Don't just raise the roof ....take it off

When I began my training in 2020, one piece of feedback was consistently nailed into me, over and over and over again:

'There needs to be a challenge task!'

I had a problem with this for three fundamental reasons (.....and I still do).

Firstly, I didn't understand what the task, specifically labelled as 'a challenge', actually needed to be composed of. In the dictionary, a challenging task is defined as:

'...something which requires great effort and determination'.

I sat back and thought about this for a while, sipping an oat milk cappuccino from Black Sheep Coffee, on a bench overlooking Victoria station. If my challenge task was the golden opportunity for students to work hard, display resilience and use immense brain power in order to produce an answer, then what on earth were they meant to be doing for the remaining minutes of my lesson? Completing tasks which don't require great effort or determination?

Of course I am taking this quite literally. A challenge task is technically used to provide students with the opportunity to extend their understanding of the process being studied. I have witnessed a multitude of very successful ways to do this; applying knowledge to a case study, interpreting a data source or planning an essay question are all great examples of utilising the knowledge gained within a lesson in a different format. BUT...shouldn't all students be doing this anyway? Or, at the very least, all have the chance to?

Labelling a task as 'challenging' has the potential to prevent us from embedding difficulty within preceding tasks. Regardless of the task set, I argue that there should be an element of challenge incorporated. This doesn't mean to say you create such difficult tasks that certain students can't access the content. It just means you need to get good at scaffolding. There doesn't necessarily need to be a challenge task if every task you are setting provides some element of great effort and determination. And I strongly believe that this could be achieved in a variety of ways.

My second issue is that these 'challenge' tasks have the very real danger of becoming a time filler. From my own experience as a trainee, I very much used them as a stopgap - Have a go at another question based on the same thing. Can you think of quiz to test your partner on? Can you draw a picture to summarise what you have learnt? Read this article and summarise it!

It was never really a 'challenge' task, requiring that great effort and determination. Instead, it was a meagre attempt to keep behaviour steady whilst others caught up and we could move on. There was no evident progress being made, only idle thought and busy hands. My inexperience played a significant role. I was missing the depth of understanding required to succinctly piece a task and progress hand in hand. However, I believe it fair to state that a lot of the time, a time filler activity is used in replacement of a carefully thought out task which enhances the learning of all that are in the classroom (or online under these current circumstances..).

This brings me to my third, and probably most important, reason. A task labelled as a challenge decreases the uptake of that specific task by a significant proportion. The teacher is unintentionally placing a glass ceiling on the learning taking place. As a leader within that room, you point out that by finishing task 1 and task 2, the student will have completed enough work. The challenge task is an optional extra - the creme de le creme for those who feel confident, are quicker to grasp concepts or happen to be feeling exceptionally hardworking that day. You are effectively leaving it to the students to decide whether they want to push themselves or not.

I think the percentage uptake of the task really depends on the type of school environment too. During my training year, I was placed in a 'requires improvement' school, with 40% of students classified as pupil premium and a culture which seemed to foster a lack of respect. I can confidently say that roughly 3 students from each class would attempt a challenge task. In comparison, I am currently working at an OFSTED outstanding school with a culture of academic success and I can, equally confidently, report that at least 50% of my class will attempt the challenge task. From experience, the expectations placed upon the students - not just in your classroom, but also around school too - have a detrimental impact on the motivation to complete tasks that come with a connotation of being 'difficult'.

Despite the above comparison, it is observable that only select students engage with the task that is designed to push them. A task designed to push them beyond what you have suggested is the acceptable amount of work to complete. This inadvertently lowers the bar in your classroom and prevents those students who are feeling slightly less confident, a little bit tired or a bit too distracted from accessing the tasks that require great effort and determination. It is a mental game and the teacher is losing in this instance.

So what can be done instead? I am still finding my feet with this, but I have trialled a few things since I began as an ECT:

1. Taken away the 'challenge task'! Instead, I now label tasks in order e.g. Task 1, Task 2, Task 3. Every student is expected to finish, or attempt, all of the tasks within the set time limit. One task will always require some form of application. An example is displayed below, used for a Year 10 lesson investigating factors contributing to inequality:

2. Question flow charts I sure as heck cannot take ownership of this fantastic idea - it was my wonderful colleague within my department who created the question flowcharts. They are so effective however, so I feel like they need to be included here.

As you can see from the below image, the question flowchart works off the back of a starter quiz. If a student achieved less than a certain amount, they begin by answering questions 1 and 2. This does two things:

A) Increases confidence. The questions require simple identification of information or a process. Their books can be used to help them. This is going right back to basics.

B) Gives them the chance to catch up and get on the same page as other students. It is such a simple idea for differentiation but it WORKS - all thanks to scaffolding.

If a student scored more than a certain amount, they start with the more difficult questions before going back to complete questions 1 and 2.

Effectively, all students complete the same work but those needing a little extra guidance go back to the beginning first to refresh the memory.

2. Better modelling and more practise In an article published by SecEd in 2017, the author exclaimed that educators must all uphold the belief that every single student can produce great work once they know what it looks like and are given the tools to make it happen. Modelling is the best way to provide those tools. We can embed each task with challenge if we demonstrate how to tackle it.

Contrary to popular belief, I am not really a great lover of the visualiser. This is absolutely a factor of personal preference and I 100% see the value of the visualiser when it is used to its full advantage. I often find it tricky to get the angle right, my desk is normally too messy (guilty as charged) to use it properly and I often feel like the display lacks clarity.

Modelling in my classroom looks like an over-annotated LED whiteboard, a lot of paired mini whiteboard work and pre-written model answers on the board, or stuck in their books. The mini whiteboards work a treat for getting students comfortable with making mistakes. They are low-stake because answers can be wiped off immediately, changes can be made and I can provide verbal whole-class feedback, rather than point out directly that someone has done something wrong whilst circulating.

Yes, some students will require a little more guidance, but that doesn't mean they won't get there with the right type of help. Raise that ceiling!

3. Stopped rushing There is a great tendency to place pressure on oneself to get through the planned lesson content. Time is precious when you are shaping young minds of the future! There is also a considerable amount of focus on this idea of 'pace'. Both the pace of a lesson and the insane amount of content needed to be covered lends itself to mining through a lesson at break neck speed. Yet sometimes, there is no harm in taking it slow. Having realised that half of the students are throwing confused faces to each other, huffing and puffing because it is too difficult, I stop. I go back to the beginning, I question, I provide more sentence starters or a clearer success criteria, a couple of examples or I allow for pair work. It can be fairly agonising to begin with, but the next time you go back to a similar problem, the result is going to be (probably only marginally) better. By doing so, you are allowing every student the opportunity to meet you where you expect them to be.

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The key to increasing the uptake of a challenging task is your own expectations of those students ,sat wide-eyed in front of you. My experience during placement is a prime example of this. We have the power to not only raise the roof, but to take it off.