: Leading teaching and learning in an ever- evolving education landscape Leading teaching and learning in an ever- evolving education landscape

Gill Fearns is the Deputy Head of St Mary’s RC Primary School situated in East Lancashire in the North West of England. The school has above average location deprivation with a high proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals. She is responsible for leading teaching, learning and curriculum development within school and is also the Director of Lancashire Research School. In this blog, she reviews the latest EEF Metacognition and Self- Regulated Learning Guidance Report and how this supports leading teaching and learning in a small primary school.

In today’s evolving educational landscape, with new frameworks and policies continually emerging, school leaders face the challenge of navigating and sustaining effective curriculum development and ensuring high quality teaching for all. As a school leader, it can feel like being the captain of a ship through a stormy sea. Within our school, with a small staff team where teachers and leaders assume so many different roles and responsibilities, our ​‘anchor’ is always to turn to what the evidence and research show to be the ​‘best- bets’ to enhance our school offer. This includes having laser – focus on the lived school experience for our children who are in receipt of Pupil Premium. The EEF Guidance to the Pupil Premium recognises that high-quality teaching remains the most powerful lever for closing the attainment gap for pupils experiencing socio-economic disadvantage

As leaders, it is our responsibility to ensure that every child benefits from the richness and riches of our curriculum and experiences the full breadth of opportunities school has to offer so that equity is a reality for all pupils. At St. Mary’s, our curriculum offer is underpinned by our ​‘REACH’ drivers as we aim for all pupils to become: Resilient, Enterprising, Aspiring, good Citizens who are Healthy for life. As part of this, we actively seek to help pupils become more independent, reflective learners and we know that metacognition and self-regulation remain high-impact, low-cost
approaches to improving attainment – especially for disadvantaged pupils (as evidenced by the EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit that reflects 8 months’ progress).

The Education Endowment Foundation has recently published an update to its Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning Guidance Report - one of the most widely used and practical resources for teachers and school leaders. The updated report brings greater clarity and detail about the approaches and strategies that teachers can use to promote metacognition and self-regulated learning in their classroom practice, including how they can embed metacognitive talk, model thinking aloud, and explicitly teach metacognitive strategies – approaches strongly supported by the evidence.

What’s new and what does this look like in practice?


The main change in this updated guidance is that this report focusses on what the teacher can do to promote metacognitive skills as opposed to the focus being on the pupil.


There are 7 key recommendations:

The ​‘Nigel effect’

For those of you who are not familiar, this is Nigel, a character from Matilda the Musical. During the film, there is a scene where Nigel looks as if he may combust as he stares at a complex mathematical equation on the board and states, ​“Miss, it is hurting my brain!”. Whilst we want our pupils to be challenged within their learning, we also want pupils who know what to do if ​‘they’re stuck’ at the point of independence. So how within a small school, where every adult working with the children plays such a vital role, do we avoid ​‘The Nigel effect’? How do we ensure that there is a consistent approach so that teachers use metacognition and self-regulation approaches to support pupils to think about learning more explicitly?

Recommendation 7
Schools should develop effective implementation processes to promote metacognition and self- regulated learning.
As part of our vision to ensure that pupils become more independent, reflective learners we developed a 2- year implementation plan to support high quality teaching and learning from EYFS to Y6. We wanted to ensure that all staff understood what metacognition is and why it matters. To do this, the leadership team presented research evidence; shared case studies of improved pupil outcomes through metacognitive approaches and allowed time for teachers and teaching assistants to reflect on current practice and identify areas for development. This helped to engage and unite the team (EEF: A School’s Guide to Implementation). Drawing on the recommendations from EEF: Effective Professional Development Report, we invested in developing teaching techniques. We planned for explicit instruction of teaching techniques such as think- aloud modelling; metacognitive questioning and structured reflection routines as part of whole school staff CPD (including teaching assistants) and focussed on how these techniques would look within different subject disciplines. Modelling was used throughout PD and time allocated for staff to practice and rehearse techniques outside of the classroom. Peer coaching was used as social support and to promote collaboration across school with the aim to embed practice so that it was ​‘part of the school’s DNA’. Via a range of monitoring activities, such as Pupil Book Study to ascertain pupil voice, learning walks, observation of coaching sessions etc, we were able to track the impact on learning and teacher confidence.


This is just a brief overview of how we put evidence into practice to enhance teaching and learning.

For further guidance and support please see:


Education Endowment Foundation (2025) Metacognition and Self- Regulation: Guidance Report. Available at: Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning | Education Endowment Foundation


Education Endowment Foundation (2021) Effective Professional Development: Guidance Report. Available at: Effective Professional Development | EEF


Education Endowment Foundation (2025) Deployment of Teaching Assistants: Guidance Report. Available at: Deployment of Teaching Assistants | EEF


Education Endowment Foundation (2025) The EEF Guide to the Pupil Premium. Available at: The EEF Guide to the Pupil Premium | EEF


Teaching and Learning Toolkit | EEF