From Guesswork to Greatness

Why Mini Whiteboards Are Your Best Diagnostic Tool for the classroom

We’ve all been there. You’ve just finished explaining a complex concept and you ask the class: “Does everyone understand?”

A sea of nodding heads meets your gaze. You move on, only to find during the next assessment that half the class were actually lost at sea.

If we want to close the attainment gap and ensure no student is left behind, we need to move away from a “finger-crossing” pedagogy. This is where the humble mini whiteboard (MWB) becomes the most powerful piece of tech in your classroom.

Maths in Years 7 & 8

The value of this tool was brought into sharp focus during this week’s lesson drop-ins across Key Stage 3 Mathematics. Observing Year 7 and 8 lessons, it was striking to see how MWBs transformed the room from a passive environment into an active classroom. In one Year 8 session the teacher’s use of mini whiteboards was used to spot misconceptions and check students’ understanding of probability, the teacher paused, scanned the whiteboard responses and could make an informed decision on whether to move the lesson on or practise the current step. While in Year 7 students grappled with fractions and integers. Whiteboards were used by students to allow the teacher to ‘see’ students thinking across equivalents, simplifying and adding fractions.

These snapshots from classrooms this week highlight how they are essential for navigating formative assessment and providing in the moment feedback from students. 

The Power of 100% Participation

Traditional questioning (the “hands up” approach) usually samples the most confident 10% of the class. Mini whiteboards flip the script. When you say, “3, 2, 1… Show me!”, you get an instantaneous snapshot of every single student’s current understanding.

Why this matters for your PD:

  • Total Participation Technique: This boosts the participation ratio.  Every student must commit an answer to the board.
  • Safety to Fail: The temporary nature of a whiteboard marker means students are more willing to take risks when they know a mistake can be swiped away in seconds.

Diagnostic feedback isn’t just about seeing who got it right; it’s about identifying why they got it wrong. Mini whiteboards allow you to spot misconceptions and adapt your teaching accordingly. 

How to Maximise the Diagnostic Value:

StrategyActionBenefit
Hinge QuestionsAsk a multiple-choice question with specific distractors.Quickly identify exactly which misconception a group holds.
Process CheckingAsk students to show the first step of a multi-stage problem.Catch errors in logic 
Selective SamplingScan the room and narrate what you see: “I see three different methods for question four…”Promotes peer-to-peer learning and normalises diverse thinking.

Improving Your Practice: Top Tips

To make MWBs work effectively, consistency in routines is key. Without them, they can quickly turn into a distraction.

  1. The “Chin-It” Routine: Teach students to hold the board under their chin. This prevents them from hiding behind their boards or peering at their neighbour’s work.
  2. The “Hover & Pounce”: While students are writing, circulate. If you see a common error emerging, you can stop the class immediately to re-teach.
  3. No-Erase Policy: Occasionally, tell students not to erase their first attempt. This allows you to discuss the journey from a misconception to the correct answer.

The Bottom Line

Mini whiteboards are more than just a novelty; they are a high-leverage tool for responsive teaching. They allow us to stop teaching the lesson we planned and start teaching the students in front of us.

By making the invisible (thought processes) visible, we can provide the precise feedback our students need to succeed.

“Feedback is most powerful when it is given in the moment of learning, not as a post-mortem of a finished task.”

Based on the successes seen in Maths this week, which specific topic in your upcoming expedition would benefit most from a “show me” moment to catch common misconceptions?

Activism, Authenticity and Aquarium Tanks

There is always a moment, somewhere in the middle of fieldwork, when you are reminded exactly why it matters.

Sometimes it is a child standing silently in front of a shark tank, completely captivated. Sometimes it is the thoughtful question that no worksheet could ever have prompted. Sometimes it is overhearing a six-year-old explain microplastics to another child with genuine urgency and compassion.

And sometimes, it is a member of the public stopping you simply to say: “Your children are incredible.”

Recently, our Year 2 children visited The Deep as part of our expedition, The Blue Planet: How Can I Impact the World? Through this learning expedition, children have been exploring ideas around ocean conservation, stewardship and plastic pollution. The visit included immersive exploration of the aquarium itself alongside a workshop focused on protecting our oceans from plastic waste.

