Hey {{first_name}}

You’re hot (if you’re in the UK). I deal with it using an ice cream cone.

Big idea 🍉

As teachers and leaders, we're prone to the planning fallacy: we underestimate how long everything will take. It’s a kind of prediction error, and it’s not the only one we’re subject to.

Another is emotional forecasting. We're systematically bad at predicting how we'll feel about a future opportunity.

Offered a conference to go to, a fancy lesson to plan, a twilight to lead, or an initiative to implement... two months out, we say yes. But when the day arrives, we can often find ourselves regretting our decision.

Why are we so bad at predicting how we’ll feel in the future? Partly because we picture the future as an idealised present: we have more energy, a clearer calendar, fewer fires to fight. Partly because the big benefit of saying yes is easy to see, while all the small costs remain hidden. And partly because future-time feels abundant and cheap, where present-time feels scarce and precious. A distant yes can almost feel free.

This is how the conscientious among us end up overcommitted and resentful. It’s not weak boundaries, just a forecasting bug.

And all this costs us twice. The thing we agreed to gets done half-heartedly, or even resentfully. And the time it consumes was never spare: it was owed to the lesson prep, the assessment, the time we'd have given to relationships (or ourselves).

So what can we do? The first step is to become more aware: notice when you find yourself prey to poor emotional forecasting. Next, it’s about building yourself a pre-check habit. Before agreeing to anything in the future, ask yourself: if this was happening tomorrow, would I still say yes?

This simple question strips away our illusions and forces us to make a better decision. Make this a habit, and I promise: your future self will thank you.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on personality & future forecasting.

Summary

• Emotional forecasting is a prediction error: we misjudge future commitments, leaving ourselves overbooked with tasks we later regret.

• This happens because the future feels calmer and easier than it will be, so we treat future time as easy to spend.

• To avoid overcommitting, we can use a simple check: if this was happening tomorrow, would I still say yes?

Little updates 🥕

• EEF guidance on inclusive teaching → discusses adaptive approaches, common misconceptions & the importance of strong universal practices.

• Review of emotional-intelligence training → suggests programmes may improve teachers’ emotional skills, though evidence quality limits confidence.

• Paper on digital learning experiences → finds pen pressure can indicate task difficulty, while facial expressions reveal emotional responses to feedback.

• Meta-analysis of AI-literacy interventions → finds programmes produce large gains, especially in AI knowledge, though effects vary by region.

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Hey {{first_name}}

It’s nice to wake up in a place of happy memories: we should do more of that. But first…

Big idea 🍉

As teachers, we’re subject to the IKEA effect: we tend to overvalue what we make ourselves. But that’s not the only cognitive bias at play when it comes to planning...

Everyone who’s been a teacher (or teacher trainer) knows it intuitively. Left to our own devices, we tend to run over. We plan it, we’re sure it fits, then the bell goes and there’s still a chunk left.

This is the Planning Fallacy. We systematically underestimate how long things take. Lessons, training, even planning itself.

Why? Well, it’s that pesky Expert-Induced Blindness rearing its head again. Because we know the material inside out, it feels quick when we roll it around in our mind. However, the outside world doesn’t move at that pace. And so we overshoot.

It’s not just teachers either. In general, when students or other humans face big projects, we run over about 90% of the time. Over-optimism is baked into our species. If you’re not convinced, track your lessons for a month to see.

And obviously: all this hurts learning. We lose vital parts of lessons (assessment, review), and over the course of a year, we develop deep curriculum debt.

The problem is that just knowing about this bias often isn’t enough to change our behaviour. We also need to build better habits. This means factoring a buffer into our lessons as standard (and then being pleasantly surprised if we ever actually get to use it).

Achieve more: plan to do less.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on teacher’s blind spots.

Summary

• The planning fallacy means teachers often underestimate how long lessons, explanations and tasks will take.

• This is exacerbated by expert-induced blindness: because this content feels familiar to us, we assume learners can process it just as quickly.

• Overcoming this requires more than awareness; we need to approach our planning with intentional time buffers.

Little updates 🥕

• Study of physical activity & cognition → highlights that activity may support girls’ attention through perceived fitness, while boys showed no clear links.

• Study of parental mindsets → finds parents reframing failure may support student-teacher relationships, particularly for lower-achieving learners.

• Article on teachers’ inclusion attitudes → finds positive views of inclusive teaching do not consistently improve attainment.

• Paper on teacher burnout → links burnout to greater absence, poorer teacher-learner interactions & lower student motivation, but not clearly to attainment.

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Hey {{first_name}}

Happy birthday (for whenever it is)! Here’s a little snack for you…

Big idea 🍉

There's power in planning together. When we pool our time and expertise and lean on strong shared resources, we can build better learning experiences than any of us would manage alone, in a fraction of the time.

However, as a profession, our default seems to be to resist this. Despite how wild it looks on paper, we've spent decades reinventing units, assessments and knowledge organisers. Why?

Part of the reason is a cognitive bias called the IKEA effect. The more effort we put into making a curricular artefact, the more we value it, regardless of how good it is. And we assume everyone else rates it just as highly. The work becomes the worth.

This is compounded by the sunk cost fallacy. Because we've poured effort in, our brain insists it must have been worth it. Otherwise... we'd have to admit we might not have spent our time all that well.

