As a school we believe in continuous improvement and collaborative working in the community. We are an active member of the Schools Learning Alliance and work with other local schools to regularly review and develop our practice further.

We have developed our Aldryngton Approach document to support all staff in the school achieve consistency and to clarify our expectations in key areas. Our pedagogical approach is best summarised by Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction:

  • Daily review – we spend time to recap prior learning at the start of lessons to strengthen connections of materials learned. We also spend time to develop automatic recall in specific areas such as phonics, number bonds and multiplication facts. This automatic recall frees up working memory for problem solving and creativity.
  • New material in small steps – we present new material in small steps and check understanding for mastery before moving on to avoid cognitive overload.
  • Ask questions – we look to spend around 50% of the lesson time either modelling, presenting, demonstrating or asking questions. We use questioning to check the depth of understanding in our pupils and to adapt our teaching in the lesson as a result.
  • Provide models – we model and make use of worked examples, including WAGOLLs (what a good one looks like). We also make use of the teacher thinking out aloud to guide pupils through the specific steps involved.
  • Guide student practice – we provide time for children to articulate, rephrase and summarise new material in order to store it in their long term memory. As children progress through the school, we encourage them to articulate what exactly they have learnt at the end of the lesson when this is appropriate to do so.
  • Check understanding – we continually check understanding throughout the lesson through specific questioning, circulate during tasks and carry out in the moment marking. Where appropriate, we make timely interventions.
  • Obtain a high success rate – we strive for a success rate of around 80-85% to ensure that pupils are sufficiently challenged. We teach in small steps followed by practice.
  • Scaffolds for difficult tasks – we use these for a range of purposes. These may be used to support either all children or as part of differentiation purposes.
  • Independent practice – we use over learning techniques where appropriate in order for new material to be recalled automatically.
  • Weekly and monthly review – we look to embed learning into our longer terms memory by encouraging children to make connections with their prior learning. We do this through the use of starters in our lessons.

Staff are given the freedom to use their own personality when delivering lessons. We recognise that each teacher is unique and as long as the learning is consistent between classes, we recognise that there may be subtle differences within delivery.