Horses for courses but knowledge is still key

Last term I had the fantastic opportunity to visit a school which gets exemplary results in order to see what I could learn from them and what I could take to my department.

I saw a school of pupils who were aspirational. I saw pupils who loved their lessons. I saw pupils who were willing to justify their opinions and cogently yet respectfully challenge the opinions of others. However, I also saw a number of practices which my academic reading had led me away from and which my department has actively moved away from in the last five years.

This was a conundrum; I had to been sent to learn about this school’s practices because they are successful. Yet, some of their practices were the exact ones I’d be advised to avoid. However, on closer inspection, I saw the foundation which supported the excellence I saw in lessons; every pupil I saw was exceptionally knowledgeable. In a history lesson (their first on the Cold War), I saw pupils guess “Yeltsin” and “Putin” when presented with a picture of Gorbachev and Reagan and in a geography lesson, I heard pupils accurately discuss the sources of income for different countries with little prompting. Pupils seemed like sponges; while there was relatively little explicit knowledge input in lessons, they instantly absorbed and built on what they were given.

My visit made me sit back and carefully consider my pedagogical approach. Ultimately, it showed me that success can be achieved in multiple ways. Yet, it has also caused me to nail my colours to the mast of a knowledge based, direct instruction curriculum even more firmly. Multiple people told me that they did not view specific topics or knowledge as a priority. However, their students were knowledgeable and, as a result, were also eloquent, opinionated, and articulate. It struck me that the cultural capital, vocabulary, and knowledge which these pupils have gained in and outside the classroom has had an immeasurable benefit; it is not that knowledge is unimportant, but rather that these pupils have gained their knowledge from a wide variety of sources, only one of which is the classroom.

We cannot, and should not, assume any of our pupils automatically have access to such opportunities. Therefore, I feel even more compelled to ensure that my pupils have as many opportunities as I can provide, through opportunities outside the classroom, but mostly importantly through knowing and understanding that knowledge which is foundational (a whole debate in itself) and having said knowledge delivered to them as efficiently as possible in the small window which I have.

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