None of this means we shouldn't prepare for lessons. It just means we probably shouldn't start from scratch. Our time and expertise are better spent finessing an already strong lesson than reinventing it.

Because reinvention has a cost, to us and our students. Every hour we sink into rebuilding what already exists is an hour not spent on what would serve them more.

So, we need to counteract our own biases. When the urge to build from scratch strikes, pause and ask whether a strong version already exists. If so, start there, and put the effort where it pays: adapting it to our class and context.

When we do this, we get the best of both: the quality of pooled time and expertise, and the finesse that only we can add. Importantly: we don't need to build it to make it ours.

(just don’t tell IKEA)

🎓 For more, check out this paper on shared planning & workload.

Summary

• We often build lessons from scratch rather than develop strong existing resources, costing us considerable time and effort.

• The IKEA effect means we can overvalue materials simply because of the work we invested in creating them.

• A better approach is to refine great lessons for our own classes, saving time without losing our judgement or expertise.

Little updates 🥕

• Research on self-study → suggests learners can benefit when self-study comes before peer discussion.

• Paper on class-ranking feedback → suggests showing students their class position can improve outcomes for lower-performing learners.

• Article exploring parental influence on goals → suggests high standards can support mastery goals but may also contribute to perfectionism.

• Review of maths-teacher knowledge → suggests reflection can support planning & task design; however, contextual & technological gaps remain.

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Hey {{first_name}}

It’s gonna be a great couple of days. I can feel the stirrings already. But first…

Big idea 🍉

Habit assemblies are a powerful way to shape school culture. But to secure the ultimate behaviour, we should also look to the start of the year, before lessons have even begun.

Culture onboarding is an extended, multi-day habit-building exercise for new students, focussed on establishing keystone behaviours, values and metacognition: how to enter and exit the classroom, how to do paired talk well, how to show each other respect, how to respond to feedback...

This is powerful because, at this stage, norms are still up for grabs. Nothing has set yet, especially if older students aren't around (and when they do show up, there's a strong norm in play).

This is a big early investment... BUT it pays back every single lesson from that moment on, potentially saving hundreds of hours of learning time by the time students leave.

If we don't do this, students will just bring the habits they've built over the years. That inertia is hard to compete with. Also: when we leave behaviour to chance, it tends to be those students with the greatest self-regulation and home support who flourish, and those with the least who lose out.

How do we do culture onboarding well? First, we work out our behaviour curriculum: not just the habits, but the values and the thinking underneath them. Then we teach it, just like anything else. We explain it, model it, practise it, and then constantly reinforce it. Habits take time to bed in, we need to keep coming back to them... every year, every term, every week, (and for some schools) every day.

It's also a chance to build relationships and joy: pit kids against the clock, bake in moments to celebrate. Done well, onboarding isn't a drill exercise... it's a warm welcome to the community.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on school-wide positive behaviour interventions or this OG blog by the wise Joe Kirby.

Summary

• Habit assemblies are valuable, but culture onboarding helps establish behaviours before lessons even begin.

• Explicitly teaching routines (eg. entering classrooms, responding to feedback) builds norms that help every student succeed.

• Doing this well means teaching culture deliberately: explaining, modelling, and continually reinforcing it.

Little updates 🥕

• Paper on task difficulty → finds that high-demand tasks combined with interleaved practice can improve learning outcomes.

• Study on immediate judgements of learning → finds no clear learning benefit, with difficult tasks sometimes harmed.

• Article on AI tutoring → finds human support increases engagement by providing motivation, though usage remains low.

• Study on tackling non-attendance → argues most strategies have limited impact, but family engagement shows promise.

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Hey {{first_name}}

Hope you’re having a nice week. Today, by popular demand…

Big idea 🍉

Today’s snack is a short video on Habit Assemblies, including a clip from the awesome Bay Leadership Academy (star of the forthcoming Series 2 of the Great Teaching Unpacked documentary).

Habit assemblies entail getting a large group of students together, outside the classroom, to practice core routines. Not only does this help with habit building, but the social norm effect of seeing so many peers all doing the same thing has a strong effect on culture.

So, if you’re a school that’s currently running teacher group rehearsal (Steplab’s PD builder is great for this), then you should definitely explore habit assemblies as a way to take things to the next level.

🎓 For more, check out this article on the role of norms in shaping culture.

Little updates 🥕

• Paper on tutoring & attendance → finds learners were slightly less likely to be absent on tutoring days, especially when tuition was regular & in small groups.

• Evaluation of Steplab’s impact → links coaching-led professional development with improvements in teaching quality & pupil outcomes.

• Research on technology & EFL → suggests tools such as AI, VR & mobile learning can modestly improve English-learning outcomes.

• Review of family-school partnerships → links improved attendance to stronger communication, shared planning & coordinated support.

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Hey {{first_name}}

We’re gonna get there. One step at a time….

Big idea 🍉

Last snack, we looked at a bunch of popular but ineffective SEN interventions. To fully appreciate the problematic nature of this, we need to unpack what Dylan Wiliam calls the most important idea in education: opportunity cost.

Take coloured overlays. Despite widespread claims, repeated studies suggest they tend not to help dyslexic readers. But they don't seem to do any harm either. So what's the problem?

The problem is that education is a zero-sum game. Schools only have so much time and energy to go around. If we choose to do one thing, it means we can't do another. And when one option is more effective than the other, that choice costs our students.

