Our Core Beliefs

At Wayland Academy, our teaching and learning is underpinned by two fundamental beliefs:

As teachers, we are the 'decisive element in the classroom'.

As professionals, every teacher 'needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better'.

Our Approach to Teaching

We believe that high quality teaching is the consequence of three key elements: teachers preparing thoroughly for what they intend pupils to learn, deliberately directing children's attention to the intended learning, and systematically checking that learning has happened.

Prepare

Our teachers clearly identify the knowledge we intend children to learn both in a lesson and over a sequence of lessons, thinking carefully about how this knowledge will be presented. These decisions determine the stories we tell, the models we present, the examples we demonstrate and the questions we ask.

Why this matters:

• Working memory is limited - it can only process 3-4 pieces of information at a time, so new material must be broken down into small steps
• Routines reduce cognitive load - consistent approaches allow pupils to focus their mental effort on learning
• Knowledge builds on knowledge - we understand new things in the context of what we already know

Direct

Our teachers effectively implement practices that maximise pupil attention on new knowledge and minimise distractions in an environment where pupils are held accountable for their active engagement and participation in learning.

Why this matters:

• We remember what we think deeply about - memory is the residue of thought
• Attention is key - if students don't attend to the right information, they are unlikely to learn anything
• Explicit instruction works - direct instruction by subject experts who model and scaffold powerful subject knowledge is the most efficient way of imparting new knowledge

Check

Our teachers effectively implement practices that formatively assess what pupils have learned, utilising adaptive teaching, facilitating rapid and personalised feedback and re-teaching in the moment.

Why this matters:

• Learning is invisible - what we observe in lessons is often just performance, not true learning
• Learning means memory has changed - if long-term memory hasn't changed, effective learning hasn't occurred
• Questions reveal understanding - teachers need to ask lots of questions of lots of pupils and then act on what they discover

How Our Curriculum Comes to Life

Our pupils' curriculum and learning journey moves through three stages:

The Intended Object of Learning - What we plan for our pupils to learn, informed by the 'best that has been thought and said' in each subject.

The Enacted Object of Learning - What is taught in school, as experienced by pupils, filtered through the skills and experience of our teachers and evidence-led.

The Lived Object of Learning - The learning pupils' have experienced and participated in after they have been taught, as they relate new knowledge to their prior experience and learning. We define learning as what students can remember over time.