Michael Walsh, Author at Let's Think in English

Lesson One in a Special School

Reasoning About Intentions and Consequences: Lesson One in a special school.

Introduction

One of the central aims of Let’s Think in English (LTE) is to help students develop deeper reasoning about texts. Rather than focusing primarily on comprehension or retrieval, LTE lessons encourage students to explore ideas, test interpretations, and consider alternative perspectives through structured classroom dialogue.
This blog reflects on teaching the LTE lesson The Black Hole with a class of fourteen students in a special school.

Special School: The Class

This class was a KS4/5 English group, working at Entry Level 2 and ranging from Year 9 to Year 14. The learners form a mixed-ability group of students with special educational needs and disabilities, with a range of learning profiles including autism, attention-related needs, global developmental delay, and speech and language difficulties. Teaching for the group is typically highly structured and supportive, with a strong emphasis on developing communication skills, confidence, and meaningful engagement in learning.

Why LTE Tutors Teach the Lessons

From the beginning of the LTE project, one of our key principles has been: those who design the programme should also teach the lessons themselves.When the lessons were first developed, LTE Laurie Smith and I taught them repeatedly in early draft form. This process was crucial. Teaching the lessons allowed us to refine questions, anticipate students’ responses, and understand how cognitive challenge emerges in practice. As part of our introduction to Let’s Think in English training, when we begin working with a new school, we often offer to model an LTE lesson with students so teachers can observe the structure and dialogue in action.

However, although I had taught hundreds of LTE lessons over the years, I had not recently had the opportunity to teach them regularly with the same class over a sustained period. LTE is designed to work cumulatively. Lessons are usually taught every two weeks, allowing students’ reasoning to develop gradually.
For several years, for my own professional development and to deepen my understanding of how LTE works I have volunteered to teach LTE in different settings across an academic year. However, after providing a twilight session for a special school, I volunteered to teach a sequence of LTE lessons in the setting.

I would record the lessons so that we could the dialogic interactions and enable us to examine specific moments of reasoning within lessons and reflect on how teacher questioning supported students’ thinking. Classroom transcripts are a crucial professional development tool in Let’s Think in English training.

More importantly, recording the lessons created the possibility of tracking how students’ reasoning develops over time. Rather than analysing a single lesson in isolation, we could begin to observe how students’ explanations, interpretations and confidence in discussion changed across the sequence.

The Lesson

I decided to start with a Year 6 lesson based on a short film: The Black Hole. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru28bohotWA
I selected this lesson as it is captivating and one that piques interest but also, we opted for a video-based lesson so we reduced the cognitive load of understanding and recalling a text and could focus initially on building the habits of conversational turns and reasoning.

The lesson uses a short film in which an office worker discovers a mysterious “black hole” printed from a photocopier that allows him to reach through solid objects. Initially he uses it to retrieve a cup from a vending machine and steal a chocolate bar. Eventually he attempts to steal money from a safe—but becomes trapped inside.
The narrative creates a compelling puzzle: is the man responsible for his own downfall, or is the black hole itself to blame?

Through structured discussion, students are encouraged to reason about intentions and consequences—a key reasoning pattern within LTE.
We recorded two stages of the lesson:

Students’ predictions on how the film might end
A discussion on who or what is blame for the man’s downfall.

A full transcript is available at the end of this blog post but below are some reflections on what the students were doing within the lesson.

Predicting the Ending

Roughly two-thirds of the way through the film, the video is paused and the students are asked to predict how the story might end. Prediction is a key component of Let’s Think in English. We see prediction as using our prior knowledge to expect or predict the position of a newly introduced piece. With prediction we are inviting students into the process of meaning making but it is not speculative but rather reasoned; the predictions are based on what students have observed, discussed already and the patterns they have identified. See previous blog post on the power of prediction: https://www.letsthinkinenglish.org/what-might-happen-next-internal-models-and-the-power-of-prediction/
The discussion quickly reveals students drawing on different LTE reasoning patterns.

One student suggested the man might escape successfully:
“I think he’s gonna escape work with the money, without being seen.”

Another student introduced the idea of moral consequence:
“Later he gets karma. I think he’s going to get karma.”