For example, the hours we pour into detailed marking feel productive, but if students barely act on it, that time could have been better spent on crafting a clear explanation.

The challenge is: we're not great at considering opportunity cost, mostly because is invisible. We tend to weigh what's in front of us, not the thing we're giving up, and only reconsider once the alternative is spelled out.

This is why, for Wiliam, "what works" is the wrong question. Everything works somewhere, and nothing works everywhere, and almost anything works a little. Instead we should ask: what use of our time produces the greatest benefit for students?

In short, if it's not adding, it's subtracting. Every minute spent on something ineffective, like overlays, is a minute not spent on something that works, like structured phonics. The overlays don't hurt our students, but the time we spend on them does.

Opportunity cost is an idea we need to get better at, if we're truly going to become a more evidence-informed profession. Not just knowing what works, but what works best.

🎓 For more, check out this analysis of the cost of teacher time.

Summary

• Even when a practice does no harm, it still has a cost: the time and energy it takes could have gone to something more effective.

• We miss this because the alternative is invisible... we weigh what's in front of us, not what we're giving up.

• So the question to ask isn't "does this work?" but instead: "what works best? (for the time we have available)"

Little updates 🥕

• Study on worked examples → suggests they may improve learning through self-explanations, especially for learners with lower prior knowledge.

• Article on attainment inequality → suggests outcome gaps are partly linked to widening working-memory differences during adolescence.

• Report on improving attendance → argues effective practice involves building inclusive cultures, proactive communication & individualised support.

• Summary of learning research → highlights practical approaches to retrieval, worked examples & self-regulation while challenging common learning myths.

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Hey {{first_name}}

The future is looking good, there are signs. But first…

Big idea 🍉

Supporting students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) is a vital and growing challenge for schools. But it’s not straightforward. Learning is complex, marketing claims are confident, and the evidence is often hard to access. As a result, we can sometimes end up adopting approaches which are less effective than we initially think.

For some, this may well be uncomfortable reading. As a profession, many of us have put time, effort and belief into these things, and lots will have seen students who looked like they were getting something from it. However, it’s essential that we temper our intuition with evidence, because ultimately: our most vulnerable students deserve it.

This new paper (released today) is an attempt to raise the visibility of the best available evidence around several commonly used SEN interventions. For each, we provide an overview of what the research says, offer a more informed approach, and provide a suite of rigorous links to help you get started.

As ever, let me know what you think. If you have pushes or suggestions for how this paper could be better, just hit reply.

And if you or your colleagues find Evidence Snacks useful, please do consider asking your organisation to subscribe. It’s a small gesture at your end but has a big impact at mine:

→ Subscribe to Snacks PRO

Little updates 🥕

• Article on motor skills → suggests fine motor skills are more strongly linked to academic & cognitive outcomes than gross motor skills.

• Study on removing grades → finds few meaningful differences in attainment, wellbeing, motivation, or classroom climate in real-world settings.

• Paper on science engagement → shows that engagement may decline with age, but can be supported through interesting & clear teaching.

• Overview of writing pedagogy → explores how explicit teaching, feedback & practice improve learning, unlike unsupported writing tasks.

Hey {{first_name}}

It’s been a while. Here’s something to light you up…

Big idea 🍉

Schools all around the world are facing increasing pressure when it comes to Special Educational Needs (SEN). We're supporting more students, with more complexity, and more stretched resources. But despite caring deeply, we sometimes end up doing things that help less than we think.

Here are some common interventions which the evidence suggests are weaker than we often assume (or in some cases, are actually harmful):

• Fidget spinners: compete for the very attention they're supposed to free up. Classroom studies show they distract rather than focus students.

• Coloured overlays: have no reliable effect on reading speed or accuracy. The actual barrier (usually decoding) often goes unaddressed.

• Sensory diets/circuits: have almost no quality evidence as school interventions.

• Working-memory training: improves trained tasks, but gains don't transfer to the classroom.

• And so on…

This isn't to say these things never help anyone… some can serve as short-term accommodations for specific pupils. The problem is when they become our default response.

If these interventions aren’t effective, why are they so prevalent? Partly because they feel like they should work. They're visible, concrete, and something we can actively do. Plus, our students often like them, and parents feel reassured. But just because something feels good doesn't mean we should lean on it.

(also, there's often money to be made)

All this is compounded by a lack of prevalent evidence around effective inclusion and related strategies... there's just too little to challenge our wayward intuitions. We’ve ended up with a collective fidget spinner delusion.

So, what's a better way forward? When we look across these interventions, a pattern emerges: they tend to follow from vague diagnoses rather than specific, assessed learning needs. In the next snack, we'll unpack more. But for now, it's worth doing a quick evidence audit, to check whether anything in our own context might be helping less than it seems.

🎓 For more, check out this EEF review of classroom SEN support.

Summary

• With growing levels and complexity of need, schools can sometimes lean on interventions that may be less effective than they appear.

• Many popular interventions (eg. fidget spinners, coloured overlays) feel like they should work, but are not always supported by evidence.

• Rather than applying broad interventions automatically, it’s probably better to focus on specific student learning needs.

Little updates 🥕

• Study of school connectedness → suggests pupils feel more connected through strong relationships & meaningful participation.

