Hey {{first_name}}

Hope you’re okay. If not, just remember: challenge is where the growth is…

Big idea 🍉

In many ways, our modern world is a miracle. BUT... there's also a lot that isn't quite working. Much of which is the result of a mismatch between our evolved instincts and our modern environment. Let's explore one of the biggest of these...

For almost all of human history, nearly everything we needed to survive came with a cost attached. Calories had to be hunted and carried. Mates had to be courted and won. Entertainment had to be made and remembered.

As a result, we evolved to conserve effort wherever we could. When food was scarce, every bit of energy mattered, and spending it unnecessarily was a real risk.

Today, that effort has been almost entirely stripped away. Calories arrive at our door, cars ferry us around, and entertainment lives in our pockets.

But our instincts haven't changed, and so we find ourselves taking the easy option, over and over again.

This can feel good (because of our programming), BUT the problem is... effort is how we grow. Our bodies get stronger from stressing our muscles. Our minds become more resilient when we're pushed to do hard things. We’ve seen this in classrooms, right? Students remember far more after testing themselves than after rereading... despite rereading feeling more effective.

AND, the cost of all this is easy to miss. Nobody notices the strength or skill they never built... or the confidence they never grew.

Easy calories, easy dopamine... these are the ultimate fruits of modern civilisation. But in delivering them, we have inadvertently removed the very thing that made us so powerful: effort and challenge.

And so, it may well be time to start putting some of this back, on purpose (in a very careful way obviously). Which is not going to be easy... but that's kind of the point.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on why we evolved to avoid effort (and why our bodies still need it).

Summary

• Modern life has removed much of the effort required to meet our survival needs, making taking the easy option the default.

• Unfortunately, choosing the easy option means missing out on the effort and challenge we need to grow and become resilient.

• Across society, we must correct for this by deliberately pushing learners to do hard things.

Little updates 🥕

• Review of shared reading research → suggests that adult dialogue & scaffolding can support children’s cognitive development.

• Research on gestures → finds key gesture characteristics that may impact their effectiveness in supporting language learning.

• Meta-analysis on peer feedback → finds higher quality feedback is linked to improved outcomes, particularly when students received prior training.

• Study of test anxiety → argues greater negative effects among low-SES learners, but weaker or positive effects among high-SES learners.

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Hey {{first_name}}

Today, I’m kicking off a new snacks series, co-authored with edu-genius Dr Jen Barker, on some of the deeper issues facing schools and society. As ever, if it’s not your vibe, you can unsubscribe at the bottom. Otherwise, strap in…

Big idea 🍉

In many ways, it's the best time ever to be a kid. For most of human history, around half of all children died before 15, and only the most privileged could read. Today, fewer than 5% die young, and the vast majority can access wonderous stories.

In short, there is much to be grateful for, BUT… it's clear that not everything is heading in the right direction. Childhood obesity has ballooned, short-sightedness has doubled, and mental health issues are rising fast.

There are many attempts to explain these issues: smartphones, social media, processed food. Each is only partly satisfying. In our opinion, there's one idea which sits beneath all of these and helps make sense of many of the problems of our time: evolutionary mismatch.

For almost all of human history, we lived in small groups where food was scarce, life was tough, and what felt good was mostly good for us. We became tuned to thrive in that world.

But cultural evolution has since sped far ahead of biological evolution. We're now living digital lives in the city, running software designed for the savannah.

In the past, our sweet tooth led us to make the most of rare fruit and honey when we found it. Today, that same instinct leads us to sugary snacks, fizzy drinks, obesity and diabetes.

Today, what feels good and what's actually good for us have drifted inexorably apart. These mismatched instincts lead us to over-consume social media, over-coddle our youth, and under-exercise our bodies.

Looking at the world through this lens can be hugely powerful. When children struggle, it nudges us to look for the problem (and the solution) in the fit between them and their world. And unlike our instincts, our environment can be redesigned.

Over the coming weeks, we'll further unpack how evo mismatch can help us better understand social issues, and what we can do about it. Till then, keep your eyes peeled for how our instincts can lead us astray.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on evolutionary mismatch.

Summary

• For many reasons, being a child today is better than ever before, yet not all things are improving.

• Beneath many issues is a deeper mismatch between the world we evolved for and the world we live in today.

• Looking at social issues through this lens is a powerful way to understand (and eventually improve) our world.

Little updates 🥕

• Paper on knowledge retention → finds 1 error-free retrieval session supports short-term retention, with 3 sessions helping stable retention over 56 days.

• Paper on reading tutoring → suggests 50+ sessions produced substantial gains in word reading & fluency whether the tutor was an adult or older learner.

• Meta-analysis of argumentative writing → finds instruction improved writing skills, with instruction focused on strategy showing lasting effects.

• Meta-analysis of teacher wellbeing → finds small associations with student motivation & achievement, with stronger associations in secondary schools.