This idea sparked further explanation and clarification from another student:
“If you’ve done something bad to someone and later on someone does that to you… that’s karma.”

Here students were already reasoning about cause and consequence, anticipating that the character’s actions might eventually lead to punishment.

A particularly striking contribution came from another student who proposed a detailed alternative explanation of how the film might end:
“Right after he takes the money out of the safe, he’s going to use his body to enter the black hole… then he enters inside the safe but all the money is outside… and there’s no escape.”

This prediction generated further reasoning about how the situation might work physically. When the teacher asked how the paper was held in place, another student immediately recalled an earlier detail:
“It’s stuck with Sellotape.”

This small exchange illustrates an important feature of LTE dialogue: students draw on evidence from the text or film to support or challenge interpretations. While first thoughts are impulsive and emotional, reasoning by contrast is more considered with students being aware they must provide evidence to support their opinions.

Once students had completed their predictions they watched the final moments of the film, with the students reacting immediately. Spontaneous discussion broke out across the room as students compared what they had predicted with what happened. Prediction encourages students to be emotionally and rationally engaged. They are not merely watching the film but rather checking how their mental framework compares with the director’s.

Who is to blame?

The final question in the lesson asked students to decide: Who is responsible for what happens—the man or the black hole? Almost all students initially voted that the man was responsible. Their explanations were revealing.

One student summarised the central idea succinctly:
“Because he’s being greedy.”

Another extended this explanation:
“He’s selfish… he takes one lot out, then he goes for a second lot… it’s greed.”

Here students were identifying a clear progression in the character’s behaviour.
Another student connected the events earlier in the film to the theft from the safe:
“He was acting like a thief… he steals chocolate and then he steals the money.”

This comment demonstrates students reasoning across the entire narrative, identifying patterns in the character’s behaviour. Some students went further, identifying the chain of decisions that led to the outcome. One student observed:
“It’s kind of his fault… he was the one who printed the paper in the first place and it is his fault for walking into the safe.”

This explanation shows students reasoning about agency and responsibility—key aspects of the LTE reasoning pattern of intentions and consequences. However, the discussion did not end there. To extend students’ thinking, the teacher introduced a further puzzle and provocation. If the photocopier produced the black hole without an original, where did it come from?

One student responded confidently:
“The one he had was the original.”

Another student suggested a different possibility:
“When he banged the printer it came out.”

These ideas show students attempting to resolve the narrative inconsistency—a moment of genuine cognitive challenge. Towards the end of the discussion, the teacher revisited an earlier observation about the character’s emotional state. Some viewers interpret the film differently: the man may already be “trapped” in his life before the events of the story. When asked why some people might think this, one student reflected:
“Because he’s working in the office and he looks sad.”

The same student then connected this idea to their earlier observation:
“He’s empty at the start… like he doesn’t like the job. He’s empty. Trapped.”

This moment illustrates how LTE discussion can return to earlier interpretations and deepen them.

Reflections on Teaching the Lesson

In this special school classes’ first Lets’ Think in English lesson several aspects of the pedagogy are emerging:

First, cognitive challenge drives engagement. The puzzle created by the film encouraged students to sustain discussion for an extended period of 40 minutes which is impressive for their first attempt.

Second, dialogue allows reasoning to develop collectively. Students frequently built on one another’s ideas or returned to earlier comments. They are developing their intelligence individually and collectively.

Third, interpretations evolve over time. Many students initially focused on the mysterious black hole itself but gradually shifted towards analysing the character’s decisions.

These shifts are precisely what LTE lessons aim to encourage: students learning to reconsider their interpretations through collaborative reasoning. After the students’ discussions and reflecting upon the lesson transcript, I started to recognise habits the students would need support in developing. I’ll outline my first impressions on the students’ proficiency in discussion in my next blog post.

LTE Special School in Islington: Lesson One, Lesson Transcript

There is a class of 14 students although one leaves for a planned intervention at the point of this transcript. This is their first LTE lessons exploring the Year 6 LTE lesson the Black Hole. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WQXGQYi5kg

At the point of the transcript, students are moving towards the cognitive conflict stage and are approx. two thirds of the way through the film. Students have seen the man taking money from a safe and the film has been paused so they can predict how it might end.

