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.

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

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.

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

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.

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

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.

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

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.

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

Hey {{first_name}}

Hope you’re keeping that heart rate down. Although, I might well destabilise things with a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT this week…

Big idea announcement 📣

For the last 9 months, I’ve been working with a bunch of very talented people (teachers, videographers, editors) to build out the world’s best course for teachers.

And today: it goes live.

Evidence Informed Teaching is a 6-part course exploring the best available research around effective education and what it looks like in practice, all hung around a model of how learning happens. It includes:

• Fancy videos explaining the big ideas (featuring yours truly)

• Concise evidence summaries organised around classroom scenarios

• Interactive retrieval quizzes, pre-trieval quizzes & action planning support

• All linked to 10s of deeper dive modules & 100s of teaching action steps

🎓 For more, check out this free sample video and this everything-you-need-to-know article.

Little updates 🥕

• Study on how reading helps improve maths skills → shows reading skills are stronger predictors of maths success than motivation & engagement.

• Research exploring the benefits of intentional mistakes → argues that learners who make deliberate errors unlock greater long-term memory retention.

• Systematic review of air pollution and learner outcomes → identifies a significant causal relationship between the two.

• Study investigating story-based interventions → finds learners made improvements with their literacy & cognitive skills.

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

Gm {{ first_name | 👋 }}

Weekend’s nearly here, s’gonna be great. BUT FIRST…

Big idea 🍉

If we want to change student (or our own) behaviour in a lasting way, we need to use process goals alongside performance goals. But why exactly are process goals so effective?

Well, process goals are an important part of habit formation, and habits are super powerful when it comes to improvement. We run most of our lives on habit (way more than we would like to think), and so when can change our habits, we change how we operate... in ways that stick.

Also: when a desired behaviour becomes habitual, it requires us to give it less attention and thought. This matters because our attention is limited. By reducing the cognitive demands of how to act, we free up student bandwidth for higher-value tasks, such as attending to the curriculum itself.

Process goals + habit formation leads to several benefits:

1. It makes it easier and more likely for our students to do the desired thing.

2. It enables students to focus less on the process of learning and more on the content of learning.

3. It creates a safe and familiar environment, which is appreciated by more vulnerable students.

4. It frees up our attentional bandwidth as teachers, so we can better monitor the classroom and be responsive.

Process goals matter not because outcomes are unimportant, but because habits are how improvement is sustained over time. Together, they form the engine room of long-term change.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on the power of study habits.

Summary

• We run our lives (and learning) largely on habit.

• Process goals are powerful because they support habit formation.

• Process goals redeploy attention, create a safer environment, and help us to be more responsive.

Little updates 🥕

• Longitudinal study of class-average achievement → suggests high-achieving classes do not raise achievement and can lower students’ confidence.

• Paper comparing ways students use concept maps & summaries → reveals that making your own map first, then discussing it, leads to deeper talk and better memory.

• Commentary on learning from evolutionary perspective → argues that teaching works better when instruction adapts to learners’ knowledge, goals, and motivation.

• Preprint RCT of a programme to boost student engagement → finds better classroom culture, higher maths achievement, and lower teacher burnout, suggesting low-cost gains.

Become smarter in 2026 → Ask your school to get you Snacks PRO

Hey {{ first_name | 👋 }}

It’s a big day for the little guys. Spare them a thought, because they will (eventually) stay with you till the end.

Big idea

When we take the time to think carefully about and set goals, we significantly increase the chances that they are achieved. This applies just as much to our students as it does to ourselves.

The clearer we are about where we want to get, the more likely it is we will get there. As James Clear says, what we often think is a motivation problem is really a clarity problem.

Goal setting has a pretty decent cost–benefit ratio in the classroom. It doesn’t take long to get students to set goals, yet the potential payoff can be substantial. However, only if we do it well. Which means setting dual goals: performance goals and process goals.

• Performance goals: are the end states students are ultimately aiming for… achieving a particular grade, mastering a specific skill, or reaching a defined standard.

• Process goals: are the regular routines and behaviours that help them get there… 10 minutes of retrieval practice each morning over breakfast, or consistently making notes on key ideas during lessons.