• Article on instructional time in maths → shows each extra weekly hour boosts scores, with effects doubling with active participation.

• Paper on student-teacher relationships → argues that reducing early teaching conflict may help avoid poorer long-term adult outcomes.

• Study on judgements of learning → suggests that assessing knowledge can influence memory performance, sometimes even improving recall.

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Hey {{first_name}}

Hope your sleep is going well. If not, I’ve got something that might help…

Big idea 🍉

Today’s snack is a video summary of the recent paper I co-authored with Jen and Josh on inclusive teaching.

We examine the serious challenges facing England's special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system: poor student outcomes, strained resources, and system inefficiencies affecting over 1 million young people. We outline five signs that the system is under strain, explore five potential drivers of this situation, and in response: propose five guiding principles designed to reframe our approach to classroom teaching.

These principles—which represent a shift from individualism to inclusion—offer a coherent, classroom-based suite of strategies to improve educational experiences and outcomes for all students, especially those with SEND.

🎓 For more, check out our Inclusive Teaching Discussion Paper

And if you’d like to hear more from Jen (and me), she’s doing a keynote on inclusion at the Steplab summer conference.

Little updates 🥕

• Study comparing setting approaches in maths → finds that students make slightly more progress when grouped by ability (without harming low attainers).

• Paper exploring early formative assessment habits → finds that mixing tasks and submitting on time tends to lead to better results.

• Study testing microphones for inattentive children → suggests that clearer teacher audio can support attention, literacy and wellbeing.

• Experiment comparing self-explanation vs re-reading → finds little advantage over re-reading (unless meaningful inferences are made).

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Hey {{first_name}}

Today, more home truths… I hope I don’t come across as too judgy…

Big idea 🍉

Permissive schooling has a deeply intuitive appeal: it aligns with our cultural reverence for freedom and creativity. But when we overreach these values, we pay a hidden price…

When we let students do largely what they want, with minimal consequences: off-task behaviour rises, learning reduces, kids treat each other worse, and anxiety grows (because uncertainty is uncomfortable).

Permissive schooling (and parenting) is bad for all kids… but its effects hit some harder than others.

Freedom of choice tends to benefit those students with high levels of prior knowledge, self-regulation, and home support. These things enable them to make better academic decisions, resist distractions, and survive in an unstructured environment.

Strip out the structure, and these students will keep flourishing (mostly). But those with lower levels of prior knowledge, self-regulation, and home support won’t fare so well.

This is why inquiry approaches are a disaster for many students with special educational needs… their attentional bandwidth is more limited to start with, and inquiry overloads it fast. And why strategies like SLANT, despite being disliked on first contact by many educators, are not just good for all, but are also highly equitable.

Now, none of this means we should never give kids choice. We absolutely should. But autonomy is best handed over gradually, as students develop the capacity to use it wisely... which is very different to pursuing freedom without consequence from a young age.

In short, permissive schooling prioritises the privileged. If we want a system that works for all, we need to get comfortable with being the boss.

🎓 For more, check out this article on closing the disadvantage gap.

Summary

• Permissive schooling sounds appealing, but too much freedom can have negative effects.

• This effect is greatest for those with lowest self-regulation and prior knowledge.

• We need to be brave to be kind.

Little updates 🥕

• Paper on learning spellings → suggests that pre- and post-teaching improves performance.

• Replication experiment on buzzing distraction → finds they do not affect memory recall.

• Study of paired activities → shows that collaborative peers may boost turn-taking skills.

• Paper on multitasking → demonstrates a negative impact on comprehension.

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Hey {{first_name}}

The sun is shining… time to crack out those ice cream cones. But first, some home truths about strong schooling.

Big idea 🍉

Over the last few decades, several sections of society have drifted towards gentler forms of parenting. Giving kids increasing levels of choice in what they do or eat, while eschewing authority and consequences.

While this sounds like a kind approach, evidence suggests it's actually the opposite. Permissive parenting is linked with more acting out, lower grades, and poorer wellbeing. Giving kids too much freedom when they're young robs them of freedom as they grow.

Authoritative parenting may not sound as nice, but it tends to foster much happier and better-adjusted children. Virtually every parent-enforced rule (apart from limiting their friends) is positively linked to better relationships. Clear structure is the foundation of self-regulated and resilient kids.

In many ways, structure creates safety, particularly in school. When children know how to act and what to expect, they can focus on learning, not navigating uncertainty. This is especially important for our most vulnerable students. Examples of what this looks like include:

• Clear norms and routines for participation: who does what, when, and how we all respond.

• A shared narrative of mutual respect: how we value all genuine contributions, however off-the-mark.

• Swift consequences for ridiculing peers, because learning requires the sharing of thinking and mistakes.

Gentle schooling, like gentle parenting, might make us feel better about ourselves. AND it’s the easier option (at least to begin with). However, these are shallow and temporary victories.

If we really want to give our students the best possible start in life, it’s essential that we embrace authoritative schooling. This doesn’t mean being punitive… it just means balancing high levels of care with high levels of structure, and not shying away from ‘being the boss around here’.

🎓 For more, check out this analysis of gentle vs authoritative parenting.

Summary

• Permissive parenting sounds kinder on the surface, but too much freedom is often linked to poorer wellbeing.

• The same is true in schools: structured environments provide young people with the tools they need to grow.

