What this page is
A curated lens across the existing 144 strategies
Inclusive practice begins with responsive teaching: identifying the barriers pupils may experience and making thoughtful decisions about how best to support access, participation and independence.
This page brings together existing Pedagogy First strategies that may help. It doesn't introduce a new set of strategies, and it isn't a SEND intervention framework. Everything here comes from the original 144, seen through six practical lenses, and should be used thoughtfully, responsively and in context. If your school thinks about inclusion through ideas like universal design for learning, these lenses will feel familiar: reduce the barriers, and more pupils can show what they know.
A lens on the 144
Access and participation
Existing approaches that may help more pupils engage, contribute and participate meaningfully.
- Every Voice, Every Time Eliciting evidence only works if every student can respond. Offer written, verbal, visual and digital means of expression. The method you choose decides who gets to show what they know. 02 Formative Assessment · Elicit Evidence of Learning
- Mini Whiteboards All students write their response and hold it up simultaneously. The teacher reads the room in seconds: full participation, no waiting, no dominant voices. Works across all subjects. 02 Formative Assessment · Elicit Evidence of Learning
- ABCD Response Cards Give each student a card: A, B, C and D. Pose a question and all students hold up their answer at once. No hands, no opt-out. The spread of responses shows instantly where misconceptions lie. 02 Formative Assessment · Elicit Evidence of Learning
- The Muddiest Point At lesson close, each student anonymously writes the one thing they are least clear about. The teacher addresses the most common muddy points publicly at the start of the next lesson. Two minutes; high value. 02 Formative Assessment · Students as Owners of Their Learning
- Write Before You Speak Ask students to write before any verbal response is taken. Writing prevents the quickest from foreclosing others’ thinking. The pen democratises the room before the voice takes over. 04 Questioning & Discussion · Wait Time & Thinking Space
- Think-Pair-Share Lyman’s think-pair-share gives every student thinking time before public exposure. Pairs test ideas with a peer first. The result is more considered and more substantive discussion. 04 Questioning & Discussion · Wait Time & Thinking Space
- Hands Down Wiliam shows hand-raising distorts who answers. A small group volunteers repeatedly; the rest disengage. Remove hands and direct to named students. Every student should be asked. 04 Questioning & Discussion · Participation & Equity
- Cold Call Without Threat Good and Brophy showed differential questioning reinforces attainment gaps. Direct questions are equitable only when the climate supports it. Norms: no wrong attempts, only thinking. 04 Questioning & Discussion · Participation & Equity
A lens on the 144
Working memory and cognitive demand
Existing approaches that may help teachers manage complexity, sequencing, scaffolding and unnecessary cognitive demand.
- Small Steps, Always Rosenshine: present new material in small steps with practice after each. Use animations to chunk information and reveal content gradually. Let students process before continuing. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Structuring Explanations
- Four Slots, No More Sweller: working memory holds about four items. Every screen element competes for those slots. Strip slides to essentials. Press B to blank the screen when you want attention on you. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Managing Cognitive Load
- Say It or Show It, Not Both Sweller’s redundancy effect: narrating text on screen forces double processing. Say it or show it, not both. Use the B or W key to blank the slide while you talk through the idea. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Managing Cognitive Load
- Avoid Split Attention Sweller’s split attention: separate text and diagrams force learners to search between them. Integrate labels directly into the image. Use annotation tools to build the diagram live. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Managing Cognitive Load
- Remove the Clutter Mayer’s coherence: remove every word, image and sound that does not support learning. Strip clip art from slides. Cut background music. Every element on screen must earn its place. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Managing Cognitive Load
- Chunk and Reveal Mayer’s segmenting: break content into chunks. Use slide animations to reveal one idea per click, not auto-play. Let working memory process before the next chunk arrives. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Managing Cognitive Load
- Pre-Train the Vocabulary Mayer’s pre-training: teach key terms before the main explanation. A vocabulary slide or pre-lesson video builds familiarity first. Learners who know the words can focus on the ideas. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Multimedia & Dual Coding
- Fade the Scaffolds Rosenshine: begin with full support, then fade. Show a complete example, then a partial one with gaps, then independent practice. Use fillable templates to structure the fading. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Modelling & Worked Examples
- Build in Stop Points Winne: monitoring fades without prompts. Insert planned pauses where students ask whether the approach is still working, before sunk effort makes a wrong method hard to abandon. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Performance & Monitoring
A lens on the 144
Language and explanation
Existing approaches supporting clarity, vocabulary, examples, explanations and modelling.