Teacher There is approx. 15 secs of the film left. How do you think it might end?

Student 1 I think he’s gonna escape work with the money, without being see.

Teacher Okay, so you think he’s going to get away , escape work with the money, nobody’s going to find him. Okay? Any other ideas, any other ways of looking at this? What do we think? Go on. You’ve given us lot today. Carry on. Thanks. Okay, one moment we’re going to wait until everyone is ready to listen to you. Thank you.

Student 1 Later he gets karma. I think he’s going to get Karma. But later on, something happens to him, that karma.

Teacher Tell me what does karma means?

Student 2 if you’ve done something bad, some people something if you’ve done something bad to person and later on, someone, some people, do that to you. That’s karma.

Teacher I’ve got you. So, Karma is when, if you do something to someone and something similar happens to you? Okay, tell us a bit more than then.

Student 2 You get good karma, bad karma, bad karma. Okay, so you do something good for somebody. Get good karma depends on what you use. That’s very, very bad. Yeah, so that is very bad.

Teacher Okay, let’s check in. The suggestion here is he’s going to get some bad karma. Hands up if you agree, think something bad will happen to this person at the end. (Majority of students raise their hand in agreement). So you think there’ll be a consequence for his actions? Student 3, tell us, what do you think will happen next? (Student has their hand up to volunteer)

Student 3 Is like, right after he takes the money out of the safe, he’s going to use his body to enter the black hole, and he’s going to enter inside the safe, but all the money is outside of the safe. And then what he enters inside the safe the people and there’s no escape.

Teacher No escape? Why?

Student 3 Because the paper will fall?

Teacher How is the paper been held? Do we know? Did we see?

Student 2 It’s stuck with Sellotape, just a piece of Sellotape.

Teacher So does Student 3’s idea seem possible? ( Nodding and general consensus) .

Student 3 So then there will be no escape. There’s no escape. Yeah, no escape. But unless someone has to use the safe, but, but right now, at this time, you can’t escape, and there’s no way. Just wait till the next day, and then once, once someone goes into the office they use the code, you could be dying there. Is like, right after he takes the money out of the safe, he’s going to use his body to enter the black hole, and he’s going to enter inside the safe, but all the money is outside of the safe. And then what he enters inside the safe the people and there’s no escape.

Teacher That’s a bit like your bad karma idea Student 1? ,

Student 1 Yes it is bad karma, the paper will probably rip. The paper probably rips.

Teacher Ok shall we watch the end of the film? We’ll consider some more questions afterwards. Students watch film. Upon conclusion they burst into impromptu conversation about the events.

Teacher I’m not sure if you’ve realised but you’ve been discussing this film for about 40 minutes. For your first LTE lessons that’s impressive.. I’ve got one last question. I’m going to let you be then, cause you’ve done so well. You’ve thought hard. I’ll give you 2 options, and I’d like you to closer your eyes and put your hands up for which option you think is best. The questions is about, who do you think is to blame for what happens? Listen and think about the two options before raising your hands. Okay, do you think it’s the man is to blame for what happens, or do you think is the black hole that’s to blame? I’m giving you 30 secs thinking time. If you think it’s the man that’s to blame, put your hands up? (Nearly all students put their hand up) If you think it’s the black hole that’s to blame put your hands up. (One student indicates shakes their hand sideways to suggest they are in between). Open your eyes. So, most of you think it’s the man fault. , Have a quick chat in your groups. Students discuss in their small groups for approx. 2 mins.

Teacher Student 4 What do you and your group think?

Student 4 Because he’s being greedy. (Student 4’s first contribution to whole class feedback in the lesson).

Teacher You think the man is to blame because he’s greedy. (Student 4 nods) You think it’s his greed that leads into it?

Student Yes.

Teacher Okay. Anything else anybody wants to add anything?

Student 5 He’s selfish like he wants more money, like this, enough money. He takes one lot out, then he goes for a second lot. He goes right to the back. it’s greed.

Teacher Thank you. it sounds like you got similar ideas to Student 4, greedy, being selfish. Anything else?

Student 3 He was acting like a thief. Because what? So what you can see from this video, he was stealing some chocolate bars from the vending machine. So, so, so that’s how you know that he, he, he is the thief, because he, he steals chocolate, and then he goes on steal the money, doesn’t he sort of takes more and more things.