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Hey {{first_name}}

I’ve been a bit distracted recently… will be back soon. Until then…

Big idea 🍉

The simple model of teaching is a powerful framework. This is partly because it is built upon a suite of coherent, evidence-informed foundational ideas.

The more we internalise these 3 ideas, the better the model works for us, and the easier it gets to reason about teaching in general. They help us to THINK SMARTER about our work.

IDEA 1: What our students attend to is what they learn.
It isn't what they're exposed to, or what's on the board. It's what they actually process. Attention is the main mechanism of learning, the true currency of the classroom. Teaching, to a large extent, is the orchestration of attention.

IDEA 2: We can only attend to a very few things at once.
We can hold a few things in mind, focus on just one, and our minds wander constantly (multi-tasking is a myth). A surprising amount of good teaching is a response to this one constraint: chunked explanations, fluent routines, minimal distractions.

IDEA 3: How we learn is much more similar than it is different.
Students vary in their attentional capacity, and more still in their prior knowledge. But the mechanics of how they learn are largely shared. This is why learning styles are damaging, and why the most effective teaching for students with special educational needs is usually the same teaching, done with even more care, rather than something categorically different.

Etch these 3 ideas in your head and you’ll start to see the classroom differently. They layer on the simple model, and you’ll be golden :)

🎓 For more, check out this article on limited attention.

Summary

• The Simple Model of Teaching is built on 3 foundational ideas that can help us think better about our work.

• Attention drives learning: what learners attend to is what they learn, but attention naturally wanders, so we need to minimise distractions.

• Learners do differ, but are much more similar than different, so we should take care with fundamentally different teaching approaches.

Little updates 🥕

• Research on extra-curricular activities → suggests participation in clubs can support academic trajectories during primary school.

• Article on online learning programmes → finds that targeted programmes aligned with whole-class learning can create meaningful literacy gains.

• Study of leisure reading → connects reading with prosocial behaviour amongst 8- to 10-year-olds, with empathy partly explaining the relationship.

• Article on test boredom → suggests that boredom reduce cognitive resources & performance on difficult tasks, but not easy tasks.

Become a smarter schooler → Check out Snacks PRO

Hey {{first_name}}

Oh for the simple life… but till then, more on the simple model…

Big idea 🍉

The Simple Model of Teaching has the potential to keep our focus on the things that matter most for learning, and to grow our expertise around them... but only if we use it well. Here's how, in four steps (on a loop):

1/ Identify lever: Think about each of the 7 questions... which area has the greatest potential to improve student learning? It can be helpful to have a coach or a colleague support you with this: it's sometimes hard to see our own practice clearly.

2/ Zoom in: Each of the simple model questions is a broad area of teaching, not a strategy. We need to zoom in and flesh out a clear goal (eg. call for silence) to work on over several weeks, and then zoom in further to identify one tiny part of that goal to work on each week (eg. hold silence once it arrives).

3/ Clarify good: The clearer the target, the faster we hit it. Ask an expert to talk through their planning, or demo an effective technique. If no-one’s around, then get your hands on a video (ideally with an accompanying deconstruction).

4/ Reps + feedback: In many ways, teaching is a bundle of habits, and so improvement is a habit change effort… which can only happen through sufficient repetition: dozens of reps, not a handful. Supercharge the result with feedback between reps: from an observer, from filming yourself, or from impact data.

And then repeat. Find a way to integrate improvement into your daily work rhythm. Keep it small so it can happen little and often, ideally weekly or fortnightly. And watch improvement inevitably accumulate over time.

Note All of this is easier, and more fun, with others: which is why coaching and group PD work so well.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on PD & Cognitive Load. 

Summary

• The Simple Model of Teaching can help us focus on the things that matter most for learning, but we need to use it effectively.

• Effective improvement means zooming in on specific areas to work on, clarifying what good looks like, and harnessing repeated feedback.

• Improvement is most effective when it is little and often, integrated into our daily work so that progress can build over time.

Little updates 🥕

• Research on 4-day school weeks in 1 US state → finds they did not support teacher retention, although new hires tended to be more experienced.

• Pilot study on motor learning → finds that 4 weeks of training improved motor skills but did not change synaptic density or brain structure.

• Research on phonics programmes → connects teaching letter-sound links to improved decoding, but warns that some links can create confusion.

• Meta-analysis of homework research → highlights that feedback quality is more strongly associated with student learning outcomes than quantity.

• Make your school smarter → ask your leader to get you Snacks PRO

Hey {{first_name}}

I’m beyond ready for the weekend. But first…

Big idea 🍉

Teaching is fiendishly complex. This doesn’t just make our job hard: it also poses risks to how we develop expertise, and as a result: our impact over time.