When performance goals are a long way off, they should be broken down into shorter-term goals. And the clearer and more precise all goals are, the more likely we are to act on them. Get students to write their goals down, check them with a peer, pin them to their desk, and revisit them regularly. Crucially, students should receive feedback on their goals over time.

Performance goals can be powerful, but without accompanying process goals, they often fall short. Over 90% of New Year’s resolutions fail… not because we don’t care, but because willpower is an unreliable resource. Habits and routines are the real levers of improvement.

🎓 For more, check out this meta-analysis of performance goals vs process goals.

Summary

• When we set ourselves clear goals, we increase our chances of achieving them.

• This works best when we set dual goals: for both our performance and the process.

• This is partly because willpower is a less reliable resource than we tend to think.

Little updates

• Study examining retrieval practice with complex materials → suggests that high cognitive load can stifle learning gains.

• Paper analysing early cognitive profiles → reveals that working memory, motivation, and reading strongly predict future (maths) achievement.

• Study exploring rhythm training for reading → finds it improves phonological awareness and benefits struggling readers when taught separately.

• Large-scale analysis of brain structure in children with special educational needs like ADHD, depression & anxiety → reveals shared biological patterns across conditions.

Sharpen your evidence edge this year → Upgrade to Snacks PRO

Hey {{ first_name | 👋 }}

I don’t know about you, but I’m SO READY FOR THE WEEKEND. But before we get there, one last snack to round off 2025…

Big idea 🍉

Student motivation is not just influenced by their expectation of success, but also by what they perceive to be the cause of that success (or failure). This is what is known as ‘attribution’.

Only where pupils believe they were successful and they attribute the cause to themselves—their own effort, ability and approach—will their expectancy of success increase.

Where they believe their success is the result of external factors—an unfair test, a biased teacher, or just plain good (or bad) luck—their expectancy will remain unchanged.

(A worst-case scenario arises when pupils attribute failure to themselves—their effort, ability and approach—and believe these things to be beyond their control)

To maximise motivation, we must help our students understand that success can be sustained and that failure can be changed. We must help them develop accurate attribution.

There are 3 things we can do to help students develop more accurate attribution:

1. Stabilise the environment: Provide learning experiences that put pupils in control of their outcomes. Ensure assessments are fair and instructions are clear. Reduce the influence of external factors and, where possible, provide objective measures of success.

2. Explicitly assign attributions: Don't leave it to chance. Explicitly narrate the cause of their performance. "You solved this because you used the scaffold we practiced," or "This error happened because you skipped the checking phase." Connect the result to their effort and approach.

3. Spotlight improvement: As we explored last snack, focusing on "Me vs My Past Self" is powerful. Prove to students that their proficiency is malleable. Show them their previous work alongside their current work to demonstrate how their actions directly influence their growth.

Ultimately, motivation isn't just about what students achieve. It's also about the story they tell themselves about how they achieved it. So let’s help them tell a productive story.

🎓 For more, check out this paper which attempts to integrate various frameworks around motivation.

Summary

• Success isn’t enough to generate motivation—how students attribute the cause of that success matters too.

• Motivation grows fastest when students accurately attribute their success to things in their control: their strategies, effort, and approach.

• We can help students improve their attribution by stabilising their environment, explicitly assigning cause, and spotlighting growth.

Little updates 🥕

• Study on the effect of subtitles for same-language learning → suggests they do not generally improve children’s reading fluency.

• Meta-analysis of reading interventions for older students → finds targeted vocabulary and comprehension instruction can really help struggling students.

• Paper exploring student study habits → suggests that perceived effort and anxiety (not just knowledge) can deter the use of effective learning strategies.

• Longitudinal study on fractions & algebra → finds that conceptual and procedural skills predict future abilities, emphasising balanced instruction.

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

Hey {{ first_name | 👋 }}

I’m sending this message from Austin, where I’ve been spending some time at Alpha School. It’s been one of the most fascinating visits ever…

Big idea 🍉

When I talk to schools about motivation, one question frequently comes up: is competition between peers good? The answer, for the vast majority of students, in the vast majority of situations, is no.

Trying to beat a classmate isn't inherently bad. The problem arises when we publicly compare the results. Consider the extreme example of a classroom leaderboard.

