This issue of the Lady Lumley's Teaching & Learning Journal provides strategies for differentiated questioning and seating arrangements to promote high-quality discussion. It also offers ideas for embedding learning, such as using hexagons to link concepts across topics. Suggestions are given for adapting activities like "Stolen Poetry" for different subjects by having students write responses and share phrases with each other. The journal encourages using higher-order questioning and provides exemplars to model this.

1. Lady Lumley’s
Teaching & Learning Journal
Termly teaching and learning toolkit
November 2015
This Issue
Getting the balance right
ABC discussion
Mixed ability seating for questioning
& differentiation
Making learning stick
MintClass Classroom Tools
Issue 3 Nov. 2015 1
ABC to promote
high quality
discussion
A key aspect of high
quality questioning
leading to high quality
discussion is to make
sure that students build
upon each other’s
ideas. Use the ABC
model to help you to do
this.
Begin by asking a student a question
A
Ask another student if
they agree with the
answer.
AGREE
B
Ask another student to
build upon the
previous person’s
response.
BUILD
UPON
C
Ask another student to
challenge the previous
person’s response.
CHALLENGE
Getting the balance right

2. Lady Lumley’s
Teaching &Learning Journal
Termly teaching and learning toolkit
Issue 3 Nov. 2015 2
Close Analysis of Text (suggested by English)
1) 4 different, specific areas to focus on depending
on the attainment of the student e.g.
L: character
LM: setting
HM: imagery
H: symbolism
Processes that involve more that one
step (suggested by Maths)
1) A process is taught
2) Students then split into attainment groups to
work on one specific step of the process
(differentiated by difficulty, see below)
L: work on step one together
LM: work on step two together
HM: work on step three together
H: work on step four together
3) Students return to home table to teach the
steps/work through the steps with new
questions
OTHER APPLICATIONS: Science experiments,
English (PEEing), physical Geography processes
Sentence Building (suggested by
MFL)
1) Students each take on a
differentiated role in the process
of sentence building
L: use today's key vocab
LM: use last lesson’s key vocab
HM: use A* mats
H: Use AS/A2 mats
2) Students could work in
attainment groups and then return
to home table to share ideas to
create a passage of writing
OTHER APPLICATIONS: any subject
where the outcome is the same but
the support in place is different
OTHER APPLICATIONS: any subject where a method/
idea needs to be picked apart

3. Lady Lumley’s
Teaching &Learning Journal
Termly teaching and learning toolkit
Issue 3 Nov. 2015 3
Group Activity (suggested by PE)
1) Each of the four groups has a different
task (that get progressively harder) e.g.
L: simple 4 point balance
LM: 2 point balance
HM: paired matching balance
H: paired mirrored balance
2) Groups come back together and produce a sequence that uses all 4 tasks.
OTHER APPLICATIONS: any subject where
several skills can be blended into group
work (drama, music etc.)
Exploring a Theory
(Suggested by Geography)
1) Students explore the theory in different attainment groups that
access the material in an way that increases in difficulty.
2) Groups research together and practice teaching each other.
3) Return to home group to teach (one colour at a time)
Try using a
different pen
colour per
task to ensure
no logs
Peer Assessment (suggested by
Art)
Practical task for analysing visual
images (by students or by
designers/artists etc.)
L: obvious descriptors- what is
seen?
LM: basic analysis – what do you
think about…?
HM: context/intentions – what are
they trying to convey?
H: deeper contextual meaning
thinking about background and
influences
Peer Assessment for an Evaluation
(suggested by design technology)
1. One person from each table identifies and
evaluates a specific category from another
students work. E.g.
L: against design criteria
LM: positives
HM: targets for improvement
H: another option (possibly decided by
the individual)
2. Attainment groups then work together to
share common findings before they begin
assessing other students’ work
N.B. Use different colours to show the different
types of feedback/assessment

