Holly Leighton

I strive to make all lessons engaging by using high levels of metacognitive strategies, getting the students to think deeper about meanings and language. I always begin every lesson with a retrieval task, challenging students to remember knowledge from the past to fill in any gaps.

I take a progressive teaching approach, putting the pupil at the centre at everything I do. I use a lot of positive praise to encourage success and this has worked with all classes I have taught. I chunk information down so we don’t have any issues with information overload - this also prevents students from becoming overwhelmed and disengaged.

I use high levels of questioning to encourage students to think deeply about the information they have obtained and will regularly do checkpoint quizzes to ensure students have successfully understood the knowledge taught.

My presentations are very minimalistic to avoid cognitive overload as most of the knowledge and information I teach comes directly from teacher / student interaction.