- Concrete Before Abstract Willingham: anchor new ideas to concrete examples first. Use images, video or objects to make the abstract visible before naming it. Move to the abstract once the concrete is secure. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Structuring Explanations
- Words and Images Together Paivio’s dual coding: the brain processes words and images through separate channels. Design every slide with both: a key visual paired with minimal text. Two routes to the same idea. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Multimedia & Dual Coding
- Narrate, Don’t Label Mayer’s modality: people learn better from images with narration than images with text. Record a narrated screencast over a diagram. Let the voice do what text would overload. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Multimedia & Dual Coding
- Keep Words Near Images Mayer’s spatial contiguity: place words near the images they describe. Labels sit beside the diagram, not in a separate list. Use slide design to keep related information together. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Multimedia & Dual Coding
- Pre-Train the Vocabulary Mayer’s pre-training: teach key terms before the main explanation. A vocabulary slide or pre-lesson video builds familiarity first. Learners who know the words can focus on the ideas. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Multimedia & Dual Coding
- Think Aloud Rosenshine: model the process, not the product. Use a visualiser or screen share to think aloud live. Narrate your decisions as you work. Make invisible expertise visible to all. 05 Explanations & Modelling · Modelling & Worked Examples
- Accountable Talk Michaels, O’Connor and Resnick hold students to accurate knowledge and rigorous reasoning. Teach moves: I agree because..., The evidence is..., Say more.... Language shapes thinking. 04 Questioning & Discussion · Dialogic Teaching & Discussion
A lens on the 144
Participation and response
Existing approaches creating wider opportunities for pupils to think, answer, discuss and make understanding visible.
- Deliberate Cold Call Select who answers deliberately, not at random. Track participation so nobody stays invisible across lessons. Where appropriate, target the students whose thinking you most need to hear. 02 Formative Assessment · Elicit Evidence of Learning
- Think, Pair, Share: Disciplined Individual thinking first; paired discussion second; nominated response third. Nomination makes the report-back evidence, not just the most confident voice. Without it, the share is optional. 02 Formative Assessment · Elicit Evidence of Learning
- Wait Time 1: After You Ask Rowe found most teachers wait under one second before speaking. Extending to three seconds increases the length and complexity of responses. Silence is thinking, not a gap to fill. 04 Questioning & Discussion · Wait Time & Thinking Space
- Wait Time 2: After a Student Speaks Rowe identified a second wait time: the pause after a student responds. Three seconds prompts elaboration and self-correction. Silence after an answer signals that more is expected. 04 Questioning & Discussion · Wait Time & Thinking Space
- Track Who You Ask Good and Brophy found teachers direct harder questions to higher-attaining students. Track participation across lessons. Patterns invisible in the moment become visible on paper. 04 Questioning & Discussion · Participation & Equity
- Pose, Pause, Pounce, Bounce Wiliam’s PPPB: pose the question, pause, direct to one student, then bounce the answer to another. The bounce keeps all students alert and spreads thinking across the whole room. 04 Questioning & Discussion · Participation & Equity
- Every Voice, Every Time Eliciting evidence only works if every student can respond. Offer written, verbal, visual and digital means of expression. The method you choose decides who gets to show what they know. 02 Formative Assessment · Elicit Evidence of Learning
A lens on the 144
Independence and self regulation
Existing approaches helping pupils plan, monitor, reflect and gradually take greater ownership.