• Build structure visibly (clear norms, mutual respect, swift consequences) & be brave enough to do the harder thing.

Little updates 🥕

• Article on reading → argues that knowledge underpins comprehension, making it key for reading success.

• Research on early educational inequality → identifies executive functioning as a factor in attainment disparities.

• Paper on teacher expectations → suggests that high but realistic expectations are associated with stronger engagement.

• Paper on helping → finds that being asked to help may reduce children’s intrinsic motivation.

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Hey {{first_name}}

Hope you didn’t miss me too much. Let’s get straight to it…

Big idea 🍉

There are a few things that the most effective teachers tend to place a slightly greater emphasis on, with substantial impact.

Some of these are curricular: like thinking really hard about exactly what they want their students to learn. Some are cultural: like demanding more because they believe in their students. And some are pedagogical: like encoding lots during explanations.

There is one final tendency I want to pick up on: the pursuit of mastery.

The most effective teachers I've seen consistently push their students to demonstrate mastery. What do I mean by this? Basically, knowing the thing really well. Getting to the point where students can recite their times-tables quickly, under pressure, while being tripped up. Where they can outline the causes of various events, from multiple perspectives, with ease. Where they can recreate the nitrogen cycle from memory, without hesitation, and explain each step different orders.

How do they achieve this? There are many things, but one of the biggest is the sheer volume of retrieval they do with students. They practise more, and they practise more often.

In education, we tend to over-emphasise acquisition over consolidation. We think of learning as being mainly about new stuff, rather than remembering. To the point where we sometimes don't even think of practice as learning.

This is an error in how to think about teaching.

Consolidation is at least as important as acquisition. Partly because, without it, knowledge can't be accessed and so can't be used. But also because the very act of consolidation, over time, restructures that knowledge. It builds connections, forges patterns, helps us see things in new and different ways. Retrieval doesn't just ossify knowledge, it actively grows it.

As Doug Lemov puts it: don't teach till they get it right, teach till they can't get it wrong.

🎓 For more, check out this new paper on learning and memory.

Summary

• The most effective teachers push students towards mastery, where knowledge can be used under various conditions.

• Sometimes, we overemphasise acquiring new knowledge over consolidating existing.

• This matters because consolidation restructures knowledge, builds connections, and deepens understanding.

Little updates 🥕

• Paper on growth mindset → finds it can support maths attainment (although the effect is smaller than socioeconomic status).

• Longitudinal study on teacher knowledge → shows our pedagogical understanding improves significantly during the first 15 years (at least).

• Paper on board games and learning in math(s) → suggests they have the potential to boost geometry knowledge.

• New framework on inclusive teaching from Ambition Institute → connects teaching theory and practice to key areas of needs.

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Hey {{first_name}}

Thank you. Now, last snack before Easter hols…

Big idea 🍉

The best teachers use lots of quick activities during their explanations. Choral response, turn-and-talk, MCQs. We tend to think of these as ways to check for understanding, or to sustain student attention. Both are super important… but there's something even more fundamental going on.

Every time we ask our students to briefly use an idea we've just introduced, we're catalysing encoding: the process by which learning gets embedded in the brain.

When we just explain, our students have to try to encode by listening alone. It's a bit like trying to press a shape into hard clay without actually pushing down. The information touches the surface, but doesn't leave much of an impression. This is weak encoding.

Which is why, when we explain lots of new ideas back-to-back without encoding along the way, most of it gets forgotten. It's like someone reading out a long string of numbers and expecting us to remember them all.

So why does actively using knowledge make such a difference? When we have to produce an answer (rather than merely receive it), our brain treats it as a much more valuable thing. Even something as brief as a true-or-false question forces our students to rehearse and reorganise the idea. That creates a much deeper neural impression than merely listening alone.

And further: brief encoding moments don't just strengthen what came before... they also improve our students' ability to encode what comes next. Retrieval seems to clear working memory and reset attention, making the brain more receptive to new information. So when we pause to encode after introducing each new idea, we're not just consolidating existing knowledge: we're prepping for more.

In short, if we think of these moments primarily as checks for understanding, we’re likely to underprice and so underuse them. But if we see also them as vital encoding opportunities, we'd do them far more often. Which would be a very. good. thing.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on retrieval practice.

Summary

• Effective teachers frequently use quick activities to check understanding, often catalysing encoding without realising it. 

• When learners actively use knowledge, learning is strengthened.

• Encoding moments both consolidate prior knowledge and prepare the mind for what comes next.

Little updates 🥕

• Study on praise → finds mixed impact on motivation & performance depending on setting.

• Paper on psychological needs → links need fulfilment to improved motivation & resilience.

• Research into curiosity → suggests it may drive science learning more than intelligence, once prior knowledge is considered.

• Paper on long-term memory → suggests retrieval depends on similarity, not storage location.

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Hey {{first_name}}

Hope you are rolling with the busy. More on thinking about learning…

Big idea 🍉

There can be value in looking sideways to other sectors for insights about how to teach effectively. For example, medicine is great on evidence and alignment. But one sector I keep coming back to is software, and in particular: UI design.

UI is the User Interface... what we see when we use a website or app. A good UI gives us exactly the information we need, makes it obvious what to do, and tells us whether we've done it right. A bad UI... well, it can be *%&^ing frustrating.

