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Inspiring Thinking
Inspiring Thinking
Our Focus
Effective questioning is at the heart of high-quality learning and teaching at St Kent’s.
Our focus is not simply on asking more questions. It is about using questioning deliberately to make pupils think, involve everyone in learning, check understanding and help teachers decide what needs to happen next.
Effective questioning helps us answer two important questions:
What are pupils thinking?
What should I do next as a teacher?
Used well, questioning moves beyond checking whether pupils can recall the correct answer. It encourages pupils to explain, justify, connect ideas and develop increasingly sophisticated thinking.
Most importantly, questioning allows us to make learning visible.
Why Questioning
Why Questioning
A teacher can explain something extremely well, but explanation alone cannot tell us what pupils have understood.
Effective questioning allows us to find out.
It helps teachers to:
involve all pupils, rather than relying on the same confident volunteers;
identify misconceptions before they become embedded;
check whether pupils are ready to move on;
encourage pupils to explain and justify their thinking;
increase participation and accountability;
adapt teaching in response to what pupils actually understand;
provide appropriate support and challenge.
The important shift is from:
“Have I taught it?”
to:
“How do I know they have understood it?”
The St Kent’s Questioning Toolkit
Across St Kent’s, six core techniques provide a shared approach to effective questioning.
They are not intended as a script or checklist to be demonstrated in every lesson. Teachers should use professional judgement to select the technique that best supports the learning taking place.
The shared expectation is that questioning is purposeful, inclusive and responsive.
1. Cold Calling & Show Calling
Everyone thinks. Everyone can contribute.
Cold Calling means asking the question first, allowing pupils time to think, and then selecting a pupil to respond rather than relying only on hands-up volunteers.
Ask → Pause → Select
This changes the question from:
“Who knows the answer?”
to:
“What do we think?”
Because pupils do not know who will be asked, everyone has a reason to think.
Cold Calling should be warm, predictable and supportive. Its purpose is not to catch pupils out, but to create a classroom culture in which everyone expects to participate.
Show Calling applies the same principle to pupils’ work. The teacher selects a pupil response, piece of writing, calculation or example and shares it with the class so that everyone can discuss and learn from it.
This might involve asking:
“What has this pupil done particularly well?”
“Where has the reasoning gone wrong?”
“How could we improve this response?”
The focus is on the learning contained within the work, rather than judging the pupil.
2. No Opt Out
High expectations with high support.
Sometimes a pupil will respond:
“I don’t know.”
That does not have to be the end of the interaction.
No Opt Out communicates an important message:
We believe that everyone can learn and everyone can contribute.
The teacher might provide additional support, reframe the question, ask another pupil for an answer or provide part of the answer themselves.
Crucially, the teacher then returns to the original pupil.
Ask → Support → Return
For example:
“Jamie, what is the answer?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Let’s get some help. Aisha?”
Aisha provides the answer.
“Thanks. Jamie, coming back to you – what is the answer?”
The aim is never embarrassment. It is to ensure that pupils experience success while maintaining the expectation that everyone remains part of the learning.
3. Think–Pair–Share
Give every pupil time to think.
Some questions deserve more than an immediate answer.
Think–Pair–Share creates structured thinking time before pupils are expected to contribute publicly.
THINK
Pupils consider the question independently.
PAIR
Pupils discuss and develop their thinking with a partner.
SHARE
The teacher selects pupils to contribute ideas to the class.
This is particularly effective for questions which require pupils to:
explain;
justify;
predict;
compare;
evaluate;
make connections.
Think–Pair–Share also allows pupils to rehearse their thinking before sharing it publicly, increasing both confidence and the quality of responses.
The teacher can then use Cold Calling during the Share stage:
“What did your pair decide?”
“What was the strongest argument you discussed?”
“Did either of you change your mind?”
4. Hinge Questions
Are they ready to move on?
A Hinge Question is a carefully planned question used at an important point in learning to determine what should happen next.
It is designed to answer:
“Have pupils understood this well enough for us to move on?”
A good Hinge Question often includes several plausible answers, including answers based on common misconceptions.
For example:
Which statement best explains…?
A. …
B. …
C. …
D. …
Rather than asking one pupil, the teacher gathers a response from everyone – perhaps using mini-whiteboards, fingers, cards or another whole-class response system.
