How high challenge and low threat can help pupils to learn the curriculum

Well hello there and welcome to update #058!

There are plenty of examples where we do difficult things such as crosswords, Sudoku, word, and maths puzzles, by way of relaxation. The great thing about these is that we can do them in our own time, without any pressure.

We want to make sure that our classrooms have an atmosphere of high challenge and low threat, and to make sure that we shift away from high challenge and high threat.

The high challenge takes the form of demanding work, the low threat comes from reassuring pupils that they don’t need to know all the answers because we are going to scaffold the ways in and support them, primarily through talk. 

One example of this is Richard Kennett providing his pupils with extracts from Marc Morris’ account of the Norman Conquest. This is a demanding text and Richard wanted the class to read and answer the questions for homework: this is high challenge. However, he went on to say that if they couldn’t answer all the questions, not to worry. This is the low threat. What did he find? Well, he found that all the pupils, even those with a reading age below 10 were able to have a go.

Pupils themselves are saying that they enjoy doing demanding work, so let’s not put limits on their learning, and let’s offer a curriculum that’s ambitious for all pupils, including pupils with low starting points.

For more examples of high challenge, low threat, there are two new conversations about the impact of ‘faster reading’ trials primary and secondary on Myatt & Co. The results are astonishing, they are free to watch, and you can click here to see Jude Arkwright, Jane Godfrey and Ben Jarvis talk about the impact at St Michael's C of E Primary. And here for Rob Grover and Ritchie Slack discussing the impact of ‘faster reading’ at Nene Park Academy.

Until next time

Mary