On paper, it was a fieldwork visit. In reality, it was something much bigger.

At XP, fieldwork is not an “extra” bolted onto the curriculum. It is not a reward at the end of learning. It is the learning. It is one of the ways we enact the design principle of Activism — creating authentic opportunities for children to encounter the world beyond the classroom and understand their capacity to change it.

Before the visit, the children had already been grappling with big ideas:
How does plastic end up in our oceans?
Why are marine animals affected?
Who is responsible?
Can children make a difference?

But there is a profound difference between reading about environmental damage and standing face-to-face with the creatures affected by it.

Inside the workshop, the children asked thoughtful, challenging questions. They connected prior learning to new information. They debated responsibility. They shared genuine concern for marine life. Importantly, they were not performing knowledge for adults — they cared.

This is the power of purposeful fieldwork within expeditionary learning.

As teachers, though, we also know the grapple.

  • Fieldwork is expensive.
  • Transport costs continue to rise.
  • Budgets are tight.
  • Staffing ratios matter.
  • Risk assessments take time.
  • The organisation behind the scenes is significant.

There are often easier options.

  • We could stay in school.
  • We could watch videos.
  • We could simulate experiences.
  • We could protect timetable time and reduce logistical stress.

And yet, experiences like this remind us why we continue to fight for fieldwork anyway.

Because authenticity changes the quality of learning.

The children returned from The Deep not simply with “facts” about oceans, but with something far more important: a sense of responsibility. Their writing improved because they had something real to say. Their scientific understanding deepened because they had encountered real-world contexts. Their compassion grew because they had emotionally connected with the issue.

This is difficult to quantify in data terms, but immediately visible in the work children produce afterwards.

There is also something important around equity here.

Experiences like visiting aquariums, museums or galleries are not universally accessible outside of school. For some children, fieldwork provides cultural experiences they may otherwise never encounter. When we remove authentic experiences from the curriculum, it is often the children with the least access outside of school who lose the most.

That matters deeply.

One of the most powerful moments of the day came not from the exhibits themselves, but from the conduct of the children. Throughout the visit, members of the public repeatedly commented on their behaviour, curiosity and politeness. They noticed children who were engaged. Children who listened carefully. Children who were excited about learning.

And perhaps that is another often-overlooked outcome of fieldwork within expeditionary learning:
children learning how to exist in the world.

  • How to speak to experts.
  • How to ask questions.
  • How to navigate public spaces.
  • How to represent their community.
  • How to engage respectfully with people and ideas beyond school walls.

These are not “extras”.
They are part of the curriculum too.

At XP, we often talk about creating beautiful work, authenticity and purposeful products. But experiences like this are a reminder that beautiful work begins with beautiful experiences — experiences that allow children to feel wonder, responsibility and connection to the wider world.

Fieldwork is not always easy. But days like this remind us that it is always worth it.

Can Five-Year-Olds Change the World?

There is a moment in almost every expedition when the learning stops feeling like “school work” and starts feeling real.

For our children, that moment came when they realised that the plastic floating in our oceans was not just something happening somewhere else, to somebody else. It was happening here. Now. To living things.

And suddenly, five and six-year-olds began talking about responsibility.

Not because we told them they should care, but because they genuinely did.


At Norton Infant School, many of our expeditions are built around the idea of protecting our planet and helping children understand that even small actions matter. Through stories such as Somebody Swallowed Stanley and Harry Saves the Ocean, scientific investigation, fieldwork and discussion, our children began to explore the impact of pollution on marine life and the wider environment. They questioned. They challenged. They empathised. Most importantly, they wanted to act.

This is sometimes the moment adults underestimate children.



We often talk about young children as “the next generation” — future citizens who will one day inherit the responsibility of caring for the planet. But what if they are already capable of contributing now?

In our classrooms, we saw children begin to view themselves not simply as learners, but as stewards.

They designed posters to encourage recycling. They discussed how litter reaches oceans. They created their own versions of environmental stories. They spoke passionately about protecting sea creatures. Some even began changing habits at home, encouraging family members to recycle more carefully or reduce plastic use.

