Leadership

Step up to HLTA: Develop Your Monitoring & Assessing Skills

Check where pupils' thinking really is while you're teaching, and change direction before half the class gets left behind.

  • 32 minutes
  • 7 modules
  • 0.5 CPD hours
  • Certificate

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14 days free, then £70 a year or £7 a month.

What you'll learn

  • Use structured questioning such as pose, pause, pounce, bounce to hear from the whole class
  • Check understanding with active tasks like four corners and card sorts
  • Give the least help first, moving from prompts and clues to modelling
  • Use formative assessment to decide what to teach next
  • Run mid-lesson learning stops so pupils give each other useful feedback

About this course

Once you're leading the lesson rather than supporting it, the hardest part is often knowing whether it's working. A few hands go up with the right answer, the worksheet gets finished, and it's easy to press on while half the room is lost.

As an HLTA you need ways to see what everyone is thinking, and this course gives you plenty. Pose, pause, pounce, bounce opens up a class discussion beyond the usual hands. Four corners and diamond nine card sorts get children moving and deciding, and sentence starters make their reasoning visible. When a pupil is stuck, a ladder of support (prompt first, then a clue, then modelling) helps you give the least help needed rather than the answer.

You'll also get clear on formative and summative assessment, and run mid-lesson learning stops so pupils check their own work and a partner's while there's still time to fix it.

  • For teaching assistants. All phases.

7 modules

Open in order

  1. Introduction

    3 min
  2. Wrap up

    2 min
  3. Monitoring responses

    9 min
  4. Modifying approaches

    5 min
  5. Focussed support

    5 min
  6. Assessment techniques

    6 min
  7. Feedback

    6 min