Research School Network: Hear It. See It. Adapt It – Hear It. See It. Adapt It: Using structured talk to check understanding in PE By George Wajohi, Director of CPD at Manchester Communication Academy

In a practical subject like PE, successful performance of skills or access to a task can mask true student understanding. Students can often show evidence of skills or access tasks without having a deeper understanding that is needed for application across varying contexts. It is important for teachers to establish ways to make understanding visible. This will allow the teacher to make accurate decisions about learning.


Checking what students understand can help us decide what happens next. Checking involves gathering feedback from pupils to the teacher which gives us concrete evidence of what students understand and is a crucial element to adaptive teaching. A particularly useful resource that can be used to think about checking for understanding and the adaptations that follow is the ​‘Check. Adapt’ resource from the EEF. This resource helps guide the decisions teachers need to make in the moment when responding to the evidence from pupils. It tells us that after checking for understanding we must consider the following next steps:


● If many misunderstand, we must pause and fix.

● If some are unsure, we adapt support.

● If most understand, we extend and support.


In my PE lessons, one strategy that I use to check for understanding and make student thinking visible is structured paired talk. The mechanism I use to support this is the Voice 21​‘talk tactics’. Talk tactics are useful tools to scaffold talk – in particular the use of probe, challenge and build – that have helped my pupils to explain, justify and refine their thinking. When presented with a stimulus, these talk tactics act as sentence stems that support pupils to articulate their thoughts when speaking for different purposes.


An example recently whereby a paired discussion has led to a teaching adaptation was in a basketball lesson. The objective of the lesson was for students to select and use an appropriate pass to maintain possession. During a conditioned practice in a 3 vs 2 situation, I observed pupils complete successful passes. However observation alone does not show whether they understand when and why each pass should be selected. Success could be down to pure instincts or preference, therefore not really an indicator as to whether students are having to make cognitive decisions or whether they are able to transfer this success into a different situation and context.


After this observation, students were brought together[AK5] and posed with a scenario that showed a player in possession of the ball, a defender in close proximity and their teammate. Students were then asked to discuss which pass they would select and why. Pupils were probed to explain which pass they would use. I asked students to build on their answer by thinking about the defender and the position of their teammate. Students were then challenged to think about this if the defender’s position or their teammate’s position changed. The evidence from this may have told me that many misunderstood as they had selected the wrong pass or struggled to make a decision when the situation changed. At this point I would have paused and fixed, by re-teaching using different explanations and re-modelling two contrasting situations. I would have shown students the wrong or less effective choice of a chest pass being used and the defender intercepting it, followed by the correct more effective choice whereby the bounce pass reached the teammate. Students would have been asked to clarify why the second was more effective.


This issue can also arise in other practical subjects, such as art, design technology, drama, food technology, and music. In art, pupils may use a technique successfully without understanding why or when it is effective. In design technology, they may use tools or materials correctly without understanding why a particular method was chosen. In drama, they may perform a technique effectively without understanding its purpose or impact. In food technology, they may follow a recipe successfully without understanding the processes. Similarly, in music, pupils may perform a skill accurately without demonstrating their understanding of the underlying principles. In each case, checking for understanding is vital to uncover learning and structured talk is a strategy that can be used to do this. In all of these practical subjects, just like in PE, pupils can use evaluative talk to articulate their thinking, which allows teachers to gather evidence that leads to adaptation.


In summary, checking for understanding is important but it is what we do with that information that really makes the difference for learners. One of the ways we can do this is through explicitly teaching pupils oracy skills and providing opportunities for talk- allowing teachers in practical subjects to gather evidence of learning that goes beyond performative measures. This is key to ensure teachers of these subjects are confident in making accurate decisions that lead to moving learning forward through adapting teaching.

References:

Education Endowment Foundation (2026). Teacher feedback to improve pupil learning. Check.Adapt.