Are my lessons challenging enough?
Aug 1, 2026 · 42 min · 13 segments
Femi reflects on the last year with one particular class in mind and asks: "Are my lessons challenging enough?"
- Speakers
- FemiHostMattHost
Aug 1, 2026 · 42 min · 13 segments
Femi reflects on the last year with one particular class in mind and asks: "Are my lessons challenging enough?"
Do you want me to tell you a bit more about what I mean by that?
Yeah, yeah, I suspect I know, but go on, expound upon it.
That's interesting.
So we've sort of always used a sort of diet in our lessons that was taught to me in a certain way by Alan that I sort of shared with you.
And you'll have adapted it and put your own spin on it as you kind of progress.
But it probably sits quite closely to what we first were working on, which is basically a lesson where the overview of the lesson is kids walk in and they do what people now call retrieval.
previous topics, questions, work on ideas and concepts they've tackled in the past to prevent forgetting.
There's then some direct instruction, which is, you know, normally in maths it's a skill or a concept that's explained to them.
It's modelled directly by me through a number of examples, two or three examples.
That's an average, but that would be the average.
And then opportunity for them to do some.
under very strict conditions, like you're now going to try this one, and you're going to have this amount of time to do it, and I'm going to check that it's been done as I want it done.
Right, yes, okay, on the whole it has, well done.
You're now going to apply that in pretty much the same way that you've just seen it presented by me, and then you've demonstrated to me, with some variation, but usually quite narrow variation, until you've absolutely nailed that skill.
And then we're going to add that to our bank of skills that we've got.
And then what I'll be doing is through the starters and mixed sheets, you'll be practicing those skills throughout the course in a number of different ways that lend themselves very tightly to how the exam board assess them.
And I'll send you into the exam and then you'll on the whole do pretty well.
And then that's it.
I'm talking more key stays three and four, really, not really key five, but even five would be similar to that.
Yeah.
Yeah, and that's it.
Yeah, well, I don't think there's any problem at all with the basic model and that arrangement of a lesson.
Do you want me to tell you a bit more about what I mean by that?
Yeah, yeah, I suspect I know, but go on, expound upon it.
That's interesting.
So we've sort of always used a sort of diet in our lessons that was taught to me in a certain way by Alan that I sort of shared with you.
And you'll have adapted it and put your own spin on it as you kind of progress.
But it probably sits quite closely to what we first were working on, which is basically a lesson where the overview of the lesson is kids walk in and they do what people now call retrieval.
previous topics, questions, work on ideas and concepts they've tackled in the past to prevent forgetting.
There's then some direct instruction, which is, you know, normally in maths it's a skill or a concept that's explained to them.
It's modelled directly by me through a number of examples, two or three examples.
That's an average, but that would be the average.
And then opportunity for them to do some.
under very strict conditions, like you're now going to try this one, and you're going to have this amount of time to do it, and I'm going to check that it's been done as I want it done.
Right, yes, okay, on the whole it has, well done.
You're now going to apply that in pretty much the same way that you've just seen it presented by me, and then you've demonstrated to me, with some variation, but usually quite narrow variation, until you've absolutely nailed that skill.
And then we're going to add that to our bank of skills that we've got.
And then what I'll be doing is through the starters and mixed sheets, you'll be practicing those skills throughout the course in a number of different ways that lend themselves very tightly to how the exam board assess them.
And I'll send you into the exam and then you'll on the whole do pretty well.
And then that's it.
I'm talking more key stays three and four, really, not really key five, but even five would be similar to that.
Yeah.
Yeah, and that's it.
Yeah, well, I don't think there's any problem at all with the basic model and that arrangement of a lesson.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.