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
Members
14 days free, then £70 a year or £7 a month.
Have a join code from your school?
Already have an account? Sign in
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
- 3 min
Introduction
- 2 min
Wrap up
- 9 min
Monitoring responses
- 5 min
Modifying approaches
- 5 min
Focussed support
- 6 min
Assessment techniques
- 6 min
Feedback