The impact of the work stretched beyond the classroom walls too. In EYFS, children created beautiful land art inspired by the natural world, which was then transformed into bin labels designed to encourage people to recycle responsibly. These labels are now being distributed far beyond our school community, allowing the children to see that their work can genuinely influence others.

In Key Stage One, children designed artwork for reusable water bottles, helping to promote more sustainable choices and reduce the amount of single-use plastic being used. For the children, these were not simply “craft activities” or end products — they were real contributions to a real issue.

None of this happened through a worksheet.

It happened because the learning was purposeful, emotional and connected to the real world.

At XP, we often talk about creating learning that develops academic success, character growth and beautiful work. Environmental learning at Norton allows all three to flourish simultaneously. Scientific understanding sits alongside compassion. Writing gains purpose because there is a genuine audience. Artwork becomes more careful because the message matters.

Most importantly, children begin to realise something powerful:

their voice has value.

This matters because the challenges facing our world can often feel overwhelming, even for adults. Climate change, pollution and environmental destruction are enormous global issues. Yet young children instinctively approach these problems differently. They do not begin with cynicism. They begin with hope.

And hope is powerful.

One of the most striking aspects of these expeditions was the sense of collective responsibility it created. The children constantly reminded one another to pick litter up. They noticed plastics in packed lunches. They talked about keeping animals safe. Stewardship became part of the culture of the classroom rather than simply a lesson objective.

That shift matters.

Because education is not only about preparing children academically. It is also about helping them understand the kind of people they want to become.

Can five-year-olds change the world?

Perhaps not all at once.

But they can change a family habit.

They can influence a community.

They can challenge adult thinking.

They can grow into people who believe their actions matter.

And maybe that is exactly where changing the world begins.

Green Top: Adaptive teaching in writing

Green Top has placed a significant emphasis on inclusive teaching within writing, with a clear focus on adapting resources and scaffolds to ensure that all children can access learning independently at their own level.

A recent Trust Teaching and Learning Review highlighted numerous strengths in this area. Feedback noted that “adaptive teaching in writing was evidenced strongly and is a cultural norm at Green Top during walkthroughs.” Reviewers also identified that “adaptive processes are leading to independence from all children,” and that “writing productivity in books for SEND children is much stronger due to the scaffolds in place.”

A range of adaptive teaching strategies underpin this success. These include the use of coloured paper (such as blue and yellow) to support visual processing, widgets to aid understanding, colourful semantics to scaffold sentence construction, and the use of iPads to enhance accessibility and engagement. Together, these approaches ensure that all pupils, including those with SEND, are able to participate fully and develop confidence and independence in writing.

Instructional Rounds at Plover 01.05.26

We always rotate the location of our half termly T&L Lead Networks to schools within our XPT, and last week it was Plover’s turn.

Our day always begins with an Instructional Round of the host’s school’s lessons, and for those of you who maybe new to them IRs are when a small group of teachers visiting lessons in order to observe, enquire, deconstruct and learn from real world classroom scenarios. 

It is important not to get IRs mixed up with Walkthroughs or other forms of observations. IRs are entirely appreciative – observing through the lens of what is working well, and what we can learn from what is taking place. They are about using them as an opportunity for professional learning within our culture of staff crew and we always receive great feedback from those who take part in them.

To find out more about Instructional Rounds check out Instructional rounds in a nutshell. For now, you can access some of the findings from Plover here – there’s some fantastic things going on there!

The world as our classroom: Why fieldwork is important work at XP

At XP, we believe that for students to produce beautiful work and achieve academic success, they must first be deeply connected to the world around them. Fieldwork is not an “add-on” or a simple day out, it is a key element in our approach to teaching, an approach which ensures that all students, regardless of background, have access to rich experiences that ignite their curiosity.

Whether we are standing at a busy junction in Doncaster or walking the grimy streets of Victorian Leeds at the Thackray Museum, fieldwork provides an opportunity to contextualise learning. It places abstract concepts in reality, in turn transforming students from passive observers into active researchers.

Bridging the gap between past and present

Our recent expedition in Year Nine students visited the Thackray Museum in Leeds. This serves as a perfect example of how fieldwork builds deeper understanding. In the classroom, a subject like ‘cholera’ is just a word in a textbook. On “Disease Street,” at the Thackray Medical Museum it becomes a lived reality. By following specific characters through the museum, students learn about real events that shaped the health of people in Industrial Britain like the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak, and are given the opportunity to investigate the social conditions that allowed disease to thrive.

