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Curriculum

Teach to the Top

Stop pitching lessons to the middle and give every pupil the same challenging work, with the support to reach it.

  • 35 minutes
  • 8 modules
  • 0.5 CPD hours
  • Certificate

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What you'll learn

  • Spot when differentiation is dumbing down work for some pupils
  • Pitch tasks so every pupil has to work hard but can succeed
  • Structure lessons around telling, showing, doing and practising
  • Use mastery learning so pupils secure one step before the next
  • Build a classroom where pupils see mistakes as part of learning

About this course

Differentiation often means easier tasks and simpler questions for the pupils labelled less able. Done that way, it puts a glass ceiling on their ambitions, and they never get near the harder thinking.

Teaching to the top turns that round. You pitch work in every pupil's struggle zone, hard but achievable, and give some pupils more time and support to get there rather than less to aim for. The course makes it practical, with a four-step sequence of telling, showing, doing and practising, consistent routines that free up working memory, and a mastery model where pupils show they've got it before moving on.

You'll also look at how to build a classroom where mistakes are expected, so pupils take on hard work instead of backing away from it.

  • For early career teachers and teachers. Post-16, primary and secondary.

8 modules

Open in order

  1. Introduction

    3 min

  2. Wrap up and resource pack

    1 min

  3. What is differentiation?

    2 min

  4. Routines

    11 min

  5. The Jaggedness Principle

    4 min

  6. Teaching to the top

    4 min

  7. Mastery learning

    5 min

  8. Comfortable with discomfort

    9 min