For students at the bottom of the table, the cost is high. Their self-confidence plummets, they feel a lower sense of belonging, and research suggests that teacher expectations of these students often unconsciously drop.

By contrast, students at the top don't necessarily ‘win’ either. Some, feeling they have already ‘made it’, reduce their effort. Others may actually hide their ability to avoid social stigma (especially if ‘learning is cool’ is not the dominant social norm).

In short, peer competition is a zero-sum game. Not everyone can win. And often it just exacerbates the gap and lowers collective growth.

So, what is the alternative?

Instead of prompting students to compete with one another, we can get them to compete with their past selves. Ways to do this include:

• Track Personal Bests: Just as runners track their best times, have students track streaks of focused work, words written, or problems solved correctly.

• Highlight Then vs Now: Have students physically place a piece of work from three months ago next to a current piece to visualise their growth.

• Gap-Based Feedback: Focus on the distance travelled, not the position in the pack. Point out concrete improvements since the last piece of work.

Unlike Me vs. My Peers, Me vs. My Past Self is a positive-sum game. Everyone can win simultaneously. And when each student strives to beat their own best, collective improvement doesn't just rise… we also grow stronger together.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on the effects of leaderboards on learning over time.

Summary

• Competition between peers tends to be ineffective for collective motivation.

• This is because it is a zero-sum game. Not everyone can win, and it disadvantages the most vulnerable.

• A better approach is to foster positive-sum games, such as Me vs My Past Self. This way, everyone can win.

Little updates 🥕

• Study tracking student brain signals during maths → suggests early error-detection boosts learning and eases negative feelings about feedback.

• Paper exploring study strategies through a habit lens → finds students easily fall into unhelpful habits, and simple cues can help spark better strategies.

• Study on how including pupils with special educational needs affects classmates → finds no harm and only tiny drops in learning, suggesting inclusion remains safe for peers (not to mention other benefits).

• Paper analysing the effects of rank ordering → predicts later education and income, with gains for high-ranked students and harms for low-ranked students.

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

Hey {{ first_name | 👋 }}

Hope your week isn’t too busy. Today, a snack on how to balance sources of motivation in school…

Big idea 🍉

There are two main sources of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. The better we understand how they work and how they interact, the more we can harness them in service of learning.

Intrinsic motivation arises when we value the activity itself. We play the guitar for hours simply because we love the music and the feeling of mastery.

Extrinsic motivation arises from external factors. We practice the guitar not for the joy of it, but because a parent offers pocket money for every completed hour.

Three dynamics shape their interaction:

1. Effects over time: Intrinsic motivation acts like a ball on a shallow slope: it needs a push to get going, but once moving, it gathers its own momentum. Extrinsic motivation is the opposite: fast-acting but short-lived. Remove the reward, and the drive disappears

2. Extrinsic erodes intrinsic: Offering rewards for tasks students already value can actually lower their intrinsic drive. Their brain unconsciously re-calculates the value of the task, deciding that if a bribe is required, the activity must not be as inherently valuable.

3. Reward Bias: We tend to overvalue extrinsic rewards, mostly because they are visible and fast-acting. We see the student work harder for the sticker now, confirming our bias, while missing the slow-burn build of their intrinsic drive via repeated success.

Where does this leave schools? To build lasting engagement, we should:

• Use rewards as the ‘starter motor’, not the engine. Once competence begins to build, fade rewards out to let intrinsic drive take over.

• Protect existing passion. Avoid heavily rewarding students who are already motivated. If they love reading, a ’tokens-for-books’ scheme might backfire.

• Prioritise the success loop. The more knowledge and fluency students develop in a domain, the more interest and curiosity they will exhibit.

Getting motivation right is complex, but the payoff is worth it. It’s the catalyst that turns your great instruction into learning.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on the interaction between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.

Summary

• Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation interact in complex ways.

• Extrinsic rewards act as a starter motor, but they can accidentally erode existing drive.

• To build lasting engagement, use rewards to get going, protect passion, and prioritise the success loop.

Little updates 🥕

• Study on the timing of rewards → suggests early rewards boost memory for boring content, while later rewards boost memory for interesting ones.

