What does this mean?

Teachers have high expectations of all students, based on an approach that sees possibilities rather than deficits: by understanding each student as an individual, teachers ensure that all students are challenged. This includes the use of strategies that provide the individual support required to ‘bring the students to the curriculum’.

Through thoughtful activity design, students are encouraged to embrace challenge and failure, working at the edges of their comfort zone.

Teachers create a climate of low stress by trying to lower the stakes, for example by creating a classroom climate where mistakes are welcomed as part of the learning process.

What might this look like in practice?

  • Students are encouraged to work in the 'struggle zone' where they are challenged to think hard about what they are learning (as opposed to simply working through 'tasks' that require little thought, or being given learning activities that lead to cognitive overload).

      • Teachers aim for depth over speed

      • Teachers model excellence and show students the steps needed to get there (see more on Masterful Modelling HERE)

      • Teachers manage cognitive load in order to reduce extraneous load that might otherwise make learning challenging difficult unnecessarily difficult! (See a great video summary from LMCs 15 Minute Forum (25/11/21) HERE)


  • Questioning and discussion creates a culture of high engagement where all students are expected to think hard.

      • 'No hands up' questioning techniques (e.g. pose > pause > pounce > bounce) are used to create a culture of 'no-opting out' where everyone is expected to be ready to contribute if called upon

      • Students are asked to “say it again… but better” where answers are unfinished, 'thin', or not voiced in appropriately academic language

      • Probing questioning is used to challenge students to develop ideas more fully and to articulate them more carefully

      • For more on questioning, see the Quality Questioning page HERE


  • Teacher knowledge of individual students' starting points is used to 'be responsive' and support all students during the lesson.

      • Teachers use a range of formal and soft data (relating to prior attainment, previous lessons, contextual information etc) to build a picture of each individuals strength and areas for development

      • Teachers understand particular student's needs (see support materials on LS Hub HERE)

      • Teachers deploy LSAs effectively with specific roles which may vary lesson to lesson (e.g. may support an individual with needs, or may work with another group of students in the room so the teacher can support individuals with needs)


  • Lower the stakes and reduce threat levels by avoiding strategies that put individuals on the spot without warning, or language which might fuel a sense of feeling threatened by having to contribute/ share/ display in front of peers. For example…

      • Give thinking time and paired-discussion time before asking individuals "what did you discuss?", rather than "what do you think?"

      • When selecting students to contribute in a no-hands-up setting, avoid phrases like "who is my next victim?!"

      • Consider how to respond to incorrect answers - they need to know it isn't right, but shouldn't feel dented by the exchange. Phrases like "That's an interesting suggestion, can you show us/ explain how you arrived at that?" opens up opportunity to lead students to realise their own error rather than just being corrected by the teacher or a peer.

      • Ensure students are respectful while peers are contributing - even a hint of a smirk from one student can be enough to discourage someone from contributing in future. Stamp it out unequivocally!


  • Scaffolding is gradually removed over time to support students to develop independence

What other resources are worth looking at?

  • A concise overview of how a consideration of 'challenge' should be weaved across a number of different areas - see HERE.

  • Attitudes and strategies for delivering real challenge (blog post) - see HERE.

  • The LS Hub has a great selection of resources for knowing individuals - see HERE.

  • Provision Map is another excellent resource to build your knowledge of individuals - see HERE.

Who has been working on this at Richard Challoner?

Inquiry Questions/ Themes from the Learning Communities...

  • JG - Using the SOLO taxonomy to develop independence (2019-20)

  • CW - Challenging students beyond the classroom (2018-19)

  • AMC - Expert Learners - stretching the most able, scaffolding for the rest (2018-19)

  • LMC - Is giving the 'perfect paragraph' always the best way? Challenging students to critically analyse and improve their work (2018-19)