The principles behind great UI are often relevant to the classroom. We could even think of teaching as Learner Interface Design. Here's what that looks like:

• Don't make me think (about the wrong things): If a user is thinking about where to click, the design has failed. If students are figuring out where to write or what the task is, they're not thinking about the content.

• Progressive disclosure: Only show what's needed right now. Reveal complexity as the user is ready. Think less what order do I cover the content? and more what am I deliberately hiding until later?

• One action at a time: Every screen has one primary action. In the classroom, we can do something similar: breaking instructions down so that each step has one clear ask, rather than expecting students to hold a whole sequence at once.

• Immediate feedback on every action: Click a button in a good app and we instantly know if it worked (or didn't). What can we do to help our students feel the same?

• Consistency frees up attention: Great apps use the same layouts and patterns everywhere. Users build automaticity and stop spending brainpower on navigation. Same with our routines and lesson structures. Inconsistency is a tax on attention.

Now, obviously we are not computers, and this lens has its limits. BUT… I reckon there's at least some value in asking: if my teaching was a user interface, how could it be better?

🎓 For more, check out this article on protecting attention for thinking.

Summary

• Insights from other sectors can offer valuable lessons for effective teaching.

• The principles of user interface design suggest removing friction so that focus is on content, with plenty of immediate feedback.

• Just like great UI, teaching is at its best when learning is automatic and frictionless.

Little updates 🥕

• Research on attendance → finds higher year 7 absence is linked to academic & social concerns.

• Article on AI-enhanced feedback → outlines that it works best when teachers actively revise AI-produced insights.

• Study of self-regulation → shows that it is linked to less mind-wandering but that learners still struggle to refocus.

• Article on reading & meta-cognition → highlights that storybook interventions may not lead to improved judgement of understanding.

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Hey {{first_name}}

Hope you’re having a nice week (I am). Time for a new series, about cognition and teaching…

Big idea 🍉

Teaching is about making learning happen. The better we understand how learning works, the greater our potential for impact in the classroom. Just as a doctor who understands the body can better diagnose and treat, a teacher who understands cognition can better plan and respond.

The big challenge is that learning is invisible. It's mega hard to build a rigorous mental model of cognition through classroom experience alone. Which is why we must also lean on insights from research.

Here is the mental model I’ve refined over 20 years of reading, thinking, and practising:

1. Accumulating knowledge across generations is what makes humans successful — this is partly what school is for.

2. Academic knowledge is hard to discover — speaking can be learned naturally but reading must be taught.

3. Attention is the basis of developing knowledge — what our students attend to is what they learn.

4. Human attentional bandwidth is limited — we can only attend to a few novel items at once.

5. Prior knowledge constrains learning — we understand (and misunderstand) through what we already know.

6. Fluency frees attentional capacity — when recall becomes effortless, we have space for more thinking.

7. We naturally filter and forget — our brains discard what isn't connected, repeated, and valued.

8. Understanding arises from connection and variation — by seeing links between ideas and across different examples.

9. Memory and fluency arise through spaced retrieval — each act of remembering strengthens our access to that idea.

10. When we talk and write, we better understand what we have watched and heard — overt thinking supports learning.

11. The ideas we develop are rarely perfect first time — feedback refines our understanding.

12. We attend to what we value — motivation arises through success, rewards, emotion, and social signals.

No model of learning will ever be fully accurate. But I've found this one simple enough to use and complex enough to be powerful. Every instructional move is a bet on how learning works... might as well make it an informed one.

🎓 For more, check out Willingham’s paper on mental models of learning.

Summary

• Mental models that combine research and classroom experience help maximise our impact in the classroom.

• Knowledge, attention, and motivation (and how they interact) are at the heart of a useful model.

• No model is perfectly accurate, but these principles offer balanced guidance for effective teaching.

Little updates 🥕

• Review of attendance research → argues for a clearer way to measure absence to help schools address attendance difficulties.

• Systematic review of assessment → finds that low-stakes practice tests generally improve student achievement however active learning methods may be more effective.

• Paper on peer learning tasks → suggests that effectiveness may depend on gender roles, team structure & individual characteristics.

• Research on how teachers attribute behaviour → highlights that when teachers view behaviour as changeable & partly within their control they may be more likely to respond with supportive interventions.

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Hey {{first_name}}

What a morning (today, last year, hopefully next year). Now, let’s wrap up this series on complexity…

Big idea 🍉

Building alignment in school, through things like teacher rehearsal and habit assemblies, can have serious benefits in terms of learning, wellbeing and workload. But whenever I talk to school leaders about this, the same question nearly always comes up: "What about teacher autonomy?"

The default assumption is often that alignment means less autonomy, and less autonomy means less staff satisfaction. This feels intuitive. But when I speak to schools who've actually done it, the reality is usually different.

They say: we don't especially care about having our own way of calling for silence, or our own system for how students come into a room. What we really care about is having the space to build strong relationships with students and have rich conversations about our subjects.

When we align on how classes enter a room, we spend less time negotiating boundaries. When we align on how we call for silence, we get more attention. When we align on how we check for understanding, we get better data.

The first enables the second. We give up a bit of autonomy over the routine stuff, and in return we get more autonomy over the professional stuff. It's a kind of autonomy swap.

We see this in other professions. Doctors follow shared, evidence-informed protocols so they can reserve their bandwidth for the judgement calls that really count.