• Paper on personalised attendance messages → finds small absence reductions, suggesting this is a simple, low-cost way to boost attendance.

• Study on whether growth mindset shapes or reduces SES gaps in PISA scores → finds it explains only ~3%, suggesting minimal effect on inequality.

• Paper on AI tutoring in UK math(s) classes → finds supervised AI matches human tutors and improves transfer, suggesting scalable personalised support.

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

Hey {{ first_name | 👋 }}

Hope you haven’t been too tied up recently. Today, more (on) motivation to learn…

Big idea 🍉

Students typically draw on two main sources of motivation. Extrinsic motivation comes from rewards such as praise, grades, or merits. Intrinsic motivation comes from finding learning itself satisfying or meaningful.

In upcoming snacks we’ll explore how both have value and can complement each other, but for now let’s focus on the intrinsic side… the one that sustains learning most effectively over the long term.

A highly effective way to build intrinsic motivation is through regular experiences of success. When students consistently feel successful in lessons, they become much more willing to engage. When they encounter repeated failure, motivation inevitably erodes.

Why does this happen?

• Success feels rewarding. Moments of understanding and mastery produce a brief positive (dopamine) response that signals ‘this is worth doing’.

• Success strengthens expectations. Each successful attempt raises students’ belief that they can succeed again, increasing their willingness to invest effort.

• Success grows knowledge. As understanding develops, students notice more, generate new questions, and become more curious.

To maximise these success moments, we can:

1. Chunk and scaffold content. Break ideas and processes into small components before recombining them, reducing overload and enabling early wins.

2. Provide timely, actionable feedback. Recognise success clearly, and when students struggle, offer guidance and another opportunity to apply it.

3. Use questions to spark curiosity. Early in a topic, prompt students to notice gaps or puzzles (“What’s going on here?”) so they want to resolve them.

Over time, this process becomes self-sustaining (‘autocatalytic’.) Once students experience success, curiosity, and the satisfaction of growing competence, intrinsic motivation begins to fuel itself. We often underestimate how powerful this loop can be… many students maintain momentum with far less external prompting than we expect once it’s established.

What this means is that our goal is not to continually ‘boost’ motivation from the outside, but to create the conditions that get the success loop started and keep it moving. Because once the loop kicks in, the groove carries on without you 😎

🎓 For more, check out this paper on curiosity and interest in the context of learning.

Summary

• Student motivation comes in 2 flavours: intrinsic and extrinsic.

• The best way to build intrinsic is via success, because it creates a dopamine reward, builds expectancy, and generates curiosity.

• The effect is strong than we tend to think, and once the loop starts, it fuels itself.

Little updates 🥕

• Study comparing paper vs tablet exams → finds equal performance but lower perceived effort on screen, suggesting no screen inferiority in real exams.

• Paper on low/high-energy music during tasks → suggests music can lift arousal and enjoyment without harming performance, though high energy increases effort (note: this contradicts previous research on the distracting effects of music).

• Working paper examining item-level test data → finds that aggregating to a single score hides important signals that could improve education decisions.

• Study tracking everyday actions → finds most behaviour runs on habit and aligns with intentions, suggesting habit-focused strategies are powerful.

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

Hey {{ first_name | 👋 }}

The weekend is approaching fast… but first, a new series on one of my fav topics: motivation for learning.

Big idea 🍉

As a profession, we obsess over instruction. We research it, refine it, and debate it endlessly. But even the best teaching falls flat without one vital ingredient: motivation.

Motivation to learn is a big deal in school… much bigger than we tend to assume (or at least our actions suggest).

Even when we control for prior attainment and attendance, there’s a significant positive relationship between motivation and achievement. And gaps in international test scores are partly explained by differences in motivation levels.

You only have to think of your most and least driven students to see this in action.

Motivation is almost as important as instruction in school. And yet, this rarely seems to be reflected in our practice. Compared with instruction, we spend less time talking about motivation, have fewer dedicated strategies to support it, and rarely try to measure it.

In short, in school: motivation is overlooked.

This neglect may help explain why, for the average student, motivation levels steadily decline throughout school (especially during adolescence).

One reason we, as a profession, don’t yet have a strong handle on motivation is that it’s a largely unconscious process. We’re not always aware of its presence or how it works.