This immersion allows students to learn through exploring their own curiosity. They become “Disease Detectives,” comparing the medical theories of the past with the life-saving innovations of the NHS today. 

Developing mathematical geographers

In the course of Year Eight’s STEM expedition students have been carrying out Geography enquiries at Lakeside. Rather than simply guessing how traffic flows they have designed methodologies to collect primary data such as traffic counts, pedestrian surveys, and sound level readings.

By choosing contrasting locations, such as the critical junction near Stadium Way, students learn to justify their choices based on proximity and safety. This rigorous approach to data collection ensures that when they return to the classroom to demonstrate their learning, they are working with evidence they have gathered themselves, fostering a sense of purpose and subject integrity.

Building character through fieldwork

Perhaps most importantly, fieldwork is the ultimate test of the culture that we want to foster at XP. Stepping outside the school gates helps us to develop our character traits, it furthers our approach to collaboration, and gives us a shared responsibility for safety and learning. Students must work hard to manage their own behaviour, be kind to the public and each other, and work smart to ensure their data is accurate.

The Result: Beautiful work and lasting memory

The final phase of fieldwork happens once the students return to school. Because the learning was rooted in a physical and social experience, the knowledge supports learning once back in the classroom. 

Basically, fieldwork is where we realise our mission: enabling every student to grow their character and become the best version of themselves by seeing that their learning truly matters in the real world.

Inclusion Must Be Observable

“Draw a tree.”

That was the instruction.

Thirty seconds later, the room was full of trees — tall ones, careful ones, hurried ones, hesitant ones.

Then we added the success criteria.

The tree needed:

  • Visible roots
  • Exactly five branches
  • At least three leaves per branch
  • A labelled trunk

The laughter came first. Then the checking. Then the mild frustration.

“You didn’t say that.”

Exactly.

Nobody in the room lacked the ability to draw a tree. But many hadn’t met the criteria — not because they couldn’t, but because they didn’t know what success looked like.

Ability wasn’t the barrier. Access was.

And that became the anchor for our CPD on inclusive classrooms.

What Does an Inclusive Classroom Look Like?

We began with a simple question:

What does an inclusive classroom look like, sound like and feel like?

Colleagues spoke with real honesty and professional courage. There was integrity in the discussion — a willingness to examine our own provision rather than describe an idealised version of it.

Across the room, themes emerged:

An inclusive classroom manages cognitive load.
It is deliberate about the construction of knowledge.
Teacher talk is purposeful and not excessive.
Assessment for learning is continuous.
Learning is not capped.
Groupings are flexible.
Children are engaged and meaningfully busy.
Instructions are clear and simple.
The language is caring.
Tasks might not all look the same.
Communication is supported — including through Communicate in Print.

And perhaps most powerfully:

“If it works for our more vulnerable learners, it works for all.”

SEND is not a bolt-on.

High-quality provision is the first and most powerful SEND strategy.

Inclusion Must Be Observable

We spent time unpicking lesson scenarios — identifying potential barriers, surfacing adult assumptions, and noticing inclusive strengths.

Across all four phases, similar barriers emerged when:

  • Instructions weren’t chunked
  • Vocabulary wasn’t explicitly unpacked
  • Modelling wasn’t left visible
  • Success criteria weren’t concrete
  • Anxiety around public error wasn’t considered
  • Cognitive load wasn’t deliberately reduced

And inclusion improved when:

  • Adult behaviour was deliberate
  • Scaffolds were visible
  • Expectations remained high
  • Processing time was protected
  • Participation was structured

Notice what we didn’t do.

We didn’t lower expectations in any scenario.

We didn’t simplify the thinking.

We increased precision.

Inclusion is not about doing more.

It is about doing what we already do — more deliberately.

The Power of Precision

The second time colleagues drew their trees — now with explicit criteria and a visible model — every tree improved.

Not because the adults had suddenly become better artists.

But because the conditions had changed.

