Rachel Ball has more than 20 years of experience in education, with a particular focus on teaching and learning, professional development, instructional coaching and scaffolding. These 17 questions explore what she has learned from working with teachers and schools, and the practical ideas that can make the greatest difference in the classroom.
Question 1
What first inspired you to become a teacher?
I really looked up to the teachers in my school and was inspired by the ways they shared their knowledge and expertise in such interesting ways. I really wanted to support other children and young people in the ways I had been supported. As a child from an underprivileged background, I also realised early on the power of education to change life chances, and that inspired me to be part of the change for others.
Question 2
After more than 20 years in education, what has changed most about the way you think about great teaching?
The thing that has changed most is that I now ask what the evidence seems to support, rather than just finding my way, surviving or doing ‘what I think works’! When I first started teaching, I never received any education about how the brain works, the role of memory or even evidence-informed approaches to behaviour. Everything was about ‘whatever works for you!’
Question 3
What did you learn from leading teaching and learning in schools that still influences your work today?
One of the biggest lessons I learned from leading teaching and learning is that a huge amount of change happens because the right culture is there first. You can’t introduce new techniques or embed systems such as coaching if people don’t feel supported and motivated, or believe that you and those systems are credible and evidence-driven.
Too many people work in schools where compliance is the main driver. The schools where I have seen the most change are those where work has been done first to ensure the ‘why’ is clearly communicated and staff feel that development is positive. I’ve written about this several times: whether it’s about line-management meetings, new forms of lesson visits or introducing coaching, it starts with culture and psychological safety. Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code had a huge impact on me.
Question 4
What do schools most often get wrong when it comes to CPD?
There are two common traps that school leaders can easily fall into:
- Overloading PD timetables with lots of different focuses and strategies for teachers to somehow embed in their practice. PD works best when cognitive load is managed and we focus on just one small area of development at a time. I’ve left many INSET sessions where six different strategies have been suggested and staff are somehow supposed to find the time to plan to use all of them in their practice before SLT comes around to check!
- Sharing strategies or habits that leaders want teachers to use without giving staff the chance to see models of good practice or rehearse the strategies before entering the cognitively demanding environment of the classroom. To close that common ‘knowing–doing gap’, teachers need modelling and time for rehearsal.
Question 5
What makes professional development actually lead to changes in classroom practice?
The EEF’s Effective Professional Development guidance report (2021) makes this really clear. We need a PD programme with a balanced design that incorporates the careful building of knowledge, is motivational, develops specific teaching techniques and includes follow-up to embed practice. We need to consider PD as a continual cycle of development rather than a series of one-off events, such as twilight sessions.
Question 6
Why do you think instructional coaching can be so powerful for teachers?
In summary, when it is done well, instructional coaching activates the 14 mechanisms outlined by the EEF that make PD effective. It also has a significant amount of research behind it, showing significant and tangible effects on student outcomes.
For example, in 2007, a review of 31 studies found that instructional coaching boosted student achievement by about four months. Another study, this time from 2019, found that instructional coaching helped teachers make dramatically more progress than a group receiving the same content through traditional CPD approaches.
When instructional coaching is done well, it is a responsive, dynamic and stimulating approach to professional development that is highly valued by teachers at all stages of expertise. Sam Sims says, ‘Instructional coaching is currently the best-evidenced form of professional development we have.’ That is not to say, however, that it is a silver bullet or necessarily easy to implement.
Question 7
How can schools make lesson drop-ins feel developmental rather than judgemental?
There are several ways schools can make this shift.
First, have lesson visits focused on a very precise area of development, such as a specific technique that has already been modelled and rehearsed. Teachers become overwhelmed and anxious when leaders conduct lesson visits that could focus on any aspect of their teaching. It’s scary! It is much less frightening to have lesson visits focused on the positive reinforcement of an area you know about in advance: ‘It was effective when you carefully scanned the classroom after your call for silence. This meant every student was listening and attentive when you gave the instructions – well done!’
Second, frame development tentatively. Think carefully about wording that feels genuinely helpful rather than like a checklist or a list of things you’ve done wrong. In addition, feedback feels less judgemental when development is rooted in real, evidenced events in the classroom rather than a leader’s feelings or judgement.
For example, ‘I noticed that two students in the middle of the back row started talking as soon as you turned your back. Could you try circulating without turning your back so that you can still scan the whole class? Have a look at the video below as an example…’ feels much more developmental than judgemental.
Third, don’t only have leaders visiting lessons. Research suggests that peer lesson visits can be as effective as, or even more effective than, visits from leaders, as long as those peers have knowledge and expertise in the areas on which they are giving feedback. I’ve seen the power of peers flooding a school with positive feedback on an area of teaching and learning. It transforms the culture and makes teachers genuinely want to improve their practice.
Question 8
What is the biggest mistake schools make when introducing a coaching programme?
If I had to narrow it down to one thing, I think it would be going too quickly – something I think perhaps I did myself. It’s easy to see how powerful coaching can be and want to give everyone a coach immediately, with everyone coaching every week, but it’s just not realistic.
At Steplab, when we talk about ensuring that the conditions are right for coaching, we suggest that leaders reflect on culture, capacity and calendar. Are the right foundations in place around lesson visits and rehearsal, for example, to help coaching thrive? Are coaches experts in teaching and learning, and have they received careful training in what great instructional coaching looks like? Is time protected for coaches and coachees to give and receive feedback?
