Blog
19th May 2025
Metacognition in the classroom – plan, monitor and evaluating learning
How we can practically use metacognition strategies in the classroom?
Charlotte Palmer
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: Context matters….but do people matter more? Context matters. Culture and climate matter. Attendance, learning attitudes and attainment all matter.
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Blog
Context matters….but do people matter more?
Context matters. Culture and climate matter. Attendance, learning attitudes and attainment all matter.
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by Gloucestershire Research School at the Gloucestershire Learning Alliance
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Jenn Sills
Gloucestershire Research School Deputy Director
Jenn has experience of Teaching and Leadership in Primary schools across Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, South Gloucestershire and Bristol. Jenn has a passion for raising the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and supporting schools to use evidence-based approaches to support teaching and learning.
Context matters.
Culture and climate matter.
Attendance, learning attitudes and attainment all matter.
But I would argue that people matter more.
Teachers, TAs, admin staff, pastoral teams, midday supervisors, care takers. They all really matter because anyone of them can make difference to a pupil and making a difference to just one pupil is making a difference.
Schools love a strategy and often the most thought about, most widely shared and understood strategy is the school development plan. Everyone is aware of this strategy. They know the priorities and the part they have to play in enacting it. Regular staff training is dedicated to it, it’s regularly monitored and its progress evaluated, it is adapted when necessary, there are clear success criteria and accountability markers.
Now ask yourself, can the same be said of the school pupil premium strategy?
Katriona O’Sullivan talks passionately about the impact of “if you’re not shown, you don’t know”1. She talks about this in terms of not knowing about basic hygiene routines as a child growing up in deep poverty but I would argue the same could be said for staff if they aren’t shown a fundamental school strategy, the pupil premium strategy.
People make the difference so putting time, resource and professional development in to your people is vital. It can be the thing that makes the difference between a pupil thriving and a pupil slipping the net.
The EEF Guide to Effective Professional Development states that;
“Teachers make a difference. No matter the phase or school setting, it is the quality of teaching that can make the biggest difference to children’s learning and to their ultimate success in school. What’s more, the quality of teaching is not fixed: teachers can be improved via effective professional development. Ensuring that teachers are provided with high quality PD is therefore crucial in improving pupil outcomes.”
I would argue that Effective PD is wider than teaching and learning. We talk a lot in schools about forming positive relationships, working with parents yet “fewer than 10% of teachers say that they have received training on parental engagement.”
The EEF Guide to the Pupil Premium tiered approach to effective pupil premium spending highlights how influential human resource is when implementing an effective pupil premium strategy. The new implementation guidance report then reminds us how social successful implementation is and how attending to the behaviours around implementation is what makes the difference between it being effective or not.
People can make the difference but they don’t know what they don’t know. In order to tackle disadvantage we all have to have skin in the game. We all have to strive to be that person that pupils look back on positively and maybe be the one that made the difference.
So, before you move on with your day, take a moment to ask yourself;
- Do the people who matter know?
- Are they aware of the strategy and their part in enacting it?
- Have they had sufficient training to effectively enact the strategy
1 O’Sullivan, K (2023) Poor