Clarity reduces cognitive load.
Visible modelling reduces uncertainty.
Concrete criteria remove guesswork.
Structured participation reduces anxiety.

These are not add-ons. They are the foundations of high-quality teaching.

When inclusion is strong, it is observable. You can see it in the clarity of instruction. You can hear it in the language adults use. You can feel it in the confidence of learners.

And importantly — excellence remains visible.

Knowing the Learner in Front of Us

Precision in instruction is powerful — but it is only part of the picture.

True inclusion also depends on how well we know the individual learners in front of us.

High-quality universal provision reduces barriers for many. But inclusive classrooms are built on something deeper: an understanding of individual needs, strengths, triggers, motivations and starting points.

Planning, therefore, is not about creating separate lessons. It is about anticipating:

  • Who might struggle with this vocabulary?
  • Who will need processing time protected?
  • Who may experience anxiety around public error?
  • Who needs scaffolds to remain visible for longer?
  • Who requires a different route to demonstrate understanding?

This is not reactive support. It is intentional design.

When we plan with individual learners in mind — not as an afterthought, but as part of the initial thinking — inclusion becomes proactive rather than responsive.

And again, expectations do not lower.

They become clearer.

High Expectations. Reduced Barriers. Observable Excellence.

Inclusion is sometimes misinterpreted as something additional — something layered on once planning is complete.

But the session reinforced something simpler and more powerful:

High-quality provision is inclusive provision.

If we manage cognitive load.
If we make success criteria explicit.
If we model deliberately.
If we protect thinking time.
If we maintain high expectations.

Then we reduce barriers without reducing ambition.

Ability is rarely the barrier.

Access is our responsibility.

And inclusion must be observable.

Building confidence through celebrating learning

At Carcroft School, we believe that every child’s voice deserves to be celebrated. To bring this vision to life, we have integrated Jane Considine’s ‘Sentence Stackers’ into every classroom as a vibrant, living gallery of our pupils’ best work.

The Sentence Stacker anchor chart is more than just a ‘display’. It is a showcase of the very best written contributions gathered throughout a unit of writing. By stacking the high-quality sentences together, pupils can see exactly how individual “chunks” of writing build into a powerful, collective whole-class narrative.

Each day, individual pupils are praised for their writing created the previous day. Seeing their sentence pinned to the wall, next to their photographs, builds immense pride and confidence. Pupils feel proud of their writing and are eager to get their sentences onto the class stackers anchor chart!

 

In addition to this, we also celebrate a wider range of pupil’s work, beyond writing, on our ‘Beautiful Work’ display. This display promotes pupils who are Working Hard to Get Smart! Teachers use this display to showcase pupils who have met their targets, pupils who have created a great piece of work. Some teachers also capture pupil voice to display how they feel knowing their work is on our Beautiful Work display.

 

Teaching Self Regulation and Metacognition to year 11.

It’s the penultimate day of half term and I have just asked my Year 11 crew, “How has the first week back helped you this half term?” A week in which students undertook a mini-expedition, “We Are G28,” with the question: How can we nurture the best version of our future selves? They completed a high ropes course, a cooking challenge, a session on learning and self-regulation, and an academic challenge. Their responses were telling: “I am just more aware of what I need to do and how it’s going;” “I am better at just getting things done—not because I am more motivated—I just know it needs to be done and I get it done;” and, “I am more organised, and that helps me keep on top of my extended study and get a chance to revise.”

All of which points to an increasing ability to self-regulate. No one is claiming that this week developed this; students learn this as they mature, and our expeditionary  curriculum has many (amazing) experiences for students to grow and develop these skills. However, this week did have a significant taught element that seems to have crystallized many students’ capacity for self-regulation.

So, what did we do?

In the case study, “How can I become a more independent learner?” We learned that becoming an independent learner is not just about doing work alone; it’s about taking ownership of our education by consciously thinking about how we learn and actively seeking ways to improve. This activity laid the foundation for the entire expedition, helping us understand the core principles behind effective learning.

We introduced the term “self-regulated learner” and began with a self-assessment questionnaire where we scored ourselves to gauge our current learning habits. It was a great way to honestly look at our strengths and areas for improvement. We explored what such a learner might know, do, and be like, and how they might think. We learned that a self-regulated learner “monitors, directs, and regulates actions toward goals of learning new information, expanding expertise, and self-improvement.”

