From Strategy to Impact: Embedding Metacognition and Collaboration at Ryders Green Primary

Rebecca Jarrett is Teaching and Learning Team / Art Lead / Writing Lead (Mat cover) / class teacher at Ryders Green Primary School. She was successfully re-accredited as an SSAT Lead Practitioner in March 2025. In this case study she shares how her work leading on developing metacognition across the school has impacted pupil learning.

Since gaining SSAT Lead Practitioner Accreditation in 2021, Rebecca has  been working closely with SLT to develop teaching and learning across the school as one of the school development plan priorities. The school had already developed a key focus of collaborative learning through the scheme of Kagan and the support of its UK training provider who is also a school governor.

In February 2022, her school underwent an assessment for SSAT Framework for Exceptional Education (FfEE).

The assessment highlighted both areas of strength and opportunities for further development. SLT approached Rebecca with the idea of metacognition as the next phase of development within the school. Rebecca embarked on gathering the most recent research and findings in metacognition, using documentation from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). Following her research of the EEF’s Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning Guidance Report and linked resources, she shared her findings with the staff from across the school in a staff meeting. During this meeting, she encouraged staff to reflect on their current practice and what metacognition looked like within their classroom and what skills their children presented in relation to this so that next steps could be identified.

Staff were introduced to the EEF’s 7 step model which supports them in identifying the steps to encourage themselves and the children to shift learning responsibility from the teacher to the child which results in less input from the teacher and more independence from the children. She found that this would be complementary to the collaborative learning strategy already in place, as the key principles of the structures are to implement personal interdependence, individual accountability, equal participation and simultaneous interaction. This allows children to lead their learning with their peers by giving them the opportunity to share with and learn from one another with little input from the teacher. To begin the process of embedding the focus of metacognition in the classroom, staff were asked to RAG rate their children, identify their next steps to inform their planning and then introduce a questioning process with the children to help them reflect on their independence in their learning.

Following on from this, staff were given time to adjust and develop their lesson delivery to support the process. Rebecca carried out a learning walk to identify how metacognition was presented across the school. Her findings identified that the children were lacking confidence in their independence and felt that they needed to rely on the teacher more than they actually needed to. In addition, it was also identified that the quality of questioning was restrictive to the learning process and were often aimed at only what needed to be learned rather than considering what the children would like to know more about linked to their learning. Using this information, she started a project to develop the use of collaboration within the curriculum to support the confidence of the children as well as supporting staff’s pedagogy in referencing Bloom’s taxonomy to develop the quality of questioning. To implement this in the classroom, staff were asked to create an overarching question for their learning journeys which would be progressively answered throughout the topic, as well as giving children the opportunity to reflect on their previous learning and knowledge and encouraging them to be inquisitive and ask their own questions through the use of a ‘wonder wall’, where learning could then take shape from their interest in the topic also.

After some time, it was brought to her attention that staff were concerned about the accessibility of Kagan for children with SEN needs. They were finding that although it is a useful tool, they were struggling to support their SEN children as the nature of this collaborative learning scheme is to promote independence. They wanted to ensure that the children were being given enough support but not so that their opportunity of independence was encroached on. Rebecca offered time to sit with a number of staff members to gain a picture of their SEN needs, the makeup of their class and the activities they wished to use. She worked with them to form a plan to trial, offering suggestions of collaborative structures that would lend themselves well to the type of activity and some suggestions of adaptations that could support the children appropriately. Following this, she met with a Kagan UK representative who was also a school governor where he explained his thoughts, shared some resources and helped her to contact other establishments who were in the process of developing resources to support the implementation of Kagan with specific focuses, such as SEN. She shared her findings with SLT and planned a variety of ways that she would be able to support the development of collaboration in her school. This took form of staff meetings, resource development and 1:1 coaching. She shared her plan with subject leaders in the school, where the focus was to work together to develop ‘smart cards’ for their subject, with the focus of collaboration and useful structures that can be used well within their subject across school. This had the end goal that once produced, staff would add them to planning folders as a guide to help them use the most effective structures in their lessons to support teaching and learning

Outcomes for students

As a result of this, children’s questioning and understanding improved and in turn their confidence too. On a return visit from SSAT to address an improvement area on identifying learning behaviours. Rebecca planned and carried out a showcase of the developments made since the previous visit. The assessor was presented with an insight to the children’s independent learning behaviours in the form of learning walks, displays, discussions with staff and children and curriculum planning. Following this visit, it was confirmed that the learning behaviours were explicit and consistent across our school and the school was awarded ‘Transforming’.

“The headteacher commented that she felt the work Becky has led has changed teachers’ mindset into thinking more about what individual pupils need as a learner and adapting approaches and practise accordingly with noticeable impact.” – SSAT Framework Feedback.

Supporting colleagues

Rebecca carried out a staff questionnaire to identify any concerns they had in relation to collaboration. A key point was raised that some staff were nervous to try structures that they were not yet familiar with. She found that most staff had unintentionally created a bank of ‘safe’ structures, these were more commonly used but ultimately used very well. In addition, at this time there were also a number of new staff members who were unfamiliar with the scheme. Rebecca used this as opportunity to train new staff as well as coaching those who were experienced to encourage them to trial new structures in their learning. She delivered monthly staff meetings where she would remind staff of the key principles of collaborative learning, provided them with a focus structure of the month – which they would practice, become familiar with and then start to use as part of their ‘toolkit’. Rebecca shared feedback of what went well during drop in observations of the monthly structures and what to improve. This would also be an opportunity for staff to experience the structures first hand, as she would showcase them and then make suggestions of when it could be beneficial to learning, as well as offering any advice in preparation of the planning process.

For morale, she also celebrated a member of staff each month who had done particularly well in their approach and delivery of the structure of the month, suggesting that other members of staff use them as a good example to share practice with and learn from. In order to support new staff, she also offered weekly meetings to discuss planning, team teach structures or allow them to observe her working with their classes. She gave each member of staff the option of what form of support they would prefer, similar to the children, staff also learn in a variety of ways.

Rebecca is looking forward to the continuation of supporting the development of teaching and learning at Ryders Green Primary School.