Ben Rodgers

“A knowledge-rich curriculum is therefore not just a curriculum with a lot in it. It’s a curriculum whose contents have been deliberately chosen and connected – both horizontally and vertically coherent - so that learning accumulates over time.”

✨ A full day of powerful PD Join the Steplab Conference 2026 “INSPIRING… the coolest people in education in one place!” - Isla Iago (Reach Academy Feltham) 📅 19 June 2026 | London 🎟️ Tickets: events.steplab.co/SteplabConfere…

@researchEDWarr @m_chiles Can’t wait!!!

Only 5 more weeks until researchEd Warrington 2026! We've got an incredible line up of speakers from a wide range of expertise and we're so excited to see what leanings this year will bring. Full speaker schedule will be shared very soon 👀 📍Kings Leadership Academy Warrington 📅 Saturday 25th April 🎫 Get your tickets here: bit.ly/3JN9fUi

Delighted that our trust is hosting @teacherhead in Liverpool. Join us for the Big Classroom event — an opportunity to see expert teaching, practical strategies, and high-impact classroom practice in action. Secure your place: eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-big-clas…

Lovely example of the application of hinge questions to coaching in rugby: bit.ly/41fqnXF. Thank you @Mr_Titley!

@PepsMccrea Hi Peps! We’re a big fan of this. We have been using assemblies and form time to develop alignment of our core pedagogies These have since been filmed and shared on our website for parents. Would love your thoughts…. 🧠 childwallssa.org/study-at-child…

Habit Assemblies: Accelerating culture for learning The more complex a school, the more attention and effort is required just to maintain it… attention and effort that could (should) be going into improving learning. Ruthless simplicity (doing fewer things) and collective alignment (doing those things the same way) are two powerful levers for reducing this complexity. Most schools pursue collective alignment by focussing on teachers... practising agreed routines and norms together, then implementing them back in classrooms. This is great... BUT, the schools that do it best go one step further. They also practise with students. All together. At once. A kind of *habit assembly* Imagine 200 year 7s in the hall, all practising how to turn-and-talk. How to answer questions. How to treat others with respect. How to sit and act in ways that optimise attention. Without this, we have to build culture from scratch, in isolation, 30 students at a time. With habit assemblies, students arrive in our classrooms already primed. We just need to stick to the plan. The rationale for this is social norms. Our behaviour is shaped less by what we're told to do and more by what we see others doing. In a habit assembly, every student sees every other student doing the same thing. They don't just learn the routine... they internalise the norm… this is how we do things around here. And culture compounds: once routines are internalised, each lesson reinforces the norm, which makes the next assembly even stronger. Most schools already have the time for this. Existing assembly slots or collapsed tutor/form time can be repurposed without adding to the timetable. Of course, this only works if it's done with students, not to them. Roll it out heavy-handedly or without buy-in and things'll backfire fast. The more we build habits together, the stronger the culture we end up with. PS. Video of habit assemblies in action coming soon...

The STICKIEST things I've ever taught my Ss is from Graham Nuthall's Hidden Lives of Learners. ‘Rule of Three’ – need to encounter learning material in at least 3 significant ways in order to learn it Thanks Bennie Kara @teacherhead! Summary here: itsalearningcurve.education/cogsci-book-su…

💡 What does effective PD look like in practice? Rachel Ball (@MrsBallAP) explores how group PD + lesson drop-ins can activate the EEF’s 14 mechanisms and drive real improvement. Instructional coaching is powerful - but this is a scalable alternative any school can use. 👉 bit.ly/group_PD_and_d…

My fourth blog in a series exploring professional learning and literacy and oracy. open.substack.com/pub/alexfairla…

@tes @greeborunner The Ensers are churning out valuable content! Thank you @EnserMark and @greeborunner

🔍 The renewed Ofsted framework offers a range of challenges and opportunities, says @greeborunner – here are 4 ways senior leaders can help subject leads navigate inspections tes.com/magazine/teach…

I spend a lot of time working with schools and MATs to quality assure and improve geography. One question always sits underneath: what do we actually mean by the impact of the geography curriculum? In this post I try to make my thinking visible. open.substack.com/pub/enserm/p/b… #GeogChat

Do you know where the cheap seats are in your classroom? edutait.com/teacher-blog/c…

❤️❤️❤️🙏🙏🙏🙏💪💪

An article I've written this week on the timing of feedback - The question I pose is what can we learn about the art of feedback from a swimming coach? 🏊 edutait.com/teacher-blog/f…

But notice the assumption: someone already knows what X is. Before Engelmann’s methods can be applied, someone must have decided what knowledge matters, how to model the domain for novices, and what simplifications are acceptable. Those are often the hardest problems in teaching.

So Engelmann’s contribution is immense, but more specific than it’s sometimes presented. He’s a theorist of instructional communication, not a full theory of instruction. In other words: Engelmann is best understood as the end of instructional design, not the beginning. profbeckyallen.substack.com/p/engelmann-la…

“How could deliberate and differentiated Cold Call allow us to target instruction more precisely — offering more rehearsal, more stretch, more reassurance to different students at different times?” Great points and ‘staff room reflections’.