(FYI the evidence base is not as strong either)

The good news is that motivation is something we CAN influence. In coming snacks, we’ll look at what motivation is (and isn’t), the biggest levers we can pull to boost it, and some common misconceptions about how it works.

Now, it’s important to be clear: motivation alone isn’t enough. It’s only as powerful as the quality of instruction it brings to life. Without motivation, great teaching is wasted. But with it, the impact can be profound.

🎓 For more, check out this longitudinal study on motivation in school.

Summary

• Motivation is a big deal in school, almost as important as instruction.

• However, its importance is not always reflected in our actions.

• The fact that 'motivation is overlooked’ is one reason why student drive tends to decline throughout school.

Little updates 🥕

• Study testing feedback framed with high expectations and confidence → finds it makes teachers give more honest, constructive feedback to students.

• Special issue on resilience in learning → provides overview of current state of research around student resilience in schools and impact on outcomes.

• Paper on learning via podcasts → finds they strongly boost understanding and retention, showing podcasts can effectively support teaching and learning.

• Guide exploring shared reading in early childhood → finds it strengthens thinking and emotion skills that build self-regulation and school readiness.

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Hey {{ first_name | 👋 }}

It’s nice to be back in your inbox. This week, a final video instalment in our teacher development series…

Big idea 🍉

Most schools know that rehearsal—where we practise outside the classroom—is one of the most powerful ways to improve teaching. But not all of us are doing it. What’s going on? Over time, I’ve started to form a triple hypothesis about why…

Firstly, teaching can be a really private act. Many of us go months without performing in front of another adult. So when someone suggests rehearsing in front of colleagues, it can feel awkward or even babyish.

Secondly, many schools carry the legacy of high-stakes observations... times when being watched meant being judged. That makes rehearsal feel risky, unless there’s deep trust between colleagues.

And thirdly, training has long been seen as something we do early in our career, or if we’re not “good enough.” Put these three things together, and we’ve got some serious emotional barriers.

However, just because rehearsal resistance is real doesn’t mean we should accept it. Where we can make rehearsal easier, we should, and over the past year, I’ve seen three tactics that really help:

1. Remind people why, and keep reminding them. In the busyness of teaching, it’s easy to forget that rehearsal is used across lots of other professions, is backed by research, and is one of the best ways to truly master our craft.

2. Create a super safe space. Make it clear that everyone can make mistakes, with zero consequences or ridicule, and that what happens in the room stays in the room.

3. Make it easy to start. Shrink the change. Focus on one small, highly relevant technique. And make sure the people leading the session go first (ideally embarrassing themselves a little, because that always makes everyone else feel a little bit better).

Once you’ve started, don’t stop. Those schools who stick with rehearsal long enough to get over the hump not only improve teaching faster, but build stronger shared language, alignment, and trust.

🎓 For more, check out this systematic review of teacher rehearsal studies and an overview of Steplab’s new group professional development tool.

Summary

• Even though we know teacher rehearsal is powerful, we don’t all do it.

• This is understandable, due to the isolated nature of teaching, high-stakes observations, and views that training is for the inexpert.

• We can overcome this resistance by reminding ourselves why, creating a safe space, and making it easy to start.

Little updates 🥕

• Study replicating a classic “scaffolding” experiment → finds no clear benefit of flexible help, suggesting good teaching depends on the situation

• Paper comparing written vs spoken learning journals → suggests spoken journals enhance strategy use and retention (aka speech supports learning)

• Large RCT of Montessori approach → finds higher pre-school reading, memory, and executive function, suggesting lasting, cost-effective benefits

• Review of global evidence on reading instruction → finds that explicit, systematic, home-language teaching best improves reading

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Hey {{ first_name | 👋 }}

Let’s take the sting out of your Thursday with another snack about teacher development…

Big idea 🍉

Teacher learning is mostly the same as student learning. We require the same inputs: exposition, retrieval, feedback etc... and we’re subject to the same constraints: limited attention, varying prior knowledge, and fluctuating motivation...

However, there’s one big difference… teacher development is ultimately about behaviour change. If our behaviour doesn’t change, then student learning won’t change either.

