We provide quality first teaching for all using mastery teaching and adaptive teaching, thus enabling limitless potential for all out pupils regardless of background, ability or difference. We aim for all children (including those with SEN, those who are working towards the standards and those who are disadvantaged, to achieve the desired goal for their age so that they do not fall behind.  

Mastery Teaching

The Education Endowment Foundation explain mastery:

“Mastery learning approaches aim to ensure that all pupils have mastered key concepts before moving on to the next topic – in contrast with traditional teaching methods in which pupils may be left behind, with gaps of misunderstanding widening. Mastery learning approaches could address these challenges by giving additional time and support to pupils who may have missed learning, or take longer to master new knowledge and skills".

In the ‘mastery learning’ approach, learning is broken down into discrete units and presented in logical order. Children are required to demonstrate mastery of the learning from each unit before being allowed to move on to the next, with the assumption that all pupils achieve this level of mastery if they are appropriately supported. Some may take longer and need more help, but the expectation is for all.

We focus on all children achieving what is expected of their age group and not going beyond this. Learning objectives are shared, not tiered.

At Old Mill, almost all children (except those who are on the SEND register as working significantly below their age and stage) will be taught content from their year group, they will spend time becoming true masters of content, broadening their knowledge, applying and being creative with new knowledge and skills in multiple ways. 

Adaptive Teaching

Adaptive teaching recognises that children are likely to learn at different rates and may require different levels and types of support from teachers to succeed. This approach seeks to understand pupils’ differences, including their different levels of prior knowledge and potential barriers to learning, and is an essential part of teaching. It means adapting teaching in a responsive way, including by providing targeted support to pupils who are struggling, which is likely to increase growth mindset and pupil success.

Teachers will actively pre-empt and plan for potential pitfalls and misconceptions, and ensure that adaptations (whether that be through resource or input) are made accordingly. Teachers will also adapt lessons (sometimes mid-lesson), whilst maintaining high expectations for all, so that all pupils have the opportunity to meet expectations.  They will carefully balance input of new content so that pupils master important concepts.

Adaptive teaching should ensure that challenges and extensions to learning (‘lightbulbs’ at Old Mill) are available to all and pupil groupings are flexible.  

How we scaffold:

Scaffolding is an umbrella term for a variety of techniques used to support a child to access the curriculum in a way that suits their learning preferences and abilities. The following methods are adopted at Old Mill  to scaffold learning, when needed, as part of adaptive teaching:

Everyday Classroom Practice For All:

• Dual Coding
• Chunking
• Flexible Groupings
• 'Active Ingredients' in lessons
• Open Dyslexic ALT A Font
• Buff backgrounds
• Brain Breaks (Zones of Regulation)

In the Moment Adaptations:

• Changing language, pitch or pace of delivery
• Clarifying tasks
• Highlighting content
• Explaining again, in a different way
• Peer Tutoring
• Effective Questioning
• Improved accessibility - proximity, visibility, reading to the pupils, extra resources

Pre-prepared Adaptations:

• Reduced number of expectations within each ‘chunk’
• Highlighted questions and sections of text (Reading)
• Flexible recording of answers
• Vocabulary Vaults / Chotting scaffold sheets
• Small sentence starters
• A simplified model (for children significantly behind)
• Visual support on sheets
• Additional resources
• Guided activities 

Scaffolds can be set up and removed appropriately and adjustments carried out in real time, with the ultimate aim being to remove scaffolds to ensure indepdence. 

Effective Instruction in the Classroom

All staff at Old Mill want pupils to enjoy their learning and be excited to come to school each day.

Pupil voice has indicated that our children will benefit from the following in lessons:

• practical lessons
• trips and visits to help learning
• learning interesting facts that they didn’t know before
• moving about and working together
• doing some something new
• learning new skills and new ways of doing things
• using technology
• creating and making things
• being given responsibility for their own learning

To achieve this, lessons and learning are planned with the following in mind (at an age appropriate level):

1. Feedforward (to support progress)
2. Clear learning intent - how does this link to what we’ve done before?
3. ‘Chunked’ sections of learning (to avoid cognitive overload)
4. Pace (to keep pupils engaged and maximise learning)
5. ‘I do, we do, you do’ approach (active participation is key and involves teacher-led learning and modelling and making implicit thoughts explicit, to enable children to visualise and create a ‘mental model’ of the concept being learnt)
6. Clear explanations (powerpoints to guide not deliver learning)
7. Opportunities for independent thinking  and creativity
8. Opportunities for oracy
9. Equal balance of knowledge and skills
10. Resources to aid learning (concrete, visual, auditory, kinaesthetic)
11. Scaffolding and challenge
12. Talk partners
13. Assessment opportunities including questioning
14. Varied outcomes and tasks (think engagement, Bloom’s Taxonomy  and age e.g. written outcome, discussion (Talk Partners or group), partner or group work, active/physical learning etc.)
15. Feedback from the teacher - individual, group, class
16. The use of visitors / real life experiences / ‘enrichment’ is planned in when possible to bring learning alive
17. Evaluation at the end of the lesson (including where will our learning go next?)

More about Teaching and Learning at Old Mill can be found in our Teaching and Learning Policy.