“Kate Jones provided an ‘Assessment for Learning’ session at our Teaching, Learning and Assessment Conference. Feedback from staff was excellent with many implementing strategies directly into their classroom practice straight away. For example, ‘The Big Question’, ‘Question Structure’, ‘Target Memory’ and ‘Retrieval Practice’ were some tools staff highlighted specifically. Katie added excellent pedagogical value to the day!”
“Kate gave a fantastic talk at our school, it was the perfect balance