Introducing a model of Self Regulation.

We used Pintrich’s model of Self-Regulation to break this down into “cognition”—the mental process of acquiring knowledge—and “metacognition,” which is being aware of our own thinking and learning to make better decisions, and “motivation”—a blend of our feelings of self-efficacy and resilience, our view of learning, and how we set and use goals. Asking a simple question of “how would you feel if you had to teach a class of Japanese students how to make a cake in fluent Japanese?” revealed how we change our goals to make them more manageable and build confidence levels.

Important distinctions were made between “Knowledge about Cognition” and “Regulation about Cognition.” This provided students with a simple dichotomy between knowing how to learn and study, and how to make good decisions while studying, based on an understanding of planning, monitoring, and regulation. 

Making pledges.

This ultimately led us to making pledges to become better learners, not just for this week but for the year ahead. Students started by picking three statements from the questionnaire that we want to improve upon and creating a plan with short and long-term goals. This personalized approach empowers us to take concrete steps towards becoming more independent and effective learners.

Name: 
Goal 1: carefully consider whether the materials or methods im using are actually useful and if im just rehashing something i already know 
Plan: provide reason for why I’m doing what I’m doing and keep a list of what knowledge im confident in and what needs further consolidation 
Goal 2: ensure im understanding full concepts and not forgetting what ive previously learned
Plan: before starting a new activity or creating a new resource, write a summary paragraph of whatever the last thing i learned was 
Goal 3: decide which revision methods work best for me depending on the subject rather than just repetitively exhausting the same basic method
Plan: attempt to memorise the same knowledge from multiple different methods and resources and decide which works best (eg. put maths formulas into a mindmap, flashcards, a quiz and a list

These pledges and Pintrich’s model of self-regulation were the backbone of all other experiences and gave us common language and understanding to talk about how we operate as learners and how we might need to be to grow our capacities.

The power of Crew.

Our next case study asked, “Why is crew important to my resilience?” To do this, students needed to explore their comfort zone, and so we traveled to North Yorkshire for a high ropes course, where we navigated obstacles relying on our crew. My crew had a wide range of confidences and abilities, but regardless of this, every student experienced a moment where they thought they could not do something. Where the fear kicked in and any notion of a plan or strategy was simply alien. This was when the power of Crew took over. This taught us that resilience isn’t a solitary trait but a collective strength, and that a strong crew provides a vital support system for overcoming adversity. This experience reinforced the importance of our group bonds and built the resilience needed for future challenges.

The next case study asked, “What can cooking tell me about learning?” It was set as a small group challenge, using the “critical skills model” as a starting point. Groups planned, prepared, and cooked a two-course meal. This involved managing a budget, researching recipes, dividing tasks, and presenting a final dish with a menu card including costs and nutritional information. What the focus really was, was a way to explore the ideas we had learned about Self-regulated Learning, and the Planning, Monitoring, and Regulation part of “metacognition,” and a further reinforcement of our crew, as success requires clear communication and efficient teamwork.

The final case study was very much a culmination of the previous experiences and a chance to apply our newly made pledges. It asked the question: How can I improve my academic performance?

Again, using the critical skills approach to set a challenge, each student chose a difficult curriculum topic and worked to master it using new knowledge of self-regulated learning. Namely, setting manageable goals, considering strategy, learning strategy, and then monitoring and regulating our attention throughout. It culminated in each crew member presenting their progress to our crew, which showed us we were capable of performing at a high level, proving that we can overcome academic obstacles through effort and effective learning strategies. This activity linked theoretical skills to practical application, demonstrating the tangible benefits of a focused, self-regulated approach to studies.

Letter to My Future Self.

At the end of each day, debriefing sessions allowed us to reflect on what the activities taught us about nurturing our future selves, and this culminated in a “Letter to My Future Self.” This final task made the learning tangible, creating a time capsule of our growth to reflect upon in the future. Students wrote in confidence that this final task was personal. It could be shared if they wanted, but it was for them—a chance to be honest with themselves, engage in positive self-talk, and aspire to the best version of themselves.