Let’s Think in English blog
This page features news from the Let’s Think in English team, and blog posts from our wider community of schools.
Collaborative learning and group work: the why and the how
Collaborative learning and group work. Of late there appears to be a growing scepticism towards group work as an effective instruction tool. Teachers on social media explain how they were once forced to use group work during teacher training or in their schools despite their own reservations. The charges levelled…
Let’s Think in English online?
Let’s Think online? A conversation with Myfanwy Edwards by Leah Crawford Let’s Think is a classroom intervention whose powerful ticking engine lies in the social construction of understanding. The safe, meaning making community that we work so hard to develop over time, is built on carefully mediated dialogic exchanges. Yet…
In praise of neutrality
In Let’s Think in English (LTE) we support teachers to review their practise providing recommendations for them to trial and reflect upon while teaching our lessons. Without doubt the recommendation that creates the greatest emotional response is adopting a neutral stance in LTE lessons and avoiding explicit praise. This is…
Leading LTE Course Review
The “Leading Let’s Think in English” course was designed for experienced primary and secondary LTE teachers leading the programme in their setting and wishing to develop their teaching, leadership and understanding of LTE. In many cases participants had been teaching LTE for over 5 years. The objectives were to provide…
Thinking hard or Supportive Challenge
EBE Great Teaching Evidence Review In June 2020 Evidence Based Education published their Great Teaching Toolkit. It provided evidence-based insights and focused on areas of practice with potential to improve student learning and outcomes. The review identified four priorities for teachers who want to help their student learn more: …
Structural prior knowledge and the power of prediction
Structural prior knowledge and the power of prediction From reviews of effective teaching instruction to insights from neuroscience and cognitive science, there is consensus on the importance of assessing, adding to and linking prior knowledge. This could be summarised as: New learning needs to be connected to and build upon…
LTE in Lockdown
Let’s Think in English in Lockdown By Leah Crawford This blog grew out of a short email exchange with a very experienced KS2 English leader and teacher of Let’s Think, Tom Leigh, who works at Fryern Junior School in Hampshire. Tom contacted me and a few other Let’s Think teachers…
Some advice on teaching LTE in a COVID safe classroom
Some advice on teaching LTE in a COVID safe classroom Below is guidance on teaching LTE in classrooms at the start of the 2020/21 academic year. Some of the solutions are supported with a video clip from a Year 6 classroom for LTE Network teachers only. This has been circulated…
The Mirror: Effective Professional Development
The argument for continuing professional development Education Policy Institute (EPI) undertook a detailed review of the evidence on the impact of teacher professional development. The report examined 52 randomised controlled trials evaluating teacher development programmes, in order to establish their impact on pupil and teacher outcomes. Unsurprisingly, they found continuing…
Our submission to the Oracy All-Party Parliamentary Group
Parliament has set up an All-Party Group of MPs to take evidence and make recommendations about the need for better oracy education in England’s schools. Here is our submission to them. Let’s Think in English This submission is on behalf of Let’s Think in English, one of the Cognitive Acceleration…
Our response to Ofsted’s consultation – and our worries
We took part in three responses to Ofsted about its new Inspection Framework. In all three we supported Ofsted’s closer focus on the curriculum because it will move inspectors’ attention away from data towards the reality of what is happening in classrooms. Inspectors are already talking more to teachers, middle…
Narrative Shapes. Lesson Six: “The Maker”
From a focus on six word short stories and classification the Year 6 class moved on to narrative sequencing in a film, considering the story mountain as a model and narrative shape. Narrative sequencing in Let’s Think in English involves: “…the ability to sequence and re-sequence events to create narratives…