Teacher Thank you. Anything else anybody wants to say? Okay, last one. Thank you for your contributions.

Student 6 It’s kind of his fault for that? I mean, he was the one who printed the paper in the first place and it is his fault for walking into the safe to get himself stuck?

Teacher Is he stuck in the safe?

Student 1 Yeah, here and tapping at the end, you could hear him inside.

Teacher I wonder what you think about something many classes say to me when considering this film. Remember, when he finds the black hole in the photocopier? You know how photocopies normally work? You put an original down and it makes a copy, But in this film,, remember, the man doesn’t put anything down. He opens it the photocopier, he found the black hole and there doesn’t appear to be an original.. and the man looked puzzled. If the black hole just appeared, do you still think it’s totally his fault?

Student 2 Yeah, the one he had was the original.

Teacher But where did it come from then?

Student 7 This is original, the printer. He banged it, it came out. When he banged it, it came out.

teacher Some students when they watch this film say the man is not trapped at the end of the film when he enters the safe but he’s trapped all the time. Right from the start of the film. , Why might some people think he’s always trapped right from the beginning of the film?,

Student 1 Because I mean his work in the office and he’s trapped and looks sad.,

Teacher Do you remember at the start of the lesson and you said he was empty, his eyes were empty?

Student 1 Yeah he’s empty at the start of the film, like he was empty and he not like the job. Don’t like the job. He’s empty. Trapped. Empty.

Teacher I think we’ll stop for now. Really well done. I really enjoyed listening and. talking to you. Something we’re going to work on for next time is in your groups, is that everybody gets a turn to talk. I think you can do it. It’s no pressure. If you’re not ready, to speak yet it’s okay. You’ve all contributed today in different ways. Thank you.

Delayed gratification in LTE

Tom Leigh, long time LTE teacher reflects upon the different mode created in Let’s Think in English lessons.

