Teaching & Learning

Each lesson follows this model and utilises the High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS) which are shown to have the strongest positive impact on student learning. We believe that the best teaching is where the student is empowered to take responsibility for their own learning and is able to do this independently by the end of the lesson.

Each of our lessons incorporates the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRoR) model. In the instructional phase of the lesson, the teacher has a prominent role and models the learning to the class. Often teachers will ‘think aloud’ to make the learning visible to the student. This is the ‘I do it’ phase.

The teacher will then guide students in their learning which might include questioning, prompting or repeating modelling if necessary. This is referred to as the ‘We do it’ phase.

In the next phase, more of the responsibility in the learning starts to shift to the students who work collaboratively to consolidate and practice what they have learnt. This is often partner or group work; mixed ability or sometimes same ability, and is referred to as the ‘You do it together’ phase.

The teacher will be circulating, supporting and collecting evidence of learning. Finally, students are given an opportunity to practise the skill on their own to determine if they have mastery. This independent learning phase may vary from student to student, but usually if a task has been differentiated every student should reach this stage in each of our lessons. This is referred to as the ‘You do it alone’ phase.

SAEPAR Instructional Model diagram and GRoR Model  

High Impact Teaching Strategies (Department of Education and Training)