The teacher can then make an informed decision:
Most pupils understand → Move on
Some uncertainty → Clarify
Significant misconception → Reteach
Hinge Questions therefore make questioning genuinely responsive.
The question does not simply check learning.
The answer determines what happens next.
5. Probing Questions
Don’t stop at the first answer.
A correct answer is often the beginning of good questioning rather than the end.
Probing questions encourage pupils to articulate and develop their thinking.
Useful prompts include:
Why?
How do you know?
Can you explain your thinking?
What evidence supports that?
Can you give me an example?
What would happen if…?
Is that always true?
Does anyone agree or disagree? Why?
Can anyone build on that answer?
Can you say that in a different way?
Probing also allows the teacher to distinguish between a pupil who genuinely understands something and one who has simply produced the correct answer.
Over time, we want pupils to recognise that:
The answer matters – but the thinking behind the answer matters too.
6. Wait Time
Give thinking the time it deserves.
One of the simplest ways to improve questioning is also one of the most powerful:
Wait.
Teachers naturally want to fill silence. However, answering our own questions too quickly, rephrasing them immediately or selecting the first available hand can unintentionally reduce thinking.
After asking a question:
Ask → Pause → Allow thinking → Select
The length of the pause should reflect the complexity of the question.
A recall question may require only a brief pause.
A question requiring pupils to analyse, evaluate or make connections deserves considerably longer.
Wait Time can also be used after a pupil answers.
Rather than immediately evaluating the response, pause and allow the pupil – or the rest of the class – to continue thinking.
Silence in a classroom does not necessarily mean nothing is happening.
Sometimes silence is the sound of thinking.
Bringing the Techniques Together
The six techniques are most powerful when they work together.
For example, a teacher might:
Ask a challenging question
↓
use Wait Time
↓
allow Think–Pair–Share
↓
use Cold Calling to gather responses
↓
use Probing Questions to explore the thinking
↓
use No Opt Out to maintain participation
↓
finish with a Hinge Question to decide whether the class is ready to move on.
This is not a prescribed sequence. Instead, it illustrates how different questioning techniques can be combined to create a classroom where everyone thinks, everyone participates and the teacher continually gathers information about learning.
Questioning and the St Kent’s Lesson
Questioning is not an additional feature of the St Kent’s Lesson.
It runs through it.
Creating the Conditions
Cold Calling, No Opt Out and Wait Time help establish a classroom culture where participation is normal, pupils feel supported to contribute and everyone’s thinking matters.
Challenging Thinking
Think–Pair–Share and Probing Questions provide opportunities for pupils to explain, justify, compare, evaluate and make connections.
Understanding the Outcome
Questioning allows teachers to explore whether pupils understand what they are learning, why they are learning it and what success looks like.
Checking Learning
Cold Calling, Hinge Questions and whole-class responses provide teachers with better evidence of what pupils actually understand.
Plenary
Carefully chosen questions allow pupils to articulate what they have learned and allow teachers to judge whether the intended learning has been achieved.
What Should We See?
Across St Kent’s classrooms, we should increasingly see:
Cold Calling and Show Calling used to broaden participation beyond volunteers;
No Opt Out maintaining high expectations while providing pupils with appropriate support;
Think–Pair–Share providing structured opportunities for pupils to think and rehearse responses;
Hinge Questions being used at key points to check whole-class understanding;
Probing Questions developing pupils’ initial responses and reasoning;
Wait Time giving pupils genuine opportunities to think;
questions being planned as part of lesson planning rather than always generated spontaneously;
teachers gathering responses from a range of pupils;
misconceptions being identified and addressed;
pupils increasingly explaining how and why, rather than simply providing an answer;
teachers adapting teaching because of what questioning reveals.
This does not mean that every technique needs to appear in every lesson.
Nor does it mean that questioning should look identical across every subject.
The shared expectation is the principle:
Questioning should make thinking visible and help us decide what to do next.
Impact for Learners
When questioning is consistently effective, our pupils should:
expect to participate in their learning;
know that their ideas and thinking matter;
have sufficient time to think before responding;
become increasingly confident explaining and justifying their ideas;
listen and respond to the thinking of others;
understand that getting something wrong is an opportunity to learn;
develop stronger reasoning and communication skills;
experience appropriate support and challenge;
receive teaching that responds to what they actually understand.
Ultimately, our ambition is to create classrooms where pupils are not simply waiting for the teacher to provide the answer.
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