Research School Network: Bradford Research School: January Research Round-up A guide to the interesting things we’ve seen and done in January

Every month we will share some of the most interesting things we’ve come across or been involved with. Here are some of our highlights from January:

We listened to: Naylor’s Natter
Phil Naylor, who works with both the Teacher Development Trust and Blackpool Research School, is well-placed to discuss all things to do with research, so we were excited to see him launch a podcast. In the first episode, Phil speaks to his colleague Simon Cox, the Director of Blackpool Research School, about the research that has influenced his teaching practice the most, in particular Barak Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction. Like Desert Island Discs but with research and from Blackpool.
https://anchor.fm/naylorsnattering

We read: Blogs from Exceed Academies Trust’s Evidence-Based Practice Champions
We recommend having a read through this collection of blog posts. Each blog post explores an issue of interest in schools and how the evidence applies. There are posts on Teaching Assistants, Lesson Study, Formative Assessment and more:

https://exceedacademiestrust.c…

We saw: The Learning Scientists
The Learning Scientists are a group of cognitive scientists who have helped to provide clear and useful messages around effective study and long-term learning. We had the pleasure of attending the two day conference held by Advantage Schools where they shared the evidence behind their 6 recommended strategies: Retrieval Practice; Spacing; Interleaving; Dual Coding; Elaboration; Concrete Examples. Their website is a treasure-trove of useful guidance, downloadable materials and videos to help understand these further:

http://www.learningscientists.…

We visited: Wyndham Primary Academy, home of Derby Research School
Knowledge Organisers are a bit of a hot topic at the moment and we were pleased to be invited to speak about them to teachers from across Derby. You can read the article form our head of Research School Mark Miller on Knowledge Organisers in the Chartered College of Teaching’s Impact Journal here. Please get in touch if you are in Bradford and would like us to come to you to discuss the evidence behind Knowledge Organisers and the best recommendations for their use in schools.

We read: Education inspection framework: Overview of Research from Ofsted
Ofsted have released their proposed education inspection framework for consultation. In parallel, they have released a document outlining the research evidence which underpins the inspection framework: ​“This paper presents the research evidence underpinning the education inspection framework. The review draws on a range of sources, including both our own research programme and a review of existing evidence bases.”

The review of evidence makes for interesting reading, and also provides a reading list for those interested in exploring aspects further.