Research based methods for teaching, learning, planning and assessment 

General Preamble

Given the current focus on the Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR) and its impact on teaching and learning, I thought I would share my own thoughts, for what they are worth. They are informed by 30+ years of classroom practice and 20+ years of being a SENCO. I must immediately confess to being astounded by the assertion in the the final report of CAR in November 2025 that:

‘…many aspects of the current system are working well. In comparison to other jurisdictions, we have a reasonably broad and balanced curriculum to age 16 which offers all children an entitlement to a core set of knowledge. International comparisons suggest that the present arrangements have had a positive impact on attainment, and we therefore intend to maintain and build on the knowledge-rich approach and on the coherent structural architecture established by the last review [in 2011]’

As there are currently 950,000+ young people not in education, employment or training (so called ‘NEET’s), and schools are experiencing an attendance crisis suggesting that a whole section of society see schooling as irrelevant to their lives, I don’t think we should be congratulating ourselves but rather looking at what fundamentals need to be changed to help address these major challenges. While I know that these matters do take time to address, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make the effort. 

However, if we are going to be asked to simply tinker around the edges of our curriculum rather than making wholesale useful changes, we need to think a little more creatively about what we do. The following represents questions that I think should be considered when preparing a school’s curriculum and timetable, and also when teachers prepare their own lessons for their class. The questions posed are my own ideas, but the answers that follow are currently not my own ‘leg work’ – they are made up of information trawled from the internet by a number of (free) AI tools and then put together. These tools are useful for gathering a huge amount of data, but they do not discriminate over the relative merits of different sources, whether they be a multi-sourced, peer-reviewed piece of research or a simple opinion piece where someone, like myself, has simply let off steam. In the future, I would like to work through each question separately to replace the AI trawl with personal research to ensure that any answers truly reflect the most current research – which might not be available on public-facing web pages. However, this will take time, as I am still a classroom teacher myself – see my post https://mikestubbscomposer.com/2025/11/12/music-education-in-defence-of-the-generalist-primary-school-teacher/.

Each topic addressed consists of some key questions with answers based on publicly available research data, followed by a brief summary of my own musings. Once I have worked through these I will try to draw together key points from each into a single coherent thread. I will also look briefly at how this impacts some key areas of the curriculum. Finally I will make a few suggestions as to how AI can be used to help put all this in place to build a truly inclusive class without placing any further pressure on teachers – in fact, it could even ease the burden! 

These are the questions that I have looked to address:

Topic 1 – A brief overview of where we are

1. A brief history of Primary Education in the UK

2. Who was Sir Ken Robinson and what was his contribution to the debate about the state of primary education in the UK? What do his critics say about his ideas?

Topic 2 – Fundamentals

1. Definitions:
   1. Executive function 
   2. Working memory
   3. Processing speed
   4. Cognitive load 

2. Who were Piaget and Vygotsky, what were their theories and how relevant are they to primary school education today?

3. Why is primary education based on a behavioural approach, and what are the pros and cons of this approach?

4. How do Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories relate to cognitive load changes over time?

5. What effect do working memory, processing speed and motor skills have on children’s cognitive development?

6. What is Growth Mindset, what are the pros and cons of the theory and how does it relate to a curriculum that prescribes when skills should be taught?

7. What examples are there of long-arc teaching – where a teacher has taught something that has only yielded fruit years later: why does it happen and can it be evidenced before it bears fruit?

Topic 3 – Learning 

1. How much practice is needed to embed a skill?

2. What types of skill practice occur in the primary school classroom?

3. What is ‘Blocked’ practice? What is ‘Interleaved’ practice? How much blocked practice is needed before moving on to interleaved practice?

4. How does this change for pupils with special educational needs?

5. What is scaffolded learning and what are the pros and cons of using it in the primary classroom?

6. What specific fading techniques are there to ensure pupils don’t become overly dependent on these scaffolds?

7. How frequently should new skills be introduced in different subjects to children with special educational needs in primary school?

Topic 4 – Timetabling, breaks and sleep 

1. Timetabling issues:
   1. What is better for learning: two one hour sessions with no breaks or two 50 minute sessions with a break in between?
   2. Is this the case for primary school children in general?
   3. What does this mean specifically for KS1 children?
   4. How about for Key Stage 2 children?

2. What is Spaced Repetition?

3. How does sleep help learning?

4. REM and NREM sleep:
   1. What is different in terms of memory management between REM sleep and non REM sleep?
   2. How does this relate to classroom learning?
   3. How do digital screens before bed specifically interfere with these two stages of classroom-ready memory?

5. Napping:
   1. How does napping specifically affect the two stages of memory management?
   2. When during the school day are naps most effective (timing actually matters quite a bit)?
   3. What are the best ‘nap alternatives’ for school?

Topic 5 – Reviewing and feedback 

1. What is the evidence that asking children to do corrections at primary school is more effective for their learning than giving them a new targeted task to address the problem, and is this the same for children of all different abilities?

2. What should teachers consider when deciding whether to ask for a correction or set a new task?

3. What is the evidence that children of primary school age learn by reviewing their previous work in their own exercise books and does this change according to age and ability?

4. When is written feedback most effective in primary schools and how is this linked to the reading ability of pupils?

5. What counts as immediate feedback in a primary school classroom?

6. Is marking books really the same as feedback?

7. How does teacher workload compare between traditional marking and “live” feedback strategies?

Topic 6 – Basic Skills, Creativity and Problem Solving 

1. What are classed as Basic Skills, and how (and why) does this differ from one organisation to another?

2. What is meant by Creativity and how does this relate to primary school? Can it be taught or is it simply to be encouraged?

3. What are the benefits of building Creativity properly into the curriculum and what are the problems?

4. What is meant by Problem Solving, and how is it linked to Basic Skills and Creativity?

Implications and miscellaneous thoughts 

It may be seen that a fair amount of focus is given to teaching children who may be identified by our education system as ‘lower ability’ or having ‘Special Educational Needs’. In many ways, these labels serve to highlight the shortcomings in our education system – these children are like multifaceted pegs being criticised for not fitting nicely into our round education holes. In a hunter/gatherer society, people like me who are not strong and athletic may be identified as those with ‘Special Educational Needs’ – it all depends on your standpoint! 

This is by no means an exhaustive list of questions. If you think that there are essential questions I have not included, let me know – I may or may not respond, depending on how busy I am – or, better still, address them yourself and put your findings out there for discussion! I am not addressing wider issues such as meeting the needs of the British economy. I do have opinions about this, but they belong to a different debate. I am simply confining myself to what goes on in the primary classroom.

I will try to post an article each week, but I am not making any promises as I know how busy each term can become once the rollercoaster sets off. I may also post other unrelated articles if something piques my interest. Who knows!

Mike

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