- Set the Goal First Zimmerman: planning begins with a specific, proximal goal, not a vague aim. Have students state what a good answer to this question looks like before they start writing it. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Forethought & Planning
- Pick a Strategy on Purpose Flavell: planning means selecting an approach, not defaulting to one. Have students name which method they will use for this problem and why, before the first line goes down. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Forethought & Planning
- Ask Yourself As You Go Flavell: monitoring means questioning your understanding mid-task. Teach students to pause and ask “do I actually understand this?”, so gaps surface in time to fix them. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Performance & Monitoring
- Turn Reflection Into a Plan Butler: feedback only regulates learning if it changes the next action. Have students convert each reflection into one concrete adjustment they will make on the very next task. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Self-Reflection & Evaluation
- Know the Strategy Itself Flavell: students cannot deploy a strategy they have never been taught. Teach retrieval, spacing or self-explanation explicitly as named methods before expecting independent use. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Strategy Knowledge & Use
- Fade the Scaffold Zimmerman: support must be withdrawn for self-regulation to develop. Move from modelled to guided to independent use, removing prompts as students show they no longer need them. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Strategy Knowledge & Use
- Self-Assessment as Process Ask students to assess their work against criteria before you mark it. Andrade found the act of comparing, not the accuracy of the judgment, improves performance. Process is the point. 03 Feedback · Source & Direction
- Sustainable Feedback Boud argues feedback should build the learner's capacity to judge quality. If students always need you to tell them how they did, the system has failed. Design for independence. 03 Feedback · Closing the Gap
A lens on the 144
Feedback and next steps
Existing approaches helping pupils understand feedback and know what to do with it.
- Reduce Volume, Raise Focus A page of comments overwhelms. One or two precise targets land. Identify the one thing that would make the biggest difference right now and focus entirely on that. 03 Feedback · Timing & Frequency
- Task, Not Person Feedback that threatens self-concept decreases performance. "This paragraph needs restructuring" works. "You need to try harder" does not. Direct feedback at the work, not the person. 03 Feedback · Feedback & the Learner
- Build Feedback Literacy Teach students how to read and act on feedback before you give it. Model with an exemplar: here is the comment, what it means, what to do next. Feedback literacy is taught, not assumed. 03 Feedback · Feedback & the Learner
- Build In Time to Act Feedback with no time to act on it is wasted. Begin the next lesson with students reading and responding to comments before anything new. The response is the learning event. 03 Feedback · Closing the Gap
- Questions, Not Corrections Return work with questions, not corrections. "What evidence supports this claim?" demands more thinking than rewriting it for them. The cognitive work belongs with the learner. 03 Feedback · Closing the Gap
- Build In Time to Act Feedback with no time to act on it has no value. Begin the next lesson with students reading and responding to feedback before anything new. Time to act is where the learning happens. 02 Formative Assessment · Feedback That Moves Learning Forward
- Turn Reflection Into a Plan Butler: feedback only regulates learning if it changes the next action. Have students convert each reflection into one concrete adjustment they will make on the very next task. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Self-Reflection & Evaluation
Professional judgement matters
No strategy works for every pupil
No strategy works for every pupil, subject or context. Inclusive practice depends on understanding your pupils, identifying the barriers they experience, evaluating what helps and adapting your teaching accordingly. The lenses above are places to look, not prescriptions.
Use this with your team
A 30 minute team activity
- Identify a barrier to participation or learning that pupils are actually experiencing.
- Explore the lens above that speaks to it.
- Select two or three strategies that look relevant.
- Discuss why each might help, not just whether it looks appealing.
- Consider what adaptation your subject, phase and pupils would need.
- Agree one approach to trial.
- Look at what happens to learning and participation.
- Decide together whether to continue, adapt or stop.
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