I have been teaching Let’s Think in English for over a decade now, and for the majority of my career this has been in upper key stage 2, and year 6 in particular. I distinctly remember the first moment I fell in love with teaching LTE. I was a bright eyed, energetic NQT (as it was then) with a love of English, but I had yet to find what I was really looking for in English lessons. I think it was that ‘getting lost in a book’ feeling… when the eyes glaze over… when the child leaves the real world and enters the imaginary. In the old days they called it, ‘awe and wonder’. These days they call it, “Blimey… they are engaged!”
The first lesson I taught was ‘Lulu’. The Charles Causley poem, “What has happened to Lulu?” is written almost entirely in question form, and hints at something happening to Lulu, without ever letting on the full details. I remember reading the poem, trying not to give away my own reading of it by staying as neutral in tone as possible, which was part of the training. When I teach now, my internal ‘teacher’ dialogic is still constantly reminding me, “Don’t guide their thinking to your ideas, no right answers, don’t praise what they say overtly – it stops them thinking, the best praise is the taking up of the idea by their peers.” The training provided lots of small teacher ‘moves’ like this, tips that only really make sense when discussed face to face, rather than written on a guide online. I finished the poem, and then asked the first question, What has happened to Lulu?
A moment of silence… contemplation… then the groups of three burst into talk, testing out ideas, changing them, agreeing, confirming, challenging, and building upon their initial thoughts. They talked passionately about these ideas, and their eyes were glazed. They weren’t ‘performing’. They really wanted to say what they thought. They really wanted to listen to each other. They really wanted to ‘think’. And it was me who felt the awe and wonder.
Many years later, teaching Let’s Think still feels this. This year though, for the first time in my career, I am teaching year 4 in lower key stage 2. These days, and at risk of sounding like a grumpy old timer, you hear a lot of teachers (and parents) discussing the fact that it seems children’s attention spans are shorter. But it’s evident in the classroom. Many are more demanding of quick input and wanting instant reward. They talk to each other in memes, and flit between subjects of conversation naturally and easily. Many impulsively verbalise their thoughts, and discuss things as they are happening, not after. They struggle to listen for any lengthy period of time, and they seem to find it more difficult to listen to each other’s ideas, preferring to focus on their own. There is a certain competition, a need to be first, to be noticed more than others, to not want to wait.
I can feel the development difference Piaget delineated – they are more egocentric, they struggle to wait for attention and they compete for it. They battle with great ferocity to be the first in line when it comes to lining up for… well… anything! They also find it harder to move from their own perspective, to move on from their first thought. They often find it more difficult to abstract from their own concrete understanding, to generalise, to find themes and links. They are also extraordinarily fidgety, and incredibly adept and constructing complex buildings from stationery… but they are also harder to impress. Harder to surprise.
However, when we do Let’s Think, it’s different. They somehow move into a different mode. They are calmer, and listen more attentively. They still burst from contemplative silence into passionate discussion and idea building. They construct their ideas more carefully and build on each other’s. And they really like it. They enjoy Let’s Think, a lot.
Why? It doesn’t offer them instant reward. It isn’t split into short seven-second chunks. There aren’t even any rulers to make bridges out of. It made me think of that ‘awe and wonder’ thing. Maybe that happens when something is ‘new’. Something they haven’t seen before, something that isn’t easily assimilated. I was thinking about our Science topic on ‘Sound’. Kids aren’t as easily impressed by technology any more. The decibel meter wasn’t a moment of excitement. The YouTube videos on amazing sounds were passé. But the cup and string… that was properly exciting.
I wonder if maybe the mode of a Let’s Think lesson, a slowing down, a thoughtful contemplation in a social environment, feels ‘new’ to them. Maybe they experience it differently because it doesn’t instantly gratify, there is no right answer to check at a marking station, they can take their time together to form ideas. Crucially I think, they have time to predict. They can form those predictions carefully from the evidence available, and their wider knowledge of the world. They do it together, and then they get the pay-off of seeing if they were right, (though they often enjoy it most if they aren’t, because they are surprised!) Even if they aren’t rewarded with the truth, as is the case in “What’s happened to Lulu”, they are rewarded by their peers building on their ideas, or seeing that their idea was worthy of challenge. They also do it together, in collaboration. There isn’t a race, it’s a shared progression of thinking. Not one person’s opinion matters more, and rather the idea itself is most important. It’s we think, and a question of do we agree?
It begs a question, if children’s brains are in some part being re-wired by their social environment, how ought we to respond? Should we teach lessons in short chunks, feed their instant reward systems, or should we expose them to a ‘slowing down’, a more thoughtful mode. Time to stand and stare. Maybe both are right, but one thing’s for certain, they still really like Let’s Think lessons, and so do I.

LTE in BSAK Abu Dhabi

In this blog post, Luzardi Fisher at The British School Al Khubairat (BSAK) in Abu Dhabi explains their rationale for implementing Let’s Think in English and its impact.

As Head of the English Department at The British School Al Khubairat (BSAK) Abu Dhabi, the decision to introduce Let’s Think in English (LTE) programme was primarily driven by our commitment to maintaining the highest standards of educational excellence. In conjunction with this, the decision was influenced by my positive experiences with LTE during my tenure in Hampshire, UK. Understanding its potential firsthand, I was keen to leverage its strengths to further enhance our educational environment here at BSAK.

Another strong factor driving this initiative was to address specific challenges exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the noticeable decline in student engagement and their growing reluctance to share ideas aloud. The LTE programme was particularly attractive due to its comprehensive approach to pedagogical development. It’s designed to foster a reflective practice among teachers, encouraging them to critically assess and improve their teaching methods. We recognised the potential of LTE to complement our existing educational strategies, offering a structured pathway to further elevate our already strong teaching standards.

As a well-respected institution renowned for its high educational standards, BSAK constantly seeks innovative methods to elevate teaching and learning. The LTE programme’s emphasis on reflective practice and evidence-based teaching strategies promised to complement our existing methodologies while addressing the urgent need for adaptations post-COVID, enhancing both teacher adaptability and student participation. The LTE programme addressed a specific need for a structured professional development that was both reflective and iterative. It provided our teachers with tools to introspectively evaluate their teaching methods and adapt based on evidence-based practices. For our students, the introduction of LTE meant a more tailored and engaging learning experience, ensuring that teaching methods are not only effective but also inclusive.

