Research School Network: Scaffolding for Equity Catherine Corns, Curriculum Team Leader of English at Pegasus Academy discusses Scaffolding for Equity

Feedback, done well, is one of the most effective ways in narrowing gaps between where students are and where teachers want them to be. The EEF report found that ​‘there is evidence to suggest that feedback involving metacognitive and self-regulatory approaches may have a greater impact on disadvantaged pupils and lower prior attainers than other pupils.’ Yet feedback is likely one area of our pedagogy where we might not focus on the specifics of equity for disadvantaged pupils.

In Karen Potter’s previous blog (Equity v Equality), the need to create parity for disadvantaged pupils in the way feedback is delivered, received and used was discussed in its strategic phase. What follows here are some of the processes I went through with the English department to maximise equity through feedback in a subject that often struggles to narrow gaps academically.

I first provided the department with the statement ​‘Pupils require clear and actionable feedback to employ metacognitive strategies’ from the EEF report on feedback findings and asked what disadvantaged learners might need additionally to place them on the level field with their peers. We concentrated primarily on feedback around extended writing opportunities (Demonstrates). As a department we decided we wanted to focus on adaptations to that:

A) Provided task specific prompts to guide meta-cognitive self-regulation 

B) Encouraged us to write clean, actionable feedback that pupils could work on with some autonomy to make their own progress

C) Created space for enriching conversations that encourage self-reflection

The department’s written feedback routine already uses a Connect where pupils’ work is given a colour-coded EBI that corresponds with a pre-populated sheet and denoted via a teacher highlight on the work.

Upon reflection, we felt that prompts of this sort were complex in their explanations and created situations whereby pupils asked several questions of clarity, slowing any self-regulation or meaningful, differentiated conversations.

The Connect task’s success relies on the success of step 1 of the EEF effective feedback principles: laying the foundations. I focused some CPD on high-quality instruction, modelling and providing clear success criteria for a task. It is now part of our department ​‘effective teaching routine’ that success criteria are shared with pupils prior to, and throughout, their completion of a Demonstrate. Success criteria then becomes a fundamental part of the process in our new Connect routine to promote meta-cognition and regulation (mentioned later). In effect, the feedback writes itself. For disadvantaged pupils, equity is also around the language of sharing feedback. The EEF state it is important to feedback ​‘when things are correct’, so whole class verbal feedback always outlines the successes of the task before the meta-cognitive processes begin. Nuances for disadvantaged pupils within the school’s guidelines include a specific, positive WWW comment written next to where one aspect of success criteria is achieved.

Using science of learning principles, pupils are reminded of prior learning and the original benchmark before they ​‘connect’. There may now be a cognitive layer added whereby teachers label the separate success criteria in their model, rather than merely repeating the model guiding students to meta-cognitively identify the weaknesses of their own response in comparison to the specific list of ingredients for success that were shared and are now contextualised and re-modelled to them. I also wanted teachers to be aware that self-regulation requires time, and so time is given within a lesson for pupils to make the cognitive and regulatory links between the original effort and the Connect. To further guide this process (and meet our aim number 2), I developed a scaffolded connect sheet that acts as a helpdesk to encourage pupils to work with some critical autonomy through their Connect. All the vocabulary will have been taught throughout the module using Frayer models and is on student glossaries. Critical verbs are part of our ​‘word of the week’ strategy and will feature on wall displays and in the model. Nothing should be ​‘new’.

Prompts are created by the teacher following walk arounds during pupils completing the task originally. They might be a fact, a quotation, a subject specific term that would strengthen the response. The questions are used to challenge pupils to develop their response; these are not things missing but rather what could be added for depth.

The regulation comes from pupils selecting the parts of the feedback that they can see will improve their response. The point of highest leverage will have been highlighted in the corresponding colour by the teacher to focus their enactment. It might be a lexical exchange to strengthen their communication (we are vocabulary rich in our desire to bridge vocabulary gaps brought about by disadvantaged contexts), a contextual detail they omitted to link their knowledge of the text to their learning of the real-world etc. Whilst pupils make these self-regulating choices and enactments, teachers move to identified RADY pupils for the conversations that we felt were important but often lacking because of time constraints. Teachers prompt pupils to find the WWW and acknowledge their successes and then discuss the connect, ensuring the feedback is understood.


Importantly, we need to recognise that ​‘time’ is more than the one instance of feedback. Time is also repeated reference to success criteria as learning moves forward. The task itself won’t be repeated; pupils will be asked to transfer the learning gathered through the feedback to a new exercise with the same skill-parameters to see improvements for themselves. The first stage of this next wave of feedback should be pupils looking back on the last demonstrate and seeing what is ​‘different’ in the next one.


The process presented here is ongoing and is very much still in development. We have seen the gap lessen anecdotally in KS3 groups where pupils feel more confident in articulating their progress steps and in the amount of work that disadvantaged pupils now complete; there are creating their own equity and that is hopefully due to the impact of specific previous feedback that has enabled success.

You can read the recommendations from the EEF Guidance Report for Effective Feedback here- https://educationendowmentfoun…