Teaching is about building relationships. Student attainment is partly determined by the teacher’s relationship with students and that teacher’s ability to shape a culture of learning within the classroom.  The nature of the feedback provided from teacher to pupil, pupil to pupil and pupil to teacher plays a key role in shaping the right culture for learning. It is what goes on in the classroom that makes the real difference.  The aim of the strategies outlined in this post is to create a dialogue between the teacher and the pupil about learning.

For Alexander, dialogic classrooms are:

• collective (doing tasks together);

• reciprocal (sharing ideas);

• supportive (no negative repercussions from making errors);

• purposeful (clear success criteria).

In order for this type of classroom to become a reality we need to create an atmosphere of trust – a climate in which it is ok to make mistakes – and a climate in which students are engaged in the process of learning. Within the history classroom success should not be measured by out-performing your peers but about improving yourself as a learner and achieving ‘personal bests’.

As John Hattie argues, we need to recognise that all students can progress. Achievement for all is changeable and not fixed. There are no short-term fixes for raising attainment but the good news is that the ideas and strategies outlined in this post do not cost anything, they can be easily adapted for any age group and they do not require endless hours of teacher time preparing resources or marking books.