The unique selling point of the LTE compared to other teaching and learning approaches was its adaptability and focus on sustained teacher growth. Unlike one-off PD workshops or seminars, LTE facilitated an ongoing process of development, allowing teachers to implement changes, evaluate outcomes, and refine their approaches. Leah and Michael have been absolutely amazing and we thoroughly enjoyed working with them and will continue to stay in touch. This ongoing cycle of improvement has been instrumental in helping develop pedagogical strategies that are dynamic and responsive to the needs of our students.

Comparatively, the LTE PD programme was more integrated and comprehensive than other PD initiatives we have tried. It was not merely about imparting knowledge but about creating a culture of continuous professional learning. The programme’s integration with our daily teaching practices rather than being an external addition meant that the learning and improvements were more organic and impactful.

Over the academic year, we observed discernible stages of development in both our staff and students. Initially, there was a learning curve as both groups adapted to the new methodologies and the reflective nature of the programme. However, as the year progressed, teachers became more adept at identifying effective strategies and customising their approaches. Students, in turn, benefited from more engaging and personalised learning experiences. Challenges included time management and aligning the diverse needs of our staff and student body with the structured approach of LTE. However, these were largely overcome through careful planning and open communication.

Today, the impact of LTE at BSAK is clearly visible. Students are more engaged and willing to participate in classroom discussions, showing marked improvements in their communicative abilities. The environment has become more dynamic, with teaching and learning continuously evolving through shared insights and experiences.There has been a noticeable enhancement in teacher effectiveness. Our teachers actively incorporate student suggestions into the lesson plans. This can be seen through teachers asking for student input on what topics they find most intriguing or challenging, and then adapting the curriculum to address these interests and difficulties. This makes the learning process more relevant and engaging for students, fostering a sense of ownership over their education. We also encourage our students to evaluate their own ideas and the ideas of others during our lessons. Teachers now focus more on formative assessments that are designed not just to test knowledge, but to promote deeper understanding. Feedback encourages students to think critically about their own work and the work of their peers. This could be observed in classroom discussions where teachers pose challenging questions that require students to defend their reasoning or consider alternative viewpoints.

For students, the benefits have been seen in terms of higher engagement levels and improved academic performances. While improvements in standardised test scores may not yet be evident, other qualitative changes in student outputs, such as written answers, have provided us with these insights. Teachers have noticed that students are constructing more complex, reasoned arguments in their essays, showing better use of evidence and a clearer understanding of the subject matter. The depth and insight of classroom discussions and written assignments indicate enhanced cognitive and analytical skills.

The culture of continuous improvement and reflective practice has become a hallmark of our educational ethos. The culture of reflective practice, crucial for continuous improvement, is now more embedded within BSAK’s English department ethos. Teachers and students regularly engage in reflection sessions where they discuss what works, what doesn’t, and how things can be improved. This ongoing dialogue helps everyone in the department stay aligned with evolving educational goals and practices.

The distributed leadership model we adopted for the LTE implementation has reinforced a more collaborative and inclusive approach to school leadership. It has encouraged a more collaborative and consultative style of leadership, promoting transparency and shared responsibility in pedagogical decisions. Leaders are now more receptive to feedback and more adaptive to changes, fostering a more dynamic and responsive educational environment.

To other international schools contemplating the adoption of LTE, I would emphasise the importance of commitment to the process. It requires a shift not just in teaching methods but in the cultural mindset of the institution. However, the benefits are substantial, offering a clear pathway to enhanced educational outcomes and teacher satisfaction. Commit to the process, ensure alignment with your school’s vision, and prepare for a transformative journey in your school’s teaching and learning dynamics.

LTE Case Study: Four Marks CE Primary School

As part of a Let’s Think in English submission to the Oracy Commission we’ve asked our LTE Network schools about the impact of the programme in their setting.

Here Veronica Stoodley, Headteacher at Four Marks CE Primary School in Hampshire shares their experiences with the programme.

Four Marks Primary School is an average sized school serving a predominantly white, middle class community. However, we have higher than national average number of children from a Gypsy/ Roma and Traveller background. We also draw children from the surrounding area and have a higher than average number of vulnerable children who transfer to us, often when they have been at risk of exclusion elsewhere.

