To grant New College Doncaster £45,000
to deliver a project which will bring together 6 volunteer
secondary schools to test the effectiveness of a Metacognition
intervention with year 9 students.
The focus of the project will be retrieval practice, a key skill
which links to a wider range of qualities including resilience and
self-regulation. New College Doncaster are uniquely placed to
deliver this as they have the materials and
expertise available to carry out the trial, given they use
metacognition strategies within their current environment.
This project will test assumptions locally, building on research
undertaken by the Education Endowment Foundation. If proven to be
an effective method for Doncaster, individual schools may choose to
adopt the approaches.
There are four key objectives:
to trial, test and evaluate strategies for developing memory and
retrieval skills with a group of year 9 students in order to
prepare them for the demands of GCSE assessment;
to establish ways of learning which will not only improve long-term
memory but develop students’ ability to tackle challenging
problems and difficulties within and between
subjects;
to engage English teachers of year 9 students in the development of
their skills in disciplined inquiry, subsequently extending this to
teachers of other subjects and across
a wider range of schools;
to support schools in establishing and sustaining a culture of
student independence and resilience, leading to sustainable change
and improved outcomes.