Of course, this all only works if alignment is genuinely collective. Mandated routines without buy-in create resentment, and compliance approaches will ultimately backfire.

But if we get this right, it looks like most of us would (eventually) be happy to trade a bit of routine autonomy for the freedom to do our best professional work.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on teachers developing together.

Summary

• Many school leaders are concerned that alignment will mean less autonomy, leading to lower staff satisfaction.

• But when we give up autonomy over routines, we get more over our teaching: an autonomy swap.

• But this only works if we agree on such an approach, and support each other to achieve it.

Little updates 🥕

• Research on restricting phone use → highlights that bans alone are unlikely to boost outcomes with effectiveness depending on consistent enforcement.

• Study of learning-through-teaching → argues that the benefits are a result of learner’s increased agency & responsibility.

• Analysis of creative activities & thinking → finds that engaging in creative activities was negatively correlated with creative thinking in PISA 2022 data.

• Study of reading interventions → highlights a positive impact of teacher-led interventions on vocabulary.

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Hey {{first_name}}

Hope you’re keeping that mental chatter under control. Today, more on (solving for) complexity…

Big idea 🍉

The more complex a school, the more attention and effort is required just to maintain it… attention and effort that could (should) be going into improving learning.

Ruthless simplicity (doing fewer things) and collective alignment (doing those things the same way) are two powerful levers for reducing this complexity.

Most schools pursue collective alignment by focussing on teachers... practising agreed routines and norms together, then implementing them back in classrooms. This is great... BUT, the schools that do it best go one step further. They also practise with students. All together. At once.

A kind of habit assembly.

Imagine 200 year 7s in the hall, all practising how to turn-and-talk. How to answer questions. How to treat others with respect. How to sit and act in ways that optimise attention.

Without this, we have to build culture from scratch, in isolation, 30 students at a time. With habit assemblies, students arrive in our classrooms already primed. We just need to stick to the plan.

The rationale for this is social norms. Our behaviour is shaped less by what we're told to do and more by what we see others doing. In a habit assembly, every student sees every other student doing the same thing. They don't just learn the routine... they internalise the norm… this is how we do things around here.

And culture compounds: once routines are internalised, each lesson reinforces the norm, which makes the next assembly even stronger.

Most schools already have the time for this. Existing assembly slots or collapsed tutor/form time can be repurposed without adding to the timetable.

Of course, this only works if it's done with students, not to them. Roll it out heavy-handedly or without buy-in and things'll backfire fast.

The more we build habits together, the stronger the culture we end up with.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on how habits boost learning

(and keen an eye out for the forthcoming Second Series of our Great Teaching Unpacked docco, which will showcase a great school running habit assemblies)

Summary

• Habit Assemblies involve large groups of students practising core routines together.

• Seeing everyone do the same thing supercharges social norms and accelerates culture.

• This reduces our burden as teachers and reduces coordination cost for schools.

Little updates 🥕

• Paper tracking high-performance teachers moving to low achieving schools → finds that when settings change, teaching performance may not always fully translate.

• Paper on differentiation → finds little association between differentiated instruction & socio-emotional outcomes.

• Analysis of learner’s sense of belonging → shows a moderate positive correlation between belonging & positive achievement.

• Research on question-asking → suggests that learners with stronger question-asking abilities may do better in open-ended assessments.

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Hey {{first_name}}

Bring on the weekend. But first, more on highly effective schooling…

Big idea 🍉

Coordination cost is a killer in schools. The more things we try to achieve, and the more ways we try to achieve them, the more effort gets consumed just keeping all the moving parts in sync.

This complexity has risen dramatically over recent decades. Which is why so many schools feel like they're either burning out to stand still, or slowly falling apart. The exceptions are those schools that pursue ruthless simplicity: continually pushing to do less, so they can do it better.

One way to practise this is by reducing the number of things we try to achieve. But there's another, often less appreciated lever: doing those chosen things in the same way.

Consider surgical checklists. Operating theatres standardised their protocols not because surgeons lack skill, but because when everyone follows the same sequence, errors drop and the team works faster. Each person knows exactly what comes next without having to ask. The consistency doesn't limit expertise... it frees it up.

Schools work the same way. When every teacher runs their own behaviour system, their own lesson structure, their own feedback approach, each may be perfectly reasonable in isolation. But collectively, the variety multiplies coordination cost. When staff align around shared approaches:

• Students adopt routines faster, because they meet the same expectations in every classroom.

• Social norms compound, because each class reinforces what the others are building.

• Leaders can support more effectively, because common problems are genuinely common.

The result isn't just lower coordination cost. Teachers become more effective and workload drops. It also makes onboarding far smoother... new staff have fewer ropes to learn.

We don't need to align around everything. The test is whether inconsistency between staff creates friction for students or colleagues. Behaviour expectations, lesson routines, feedback approaches... these spill across classrooms and benefit hugely from consistency.

Important: alignment only works through genuine collective agreement. When we discuss it, see its value, and shape it together, it builds commitment. Imposed through mandate and compliance, it will backfire.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on consistent routines & school-readiness.

Summary

• Ruthless simplicity isn't just about doing fewer things... it's about doing those things in the same way.

• Collective alignment reduces coordination cost, increases effectiveness, and lowers workload.

• Align on things where inconsistency creates friction for others, and only through genuine collective agreement.