The problem is: change isn’t easy. As humans, we’re naturally resistant to shifting our behaviour. And as teachers, we rely heavily on habits, which make change even harder. Here are 4 evidence-informed principles that can increase the chances that PD (professional development) leads to actual improvement:

1/ Make it Easy (without dumbing it down)

• Focus on a small suite of simple routines, to reduce the (already vast) complexity of teaching.

• Agree to use the same shared habits, so students adopt routines more quickly and strongly.

2/ Make it Attractive

• Secure quick wins and help teachers experience fluency within PD... mastery is motivating.

• Detach PD from appraisal, to create a safe space for trying, failing, and improving.

3/ Make it Social

• Coach, co-plan, or rehearse with colleagues, for insight, motivation, and accountability.

• Celebrate PD through public shoutouts, to raise the status of participation.

4/ Make it Timely

• Launch new PD at ‘fresh start’ moments (eg start of term or new year), to capture early momentum.

• Link PD to current classroom challenges, so it feels relevant and useful right now.

In the end, professional development isn’t just about knowing more… it’s about doing differently. Real change happens when knowledge becomes habit, and when small, consistent tweaks compound over time.

Note: This framework applies just as powerfully to student behaviour. The more we model these conditions in our own development, the more likely we are to create them for those students in front of us.

🎓 For more, check out the EAST Framework, from the Behavioural Insights Team.

Summary

• Improving teaching is partly a behaviour change challenge.

• Teacher behaviour is resistant to change—we must approach it intelligently.

• Making PD easy, attractive, social, and timely can increase the chances that improvement sticks.

Little updates 🥕

• Analysis of 2025 exam results in UK → shows how scores mostly reflect who attends school, reinforcing the need to consider ‘value added’.

• Study exploring self- and peer-assessment → finds peer-assessment can boost confidence, reflection, and study skills.

• Paper on how curiosity affects metacognition → suggests that curiosity guides self-monitoring and control, improving learning and decision-making.

• Report on socio-economic disparities in UK SEND system → argues poor families experience systemic barriers AND poorer outcomes (a ‘double disadvantage').

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

Hey {{ first_name | 👋 }}

It’s nice to be here with you. Let’s get to it…

Big idea 🍉

Getting better as a teacher is hard to do consistently. Teaching is complex, the link between teaching and learning is often fuzzy, and our habits can be stubbornly slow to shift.

The good news is that there’s now a strong and growing evidence base to help us steer towards impactful development, and away from three common traps:

1. The knowing-doing trap: Knowledge is the bedrock of expertise... but it only helps when it’s built in ways that make it usable in challenging classroom conditions. Otherwise, we end up with a knowing–doing gap, where understanding grows but practice (and student outcomes) don’t budge.

2. The discuss’n’reflect trap: Knowledge becomes actionable when teachers see it in practice (through modelling) and try it out repeatedly (through rehearsal with feedback). These experiences are far more powerful than reflection and discussion, even if the latter feel better in the moment. (though ideally, we want both)

3. The big-and-rare trap: Development works best when we focus on one small, concrete area of practice at a time. That’s why little-and-often (like fortnightly coaching) beats big-and-rare (like INSET days).

This is what makes approaches like Instructional Coaching and Group Rehearsal so powerful: they’re deliberately structured to avoid these traps, keeping the key mechanisms of teacher development front and centre.

These approaches aren’t easy to implement... far from it. But it’s better to do the hard work that delivers than the easy work that doesn’t. Otherwise, we risk not just low impact, but wasted time — and a slow erosion of faith in the promise of PD itself.

🎓 For more, check out this experimental comparison between little-and-often modelling+rehearsal vs big-and-rare discussion+reflection

Summary

• Helping teachers improve is complex, and easy to get wrong.

• To make it stick, avoid the three traps: knowing–doing, discuss’n’reflect, and big-and-rare.

• Instructional coaching and group rehearsal are examples of ways that PD can be packaged to avoid such traps.