4. Lady Lumley’s
Teaching &Learning Journal
Termly teaching and learning toolkit
Issue 3 Nov. 2015 4
Original Idea: Stolen Poetry (English)
The teacher puts a starter sentence on the board, e.g. Mesmerised I stepped
forward...... the students and the teacher then have 4 minutes to continue the
sentence in anyway that they wish. At the end of the 4 minutes volunteers
read out their responses and the rest of the class can steal lines or words from
their paragraph/story that they like and write them down.
Once all the volunteers have read out their stories, the class has 6 minutes to
write a poem from the original starter sentence. They cannot add anything new
that is not in their own story or been stolen from someone else (except
connectives). The results are then read out to the class and the look of pride
on the students faces when they hear their lines used is fantastic.
Adaptation - Stolen Answers
1. Give the students a starter line e.g. Marxists believe that crime is.......
2. Students have 4 minutes to write a paragraph starting with this line on the
tables using whiteboard pens. This can be creative i.e. a poem, rap, song
lyrics or within a given structure e.g. PEE, PERC
3. Volunteers read out responses and the rest of the class write down on the
tables (use paper if you’d prefer!) using a different colour whiteboard pen
words and phrases that they like from the read out responses.
4. Students have 6 minutes to redraft the paragraph (or poem) using what they
have stolen as well as their original ideas. They cannot add anything new
except connectives. These are written in their notes rather then on tables.
5. Get some of the students to read out their ideas. Or use a visualiser to
display.
Credit to Kimberley Constable @hecticteacher
http://staffrm.io/@hecticteacher/JTo3uSTFW1

5. Lady Lumley’s
Teaching &Learning Journal
Termly teaching and learning toolkit
5
Did you
know?
80% of classroom questioning is based on low order,
factual, recall questions. We must put questioning back at
the centre of our pedagogy and planning. We need to
create a culture of enquiry and engagement in high
quality, high order questioning if progress is to be
identified effectively.
Use key questions as learning objectives.
This supports a culture of enquiry. Select a big question that gets
students to think critically about what they are going to learn. Asking a
big question, framed well, will initiate thinking and group discussion
that engages students in their learning. This can raise motivation.
Students can then use a big question to formulate their own learning
intention.
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important
thing is to not stop questioning” Albert Einstein
What caused
World War 1
….becomes… Why did 2 bullets lead to 20
million deaths?
‘If this is the answer….
what is the question?’
This technique, as seen in
the show Mock the Week,
sparks inquisitiveness in
students.
It could be a closed
answer, like
‘3.141159265359’ or
something more open like
‘famine’.
Thunks – these are great for
initiating and promoting deeper
thinking.
The website www.thunks.co.uk has
lots of examples. You can challenge
students to create their own thunks.
If I ask if I can
steal your pen and
you say yes, is
that stealing?
Some questioning ideas from Pete Jackson,
Director of T/L at Norton College

6. Lady Lumley’s
Teaching &Learning Journal
Termly teaching and learning toolkit
6
Use modelling and
exemplar answers
frequently. Not only
does this help teach
skills and
application, it
exposes the
students to the
material an
additional time.
Use sets of
hexagons with key
facts and vocab
from the whole
course. Students
have to tessellate
like a honeycomb.
They are forced to
find and make links
across the topics
and explain them.
This hard thinking
will help embed the
learning. Evidence
says that the more
complex links, the
better the
understanding.
Ask students to
summarise their
own piece of work in
a different way, this
could be a feedback
task or extension
task; say it
differently or
present it
differently. This
makes them revisit
and consolidate and
think hard or
differently about the
topic.
Introduce key
words or concepts
at the start of the
topic. This could be
through using a
glossary, test, key
words list, or exam
question, for
example. You will
then revisit when
you get to that point
in the topic. And
then again during
plenary and
revision.
When questioning a
group, ask the
same question in a
range of different
ways, a number of
different times.
Press students to
link to other facts or
parts of the topic so
that there is
exposure to those
topics also.
Repetition of the
subject content will
reinforce memory.
Plan three different
tasks in a lesson to
ensure that students
are exposed three
times to the material
but have to think
about it in three
different ways such
as teacher
explanation,
questioning, source,
reading, exam
question, mind-map,
paired discussion,
written work.
(http://pamhook.com/solo-apps/hexagon-generator/)
6 ways to
embed
learning
Ideas from Katie Hunter, Assistant Head at Ryedale School.

7. Lady Lumley’s
Teaching &Learning Journal
Termly teaching and learning toolkit
Issue 3 Nov. 2015 7
Laura
Bell
Randomly select
the next student
to share an
answer
Show a timer

8. NOTES:
Issue 3 Nov. 2015 8