Our school values underpin a strong principle and desire for social justice within the school and make a difference to the children who need us most. Our lived experience, backed up by research, was that for our most vulnerable and disadvantaged children, their language, oracy and vocabulary was less developed than their peers, placing them at an increased disadvantage over time. For children in this group, it was notable that even when the mechanics of reading were well developed as early readers, they often went on to struggle further up the school as higher order comprehension skills increased the demand on how they extracted meaning from text. Often, they fell behind their peers by the time they were moving on to secondary school. We found that the limited quality of talk and vocabulary put a ceiling on wider understanding and their ability to effectively express their learning and understanding. Our interest in LTE stemmed from this pattern of underachievement for this group of children. We initially piloted LTE as part of our Pupil Premium Strategy.

Let’s Think English has supported us to develop the coherence of children’s language and expression, as well as developing wider and more precise vocabulary to express their ideas and learning. Learning through talk, as well as learning skills for talking and expressing yourself coherently is integral to Let’s Think English. Teachers engaged in Let’s Think English developed greater awareness and clarity on the purpose of the talk for learning within lessons, developing explicit strategies for helping children to engage meaningfully in debate. It became evident that teachers were more aware of how to ‘orchestrate’ talk to move learning forward in a lesson, and they became increasingly skilled at sequencing questions to provoke cognitive conflict that challenged children to think deeply and engage meaningfully. One such strategy was agreeing a code of conduct for Let’s Think English lessons, teaching the ‘rules of positive engagement’ for discussion. Repeatedly revisiting these guidelines at the start of each Let’s Think English lesson, helped to embed this approach as part of wider teaching and learning practice and culture, across the curriculum.

· We listen and build on each other’s ideas.
· We make sure everyone takes part.
· We can disagree respectfully.
· We help each other to stay on topic.
· We give our group view, not our individual view.
· We are prepared to change our mind.
· We give evidence to support our ideas.

Over time, we noticed that the impact of Let’s Think English was far wider and more positive than we had originally anticipated, both for our pupils and staff: For pupils, there was a significant improvement in their ability to articulate their thinking. Tangible improvements in test outcomes at the end of Key Stage 2 SATS were evident, particularly in relation to higher order comprehension skills and maths reasoning. This was particularly notable for our disadvantaged children who were keeping up with their peers, and the drop off of progress that we had initially noticed was considerably reduced or eliminated. Children who struggled to demonstrate their understanding and learning through written means experienced renewed self-confidence and engagement in these lessons, participating in and benefiting from peer and group talk. The ‘freedom’ of learning through talk placed them on an equal footing with their peers, seeing that their contributions to discussion were equally as powerful as their peers.

We also noted a positive impact on children’s social and emotional wellbeing: Let’s Think English pushes children out of the egocentric phase more quickly as they routinely have to listen to different viewpoints and come to a group consensus- a focus on ‘we think’ rather than ‘I think’. Learning to identify and articulate the evidence for a viewpoint, enabled children to learn and practise the skills for disagreeing well. Children became more adept at looking at evidence to help form their opinion, and more readily accepted that it is healthy to change your mind and opinion if the evidence convinces you otherwise.

More recently, the upheaval created by the COVID pandemic not only widened the language gap with many of our younger children coming into school delayed spoken language development and limited vocabulary, it also had a significant impact on social and emotional communication. Children found it harder to share with others, to negotiate play, to express emotions and feelings appropriately. It seemed that the effects of being in a ‘bubble’ locked children in to the egocentric state again and for a time we saw a negative impact on their ability to compromise, negotiate and see things from alternative perspectives. Re-engaging with Let’s Think, as well as how this has influenced the whole culture of teaching and learning in our school, was an integral part of our Covid ‘Recovery’.

Understanding why and how schools commit to the ‘hard case’ of Let’s Think in English

Raising standards for all through challenge: understanding why and how schools commit to the ‘hard case’ of Let’s Think in English

Abstract

Teaching for the development of students’ thinking through a Cognitive Acceleration programme like Let’s Think in English has the potential to significantly raise standards, particularly for lower and lower-middle attainers, in whole class, mixed attainment settings.
Predictably it is no easy win. The requirement for teachers to re-engineer aspects of classroom pedagogy through a sustained, theoretical and challenging professional development programme needs focus and commitment from teachers and school leaders over several years. This multiple case study was conducted to better understand why both primary and secondary schools are choosing the ’hard case’ of Let’s Think, what supports
them through initial implementation and leads them to sustain the challenge. Findings suggest that when the programme takes hold, it is precisely because of the effects of teachers and students working through collaborative challenge not in spite of this.

