Page 9 - Teaching and Learning Policy 2026

Green Gates’ 6 Principles of Effective Teaching and Learning

Effective What this looks like in our classrooms:
Instruction

Active Mini whiteboards are used to check for understanding. The use of these is consistent
Participation across school with teachers using the phrase, ‘1,2,3 show me’ to ensure that all
pupils show their boards at the same time.

There is a TPS routine in all classes where the teacher sets a focused question,
pupils are given thinking time, pair to discuss given sentence stems, then some pupils
are selected to share.

Choral responses are used regularly so that all pupils are actively involved in the
lesson.

Direct Short, purposeful exposition that starts from pupils’ current understanding and links
Instruction to prior knowledge.

Teachers model processes aloud using metacognitive talk (narrating thinking).

Explanations are clear and concise with opportunities to check for understanding
embedded throughout.

In all classrooms, teachers model live to ensure that modelling can be tailored to
pupils’ specific needs and to provide clarity.

Sequencing in Worked examples are used to support pupils’ learning by clearly demonstrating the
Small Steps steps needed to complete a task or solve a problem. They play a key role in helping
pupils move from initial understanding to independent application.

Teachers break learning into small ‘practisable’ steps that can be repeated and
perfected. In doing so, teachers model exactly what is expected of pupils and then
provide scaffolds for those who need additional support.

We apply the process of ‘I do, we do, you do’. Pupils receive a model from the
teacher (I do), they then jointly complete an example with the teacher (we do) and
finally they complete an example of their own (you do).

Metacognitive When modelling, teachers model thinking aloud, where they narrate their reasoning
Talk and decision making, making invisible learning visible.

Each classroom has age appropriate sentence stems for pupils to use to support their
‘metacognitive voice.’

So that… Pupils acquire new knowledge and skills.