Little updates 🥕

• Meta-analysis of teacher characteristics → finds that different parts of teaching require different strengths with good teaching coming from a mix of knowledge, beliefs & motivation.

• Research thinking about emotions & memory → finds that hiding emotions can make memory worse whilst reframing situations can at times help memory.

• Review of research on school readiness → highlights parental involvement as playing a key role in preparing children for school.

• Study on AI & cheating → indicates that overall cheating rates remain stable despite the widespread use of AI tools.

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Hey {{first_name}}

Hope you’ve recovered from any weekend losses. Today, more on complexity and school effectiveness…

Big idea 🍉

The more complex a system becomes, the harder it is to maintain or improve. As complexity grows, so do coordination costs: more meetings, more guidance, more decisions, and more time spent managing the system rather than improving it.

Schools are particularly vulnerable to this creep. Education is inherently complex. Everyone has an opinion about it. And as humans, we have a blind spot when it comes to the true costs of complexity.

So when a problem emerges—weak outcomes, behaviour issues, staff workload—the default response is often to add something new: a marking policy, a behaviour framework, a new intervention, a new initiative for teaching and learning. We are great at imagining the benefits of these additions, but much less sensitive to anticipating their cumulative burden.

Over time, this additive bias creates schools full of competing priorities: multiple behaviour systems, overlapping data demands, professional development pulled in too many directions. The result is frustration and exhaustion.

In my experience, leaders of the most effective schools share a defining habit: they actively push back on complexity. They practise ruthless simplicity. They do less, but better. And they do it with conviction. This entails things like:

• Being explicit about a small number of non-negotiables (eg. a singular behaviour system or a tight definition of effective instruction) and over-communicating relentlessly.

• Building strong guidance and simple, consistent routines that support those priorities—used by everyone, every day.

• Stripping away anything that doesn’t serve the above: redundant data drops, competing initiatives, unnecessary meetings… and rejecting shiny new ideas by default.

The payoff is focus. Teachers spend their energy on improving core practice, not navigating systems. Leaders gain the capacity to deal thoughtfully with the genuine edge cases that inevitably arise.

Complexity is the silent assassin of school effectiveness. Ruthless simplicity is the antidote.

🎓 For more, check out this article on how simple systems can optimise the learning experience.

Summary

• When problems arise we tend to add something new, without fully considering the extra focus this will demand of staff.

• The best leaders are highly sensitive to this ‘complexity cost’ and pursue ruthless simplicity.

• This entails: over-communicating priorities, building strong routines, and constantly stripping things away.

Little updates 🥕

• Analysis of gamification in the maths classroom → finds it can raise motivation & works best when focused on cooperation over competition.

• Paper testing minimal guidance → reports that practice & feedback can rival teacher-led lectures whilst keeping learners motivated.

• Review of student engagement across adolescence → suggests that the drop-off in engagement during teenage years may be due to a mismatch between learner’s needs & the school environment.

• Study into teacher appraisal systems → reveals that effective teachers may be at risk of lower evaluations when working with disadvantaged learners.

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Hey {{first_name}}

Hope you’re not too distracted. Today, we’re cracking open a new series of snacks (that I’ve been sitting on for years) on the invisible forces that shape school effectiveness…

Big idea 🍉

Entropy is a beautiful but devastating idea from the second law of thermodynamics: all systems naturally tend towards disorder and decay... unless energy is put in to counteract this.

Educational entropy is, by analogy, an invisible yet inexorable force continually thwarting school improvement. It's why things constantly feel like they're either getting harder or falling apart... even when everyone is working just as hard as before.

Entropy is largely a function of complexity. And complexity grows with (a) the variety of things we're trying to achieve and (b) the range of ways we can go about achieving them. Increase either, and you generate coordination cost, which consumes effort and time like a hungry organisational beast.

Goal variety × Approach variety = Coordination cost

Think about what schools now do that barely featured 30 years ago: mental health support, online safety, anti-radicalisation, attendance intervention. And where once a school had one behaviour system, now there are restorative approaches, trauma-informed practice, sensory regulation strategies, individual plans... all running simultaneously. Each new goal or approach doesn't just add: it multiplies, because it must be coordinated with everything else.

As coordination cost has ramped up, schools have either (a) directed ever more effort just to maintain the system, or (b) kept effort constant and let things slowly unravel. You will no doubt have felt both over the years. That creeping sense you're running faster just to stand still? That's entropy at work.

In coming Snacks, we'll explore how to stem this drift. For now, just notice where goal and approach variety are quietly multiplying your coordination cost... and ask whether the trade-off is worth it.

🎓 For more, check out this paper which explores schools as complex systems.

Summary

• Over time, systems decline and decay unless energy/effort is put in.

• As new goals are added, system complexity multiplies as everything has to coordinate with everything else.

• As schools attempt to do more, we either to put in more effort to keep everything held together (or we don’t and things start to slide).

Little updates 🥕

• Research into the use of leaderboards in the classroom → finds that they can improve achievement for learners at the top but threaten performance inequality.

• Study on the impact of high expectations → shows how they can boost achievement in the classroom.

• Analysis of feedback timing → argues that a combination of immediate & delayed feedback can lead to the strongest outcomes.

• Paper on the use of AI amongst SEN learners → argues that it can massively raise learner agency & help-seeking.

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