Keywords: Cognitive Acceleration; Professional Development; Intervention; Case Study;Pedagogy
Authors: Leah Crawford, Laurie Smith, Michael Walsh,

To read the full paper click LTCS draft at 16.05.23 (1)

Sticking with it: how dialogic habits take time

Cath Dawson from Bexley Grammar School shares her thoughts on how Let’s Think in English helps develop cognitive and dialogic habits over time.

Early sessions of Let’s Think sessions can feel much more stilted and less satisfying than later sessions where the skills and practice have a deeper foundation…

Having taught Let’s Think consistently in KS3 for over a decade, I wanted to explore the characteristics of early Let’s Think lessons compared to Let’s Think lessons with a class who has been involved in Let’s Think practice for a long time in order to better understand the reasons why time and consistent practice are so important to valuable and enjoyable lessons and learning.

To begin, let’s compare the characteristics of a Y7 and Y8 class who both studied the Let’s Think lesson Mama Dott on the same day (November 2022) with the same teacher.

Learning behaviours present in Y7 lesson:
Students tend to be more egocentric in their observations: ‘I think’; ‘I thought’
Students need a few questions before their discussions start to engage with the text
Students interfering with each other’s ideas during feedback

Observations of deeper reasoning via social construction in the Y7 lesson:
Inability to remember group’s discussion on feedback sessions
Less flexible with their ideas and reasoning
A concreteness to their ideas

Learning behaviours in Y8 lesson:
Discussion is immediately animated from social construction: they are raring to go from the off
Animation – hand movement – cueing each other in from discussion; looking at the text; pointing out elements of the text; looking at the person speaking – both in small group and larger class discussion
An important understanding of what questions are a hands up question – knowledge builders and information building
As the lesson continues and the questions get harder, the discussion gets more animated
There are moments of leadership in the group: if discussion starts to wane, a student will say ‘how does…’ and bring it back to the poem

Observations of deeper reasoning via social construction in the Y8 lesson:
Collective thought demonstrated in whole class feedback: “we thought”… “we think”… “we discussed”
More democratic approach to the discussion: inclusive gestures and conversation frameworks
Eye contact is used in group discussions and class discussions
Eagerness for the next piece of material or question
Students in group discussion cue in from previous contributions: ‘as student a said…’

It is clear from the profiles of the lessons outlined above that the Y8 class are further developed in their deeper reasoning and learning behaviours and the correlation between the Let’s Think lessons and this is clear. But how do the Let’s Think lessons enable this?

The Let’s Think Forum mission statement expresses that Let’s Think aims ‘to transform education through high quality teaching and learning which accelerates pupils’ social, emotional and cognitive development.’ Here the connection between social and cognitive development is clear: cognitive development does not occur without social emotional thinking. Both Vygostky and Piaget underpin Let’s Think and in the pedagogy for both, the connection between social constructs and cognitive development is clear. Vygotsky states that ‘we become ourselves through working with others’ and this social construction of understanding indicates that the collaborative, teacher facilitated rather than teacher led, lessons over a long period of time has huge impacts on cognitive development. This is further corroborated by Piaget’s stages of cognitive development where we consider the formal operational stage: both the hypothetico-deductive reasoning and abstract thought descriptors of this stage indicate a flexibility and intellectual dexterity that is practised through collaborative lessons such that Let’s Think promotes.

Ultimately, when it starts to feel tough with a class, stick with it. But here are a few suggestions to help sticking with it a bit easier:
Early text choices in LTE lessons are significant. Try keeping them short to enable time to focus in on those skills early on
Grouping needs to be flexible: do not stay with a group dynamic out of tenacity
Try to ensure that Let’s Think lessons are taught by a teacher who knows the class well, not someone who only teaches them once a fortnight for the Let’s Think lesson