Little updates 🥕

• Report on building teacher-student relationships via PD → argues that emphasising relational skills boosts student outcomes and teacher wellbeing

• Classroom study on effective spelling practice → finds interleaving boosts long-term retention (esp. for children with higher prior knowledge)

• Paper on an oral narrative intervention for children with language and reading difficulties → suggests it improves storytelling and supports reading comprehension (esp. for weaker decoders)

• Plus free ebook connecting neuroscience with education (HT Prof Hendy)

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

Hey {{ first_name | 👋 }}

I hope you’ve got a skip in your step this week. Because today, we launch into a new series on effective teacher development…

Big idea 🍉

Helping teachers truly improve is hard—much harder than it looks. Too many well-intentioned efforts haven’t moved the needle, and too often, growth stalls early in our careers.

That’s not good enough—because teacher expertise is the single biggest lever we have for improving the learning and life chances of the young people we serve. Yet, what helps teachers improve isn’t always obvious or intuitive, and getting better involves forming habits… which are hard to shift.

The good news is that there’s a growing body of robust evidence on how to make professional development (PD) actually work. It points us towards six ‘mechanisms’ that drive teacher learning:

1. GET IT: Develop a clear understanding of the science of teaching and learning

2. SEE IT: Build a repertoire of strategies that show what this science looks like in practice

3. TRY IT: Rehearse and adapt these strategies for your subject, your students, and your style

4. KEEP IT: Embed the strategies through deliberate practice until they become part of your teaching routines

5. FIT IT: Tailor development to the specific context, needs, and culture of your classroom, team, or school

6. OWN IT: Build motivation and commitment to sustain effort over time

The ‘IT’ in each mechanism refers to the content of what’s being learned. The mechanisms themselves are universal—but the content should always be specific: to the subject, age range, and context in which teachers work.

So the real question for any school or system isn’t How should we do PD?... it’s Are we activating the mechanisms that actually help teachers get better?

By attending to both the WHAT (the content of learning) and the HOW (the mechanisms of learning), we create the domain-specific expertise that enables teachers (and their students) to reliably keep getting better.

🎓 For more, check out this systematic review and guidance report on effective teacher development (and this EXCELLENT BOOK on the topic)

Summary

• Helping teachers reliably get better is hard.

• Relying on the mechanisms of PD can help—by supporting teachers to understand the science, see effective practice, rehearse and adapt strategies, build lasting habits, tailor learning to their context, and stay motivated to keep improving.

Little updates 🥕

• Large study testing pre-questions before explanations → finds they modestly improve learning but risk disengaging students with low prior knowledge

• Meta-analysis on using drawing-to-lear techniques → suggests that it only really works only when it helps students connect text and images

• Paper on mind wandering in classrooms → finds that it’s common and harms immediate memory, highlighting need for tailored attention strategies

• Study of 50k+ adolescents on sleep and learning → finds around 8 hours per night supports best performance (especially in maths and science)

• Plus: free ebook on how to use research evidence effectively in education [HT Alex Quigley]

Sharpen your evidence edge → Get your school to upgrade you to Snacks PRO

Hey {{ first_name | 👋 }}

Welcome to October (time is FLYING again). This week, a video snack to round off our series on attention…

Big idea 🍉

🎓 For more, check out Doug’s chapter on Habits of Attention in TLAC3.0, and this paper on the link between posture and attention.

Little updates 🥕

• Review of 40 studies on learning from mistakes in examples → shows they help learning when errors are clearly explained and tasks match student ability

• Study testing phone bans in classrooms → finds they modestly boost learning, esp. for struggling students (and foster acceptance of such policies)

• Study testing blocked vs random vs adaptive interleaving → finds interleaving improves long-term learning, with no added benefit from adaptivity

• Video interview with some of the biggest experts in education on the importance and role of knowledge in developing curricula for deep thinking

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

Hey {{ first_name | 👋 }}

Hope you had a nice equinox. Today… [strategic pause] another snack on attention.

Big idea 🍉

Attention is central to learning. However, it is limited, prone to wander, and not naturally attracted to the things we teach in school. As such, we must actively orchestrate it.

One of the ways we can best do this is via ‘attentional cueing’. Cueing is the use of a stimulus to attract attention to a particular thing. For example, using:

• Our environment: Dimming the lights and drawing the blinds can draw student focus to the board (harnessing a kind of ‘cinema effect’).

