This document discusses strategies for teaching to high-achieving ("A*") students. It begins by presenting feedback from student questionnaires indicating that most students feel academically challenged and that teachers have high expectations. Potential activities are then described, including critiquing experts' views, flipping the classroom using online resources, working backwards from predictions, creating exam questions and ambigous tasks. The document concludes by asking for final thoughts on teaching to A* students.

1. Teaching to the A*

2. Student Voice Feedback:
Academic Scholar Questionnaires
General findings from the academic scholar
questionnaires:
o 66% of students across all year groups strongly
agreed/agreed that they felt academically
challenged in their lessons.
o 76% of students strongly agreed/agreed that their
teachers had high academic expectations of them.

3. Use of data to as an indicator
of ability – with Gary Ekins
• What do you think about using data to understand
your classes?

4. Discussion points
• What are the pros and cons of teaching to the
A*?
• What are the pros and cons of teaching to the
middle and providing support for the
most/least able?
• What are the barriers to teaching to the A* in
your subject?

5. Activities for ‘Teaching to the A*’
There are six possible activities for teaching to
the A* available on your tables.
For each activity:
• How could you use or tailor it for use in your
subject (if applicable)?
• What are each of the activities designed to
do?

6. Critiquing the experts
What was the key turning point in the failure of constitutional
monarchy in France? Louis’ flight to Varennes, or the oath of
loyalty to the clergy?
‘The French Revolution had many
turning points; but the oath of the
clergy was, if not the greatest,
unquestionably one of them. It was
certainly the Constituent Assembly’s
most serious mistake. For the first time
revolutionaries forced fellow citizens to
choose; to declare themselves publicly
for or against the new order.’
William Doyle, The Oxford History of the
French Revolution
‘Louis XVI started to die on 21 June 1791
(the flight to Varennes). He was not yet a
hostage, but he was already little more
than a stake in the game. For his flight tore
away the veil of that false constitutional
monarchy and once more confronted the
patriot party with the whole problem of
the revolution’s failure.’
Francois Furet, The French Revolution
• Upon introduction to a topic, present an expert’s view.
• Ask the students to critique the interpretation of the
experts as they learn more about the topic in question
• Ask students to challenge or support the experts,
resulting in a debate.

7. Flipping the classroom – making use of the
online resources available
• Set a homework as preparation for the next lesson,
with a twist.
• Ask students to watch/listen to a lecture or
documentary online, or read provided handouts.
• Ask all students are to complete a set of
accompanying questions.
• Next lesson, ask the more able to lead the discussion
about the homework, with careful monitoring and
limited intervention from the teacher.

8. Working backwards
• Predict and present the weather for our town
on a given day.

9. Creating exam questions or
classroom activities
Initially, ask students to produce exam
questions for the topic they are
studying, or the lesson that they are in.
Students go on to create model
answers to the questions they have set.
Students swap questions with one
another and then answer these.
Questions are taken in by the teacher
and redistributed at random. After
writing answers students meet up with
the question author to mark the work.
This could also apply to an end-of-topic or end-of-lesson task, where students
can write questions or create activities for their classmates to complete.

10. Ambiguity
Set students deliberately ambiguous
tasks or questions and offer them only
limited help in completing them.
The vague nature of what is going on
may lead students into difficulties,
however it is here that they will be forced
to apply problem-solving skills, try
different approaches and develop a
response they feel to be appropriate.
Give students the confidence to
experiment by:
-Telling them it is good to fail as they can
then explain what they have learnt by it.
- That answers are valid as long as they
can be justified by the student.

11. Playing ‘Devil’s Advocate’
• After a student has completed a piece of work,
or put forward an argument in class, ask them,
or another student, to critique their work and
deliberately put forward an alternative point of
view, or question their decisions.

12. What final thoughts about Teaching to the A*
would you like to contribute to this session?
Any Questions?