The Navy SEALs say, ‘Slow is smooth and smooth is fast,’ and I think that really applies to coaching. Take the time to train coaches well, establish the right culture first and make sure it will work logistically, even at pinch points in your calendar.
Question 9
How can leaders create a culture where teachers genuinely welcome feedback?
I think many of the points raised above apply here. If you want teachers to welcome feedback genuinely, it needs to be delivered sincerely, be specific and be framed positively. Leaders also need to be credible and vulnerable themselves. How many leaders welcome developmental visits to their own lessons, for example?
Question 10
What is one common misconception about scaffolding that you would like to challenge?
There are many! If I were to focus on one, it would perhaps be that scaffolding means making work easier or lowering the level of challenge. Scaffolding is about keeping the bar high, not dumbing things down. It is about supporting students to meet high expectations rather than lowering our expectations because we think ‘they can’t do that’.
Instead of removing complex vocabulary and shortening a text, for example, we might read the same complex text with everyone but provide scaffolding through choral response, reciprocal reading, chunked discussions and careful vocabulary instruction.
Question 11
How can teachers provide more support without lowering the level of challenge?
The first part of this challenge is to consider the barriers students face in your classroom. Are they low reading ages, a limited vocabulary, poor cultural knowledge, cognitive overload or social and emotional processing barriers, for example?
We can then make adaptations to our delivery or content to ensure those barriers can be overcome. How many adaptations we use, when we use them and who we use them with will depend on our frequent checks for understanding during the lesson. That support can range from chunking explanations and live modelling to reciprocal reading, sentence starters or even verbal prompts.
However, the key to successful scaffolding is recognising that it must be removed over time as students’ confidence and expertise grow.
Question 12
What does effective adaptive teaching look like in a busy classroom?
Jon Eaton wrote a super blog about this in 2022. The process he describes is much the same as the one in my answer above: a continual process of anticipating barriers, planning to address them, using assessment to elicit evidence of learning and then adapting as needed during the lesson.
Andrew Young, in his book Adaptive Teaching, breaks this down helpfully into proactive adaptive teaching – considering barriers to learning, adapting planning and deploying strategies that will enable progress for all – and reactive adaptive teaching – using checks for understanding and making necessary tweaks and adjustments, such as adding a live model, explaining something in a different way or using verbal nudges.
Finally, Lyn Corno describes ‘macro-adaptations’ as changes to the curriculum or the grouping of students. There are then ‘micro-adaptations’, which are the bread and butter of teachers tweaking their plans and responding sensitively to their students. Some students will need macro-adaptations, but for most students, I think it is the micro-adaptations and the way teachers respond to the information students give them that are key.
Question 13
From writing The Scaffolding Effect, what is one idea you would most like teachers to try in their next lesson?
Rather than focusing on scaffolding here, I’d ask teachers to reflect on their checks for understanding instead. To scaffold effectively, you need to know who needs support, when they need it and what support they need. Therefore, your checks for understanding need to be quick, efficient and helpful.
That’s where something such as a hinge question, with answers shown on mini-whiteboards using slick routines, can be incredibly powerful. I’d encourage teachers to think about their next lesson and carefully craft a hinge question that will tell them whether a tricky concept or idea has been understood. This is a great process for subject teams!
Then, consider what you’ll do in response. How will you respond if only half the class gets it right? What will you do if 90% gets it right? That’s where the scaffolds come in.
Question 14
What did editing What Is History Teaching, Now? teach you about great teaching beyond the history classroom?
Editing this book taught me so much; there truly are some exceptional history teachers and leaders out there. One key takeaway was that some of the best history teachers are those who stay informed and share their love of history passionately in the classroom.
They read around their subject, keep up to date with new discoveries and interpretations, and make history relevant to the students in front of them. Students can often have the misconception that history is a ‘dead’ subject. The truth is that it’s anything but!
Question 15
What can teachers in other subjects learn from the way good history teaching develops thinking and understanding?
I think history teachers are master storytellers, and Willingham tells us that our ‘memories privilege stories’. Obviously, the subject lends itself to stories, but I really think stories can be powerful across the curriculum.
Even telling the story behind the root of a word and its etymology can open doors to understanding for students. I love how Mary Myatt has developed the work on stories in the curriculum, and she has written a great deal about practical ways in which subjects can embed stories, whether it’s a maths, physics or geography lesson.
Question 16
With teachers already under significant workload pressure, how can schools make professional development feel useful rather than like another thing to do?
Professional development matters. It matters to our students because it improves teaching when done well, but it also matters to our teachers, who deserve to feel that they are being developed with thought and care.
Importantly, professional development is not the calendar or a single event; it’s the cycle we use throughout the school year. Decide on a focus area, teach techniques to teachers through modelling and rehearsal, follow up with lesson visits and respond to what you see. Don’t move on because the calendar tells you to; move on because that area of practice is now consistent.
Don’t waste teachers’ time with wellbeing activities or lectures. Consider whether your PD programme actually activates the mechanisms of effective professional development and how it feels for a teacher with a full timetable.
Question 17
If you could change one thing about how schools develop their teachers, what would it be?
Use rehearsal. If you don’t rehearse techniques outside the classroom, you make it far less likely that teachers will use those techniques inside the classroom. Routinised professional practice has been an absolute game-changer for the schools and trusts we work with.
Find out more about Rachel Ball
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