibly caring about their success – something you’ll quickly find is rewarded with their loyalty and hard work.
Warmth isn’t about being fluffy and soft, it involves having high expectations of pupils, both academically and in terms of their attitudes to learning, and explicitly teaching pupils the study skills they need to access your curriculum, engage with it, and make progress.
Showing warmth is also about listening to and understanding pupils, empathising with them, but not tolerating anything less than their best.
About the author
Matt Bromley is CEO of bee. He is an education journalist, author, and advisor with twenty five years’ experience in teaching and leadership including as a secondary school headteacher and academy principal, further education college vice principal, and multi-academy trust director.
Matt is a public speaker, trainer, initial teacher training lecturer, and school improvement advisor. He remains a practising teacher, currently working in secondary, FE and HE settings.
Matt writes for various magazines, is the author of numerous best-selling books on education, and co-hosts an award-winning podcast.
Find out more here. Follow Matt on X @mj_bromley
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