• Our tech: We can use arrows, colours, live modelling or gradual reveal (just be sure to keep things accessible).

• Our voices: Strategic pauses, repetition, repetition, and changes in tone or cadence can signal key info (see clip below).

• Our bodies: We can point, tap, clap or gesture to direct attention (and even to help flesh out concepts).

Being precise in our cueing is important because (A) novices don’t always know exactly which part of the thing we’re presenting to focus on, (B) there is a cognitive cost to filtering out redundant information, and (C) it helps our more vulnerable students to be even more successful.

Gesturing and live modelling are particularly powerful, because (A) students benefit from a 'mirror neuron' type effect (where we learn as much from watching someone do something as doing it ourselves), and (B) memory models (eg. Baddeley's multicomponent) suggest that we can process human movements with minimal additional attentional cost, and so: get a kind of free working memory boost.

Many of us will do lots of this stuff already, but (as with many things in teaching), there’s probably room for us to be even more intentional in our approach. The more precise we are in our cueing, the more our students will learn.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on how cueing can support learning.

Summary

• Attention is the basis of learning—cueing is one way to direct student attention.

• There are many ways we can cue, from highlighting text on the board to pausing strategically before key vocab.

• We do lots of this naturally, but there’s probably scope for us to cue even more intentionally.

Little updates 🥕

• Survey of new (Spanish) teachers beliefs about learning → finds widespread misconceptions, highlighting need for stronger evidence-based PD.

• Study of 350k Norwegian children → finds that younger siblings do better at school if their older sibling is a sister (partly bc of social skills dividend).

• Meta-analysis of multimedia learning studies → highlights design principles (like personalisation, modality, text+diagrams) which reliably boost learning.

• Meta-analysis of classroom management → finds small but consistent gains in behaviour, learning, and wellbeing, favouring focused over broad strategies.

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

Hey {{ first_name | 👋 }}

I hope you’re well. Today, we’re continuing our series on attention, with a look under the hood…

Big idea 🍉

One of the most powerful ways to think about teaching is as the orchestration of attention. Focus is central to learning, and so the better we understand how it works, the more effectively we can teach.

There are 4 important features of focus that are useful to know about:

1. Our attentional capacity is highly limited. We can really only focus on one thing at a time (multi-tasking is a myth).

2. Our attention is highly skittish. Our minds are prone to wander (for up to a quarter of all lesson time).

3. Attention is invisible. Unless we make attention visible, it’s very hard to tell what someone is attending to.

4. The things we teach in schools are not natural magnets for attention (this is partly why schools exist).

These features help us to understand why, unless we actively try to direct and keep the attention of our students, there’s a strong chance they’ll not end up focussing on the things that will help them learn (AND why we may not even be aware of this).

There are 4 main tactics we can use to orchestrate attention effectively:

1. Minimise distractions. To increase the chances that students pay attention to the right things at the right times.

2. Regular cueing of attention, using tools such as our voice and gesture, or highlighting and spotlighting information.

3. Prompting the externalisation of thinking, using techniques such as paired talk, choral response, or just silent writing.

4. Helping students to build habits of attention (such as sitting up straight and tracking the speaker.)

There is increasing evidence to suggest that such tactics can alleviate the negative effects of lower IQ, poorer backgrounds, and weaker self-regulation. As such, not only is the orchestration good for everyone, but it also helps level the playing field. (and it makes kids happier)

Attention really is the ultimate currency of the classroom.

🎓 For more, check out this great summary of the research by Dr Hobbiss.

Summary

• Attention is central to learning—the better we understand it, the more effectively we can teach.

• Attention is limited, invisible, prone to wander, and not naturally attracted to academic content.

• And so, we should: minimise distractions, cue attention, externalise thinking, and build habits of attention.

Little updates 🥕

• Study of retrieval practice → suggest that students who are most likely to benefit from self-testing strategies are least likely to use them 😔

• Paper comparing learning from videos vs illustrated texts → finds videos can boost retention and reduce effort (especially helpful for weaker readers).

• Study teaching preschoolers spatial words → shows it boosts their sense of number size, suggesting simple word games can support early maths.

• Systematic review of teacher-student relationships → finds supportive ties improve engagement and can protect vulnerable students from school failure.

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