Because: we all have an implicit mental model of how teaching works... built from thousands of hours of being taught as students along with our own trial and error at the front of the classroom. Unsurprisingly, this can feel like expertise... but often: it isn’t.

Teaching happens in what researchers call a wicked learning environment: the feedback loop between what we do and what students learn is invisible, noisy and delayed. In wicked environments, experience alone tends to produce mental models that are idiosyncratic and confidently wrong. "I explained it clearly, so they learned it" or “They're engaged, so they're learning" are the kind of theories that emerge.

The result is expertise that accumulates without a rigorous shape or structure: lop-sided, patchy, and lacking in hierarchy. And because our mental model acts as the compass for our practice, this can misdirect our focus and limit our impact.

Which is why I (and the folks at Steplab) have spent so many years obsessed with trying to figure out how to lay the best foundations for expertise. How to get the balance between simplicity and rigour just right.

The Simple Model of Teaching is the result: seven questions, organised around a model of how learning works, each an essential link in the causal chain between what we do and how our students learn.

Importantly, this isn’t about dumbing things down. It’s about moving novices more quickly towards how experts tend to organise their knowledge: around deep principles, not superficial features. And giving the more experienced of us something to hang increasing complexity off as our understanding evolves.

Of course, all models are wrong (by definition), but some are more useful than others. For example, the London Tube map is geographically inaccurate (distorted distances, straightened river), but… that’s exactly why it works.

In short, best frameworks are simple enough to use, and complex enough to trust. The simple model is intended to do just that. Next week: how to use it.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on how knowledge is organised for learning.

Summary

• We build models of teaching from classroom experience, but these can be inaccurate when the impact of our actions is unclear.

• The Simple Model of Teaching balances simplicity and rigour through seven questions linking what we do with how students learn.

• Whilst all models have limitations, the Simple Model of Teaching is accessible whilst retaining enough rigour to be useful.

Little updates 🥕

• Paper on cognitive load theory & SEN → explores how CLT can be used to improve instructional approaches for learners with additional needs.

• Meta-analysis of dual coding → finds visuals are most effective when they reduce irrelevant details, reflect lesson content & are supported by signalling.

• Paper on embodied learning → suggests that movement can improve learning when it is task-relevant, with support reduced as learners develop expertise.

• Study on formative assessment heatmaps → finds that visualising data can help teachers in accurately identifying learners’ strengths and weaknesses.

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Hey {{first_name}}

Welcome to September, and to another year of evidence snacks. I’m planning to broaden my focus over the coming months, to tackle some of the wider issues facing schools and what we might do about them. If that’s not your bag, you can easily unsubscribe at the bottom of the email, no offence taken (you already have enough emails). Otherwise, strap in…

Big idea 🍉

Teaching is one of the most fiendishly complex jobs ever invented. But most people don't see it like that, including many of us in education (more on that shortly).

That’s a pretty big claim, so… let's compare teaching to something that everyone recognises as complex: brain surgery. Brain surgeons have to restructure people's brains. They only operate on one person at a time, they can see what they are working on, and they have sophisticated tools and a skilled team on hand.

Teachers, by contrast, have the same end goal: restructuring minds. However, we have to do it on ten, twenty, even thirty people at once (some who don't even want to be there), with our eyes basically closed (because learning is invisible), using only words and images as our tools.

No shade on the medical profession, but teaching is orders of magnitude harder than brain surgery. OG agrees:

Why don't we see teaching this way? Well, it's partly because we've all spent thousands of hours, as students, watching teachers in action, AND... the better the teacher is, the easier they make it look. This 'paradox of expertise' means that, as a society, we end up with a misconceived perspective of the true complexity of the role.

I say all this not to boast on behalf of the profession, but rather because complexity can easily become a serious enemy of impact, especially if we underestimate its extent.

The best teachers and schools understand this. They go to grain paints to recognise and radically reduce the risks of complexity. In upcoming snacks, we'll explore ways to achieve this. But until then, strut a bit taller in the knowledge that you’re doing one of the most complex collective tasks ever invented.

🎓 For more, check out this paper on expert teaching.

Summary

• Teaching is an incredibly complex job, but its complexity is often underestimated, especially by those in the profession.

• One reason is the ‘paradox of expertise’: the better a teacher is, the easier they make it look.

• Underestimating this complexity can stop us from recognising and reducing the risks it creates.

Little updates 🥕

• Discussion paper on PD challenges → explores ‘false economies’ in PD & advocates for mechanism-rich processes that are responsive to context.

• Paper on metacomprehension → suggests summaries alone may not improve self-evaluation, however comparisons with expert models can.

• Study of executive function & social behaviour → links stronger executive function with prosocial behaviour but finds little evidence of two-way effects.

• Research on early literacy programmes → suggests that light-touch, adaptive tutoring can produce modest & sustained improvements in reading.

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

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.

Upgrade your evidence edge → Get Snacks PRO

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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