This week: Banning three-part lessons

If someone says...“Can’t a week go by without a call to ban something in schools?”

You say... “How do you normally plan your lessons?”

If someone says: “Starter, main, plenary - the same as every other teacher.”

You say... “What if you ditched that three-part approach altogether?”

If someone says... “But that’s how we’ve always done it.”

You say... “Adam Riches, a specialist leader of education, argues that learning doesn’t work in these big chunks. And neither should planning. He also says that we shouldn’t be thinking of lessons in anything other than five-minute segments.

“New material should be introduced in small steps to allow pupils to process the content, Riches says. A 15-minute ‘main task’ risks overloading their working memory, leading to disengagement.”

If someone says... “Hmm, I’m not about to change my whole approach to lessons.”

You say... “Look at it this way: if this conversation had taken 15 minutes, you’d be thinking about having a cuppa or treating yourself to a wee. But it only took five minutes, so you’ve retained the information and still got time to pop to the loo and put the kettle on. I’ll have a tea, cheers.”