With our annual conference coming up soon, we spent some time asking some of the speakers to share with us briefly what their talks are about and why they're passionate about their topic of choice. This episode gives you a sneak peek of what's to come - It got us really excited about the conference and we hope you would too! Keep your eyes (and ears) peeled for the second episode where we will interview more speakers in the next two weeks...

CogSciSci Surrey 2025 is on Friday 30 May 2025. Remember to get your ticket ASAP using this link here. See you there!

Rach and Rachel are joined by Sarah Cottinghatt, keynote speaker at May’s CogSciSci conference, teacher educator and author of Ausbel’s Meaningful Learning in Action.  Sarah talks about the importance of the way in which we learn (meaningfully or by rote) in determining the type of forgetting that inevitably follows (better forgetting happens when we learn meaningfully!).  We discuss with her what we as teachers can do to facilitate meaningful learning in our classrooms and help our students form memories that last (rather than disappear by next lesson!).

Useful resources:

To know more about CogSciSci:

Shelley and Rach are joined by Pritesh Raichura, Assistant Principal of T&L at Ark Soane Academy. Pritesh is well-known for his exceptional classroom routines, including great use of Turn & Talk and 'All Hands Up' and in this episode, shares his knowledge and experience of rehearsal. Rehearsal is a powerful tool which can be used to encode concepts into long term memory and build fluency in our students' understanding.

Useful resources include:

To know more about CogSciSci:

In this episode, Shelley and Rach chat to a pirate in Hogwarts (Dr Jo Castelino) about all things homework - what does 'effective' homework look like, and why will it be different in every school? And how can you begin to build a culture of homework in your school / department? This is a fun but informative episode which will motivate you to consider what homework looks like for your classes.

CogSciSci St Albans is fast approaching on 31st May - not many tickets remaining! Discounted tickets are available for early career teachers. Click here to buy your ticket!

And CogSciSci now has Discord! Join the conversation here.

Other useful links include:

Keep an eye out on Jo's new book 'The Homework Conundrum: How to stop the dog from eating homework' - follow Jo on Twitter/X to know more!

After a long break, Shelley and Rach are back, chatting to Bill Wilkinson about mixed ability teaching and SEND provision in Science. They consider the Education Endowment Foundation evidence on setting and streaming, navigating the dreaded tier decisions at KS4 and breaking down 'microbarriers', bearing in mind the important accessibility concept of 'essential to some, useful for all'.

CogSciSci are also very excited to announce their next conference which will take place at St Albans School on 31st May, and we are looking for speakers. Tickets are available here.

Other useful links include:

In our final episode in the Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction mini-series, Shelley and Rach chat to Adam Robbins, the current Managing Editor of CogSciSci and the guy who makes the conferences happen! They discuss the need for independent practice, the conditions needed for it to be effective and, of course, SLOP (Shed Loads of Practice).

Some relevant links include:

Following on from the first episode in the Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction series, in this episode the focus is 'Checking for Understanding'. Shelley and Rach chat to Deepika Narula about the importance of checking for understanding, and ensuring our students are 'learning with fewer errors'. Strategies discussed include diagnostic questions and BEST resources, cold calling for sampling, probing questions and the logistics of mini whiteboards.
Some relevant links to this episode:

Doug Lemov's concept of 'ratio' is absolutely essential in our classrooms, yet still goes under the radar in many INSET / CPD programmes in schools.

This week, Shelley and Rach are joined by Adam Boxer, who has written extensively and delivered webinars on the idea of ratio in the past. They discuss what is meant by ratio and what it looks like in the classroom, challenges that you may encounter when trying to increase ratio in your classroom, as well as some tips for HoDs/LPs looking to develop this within their team.

PS. We promise that Shelley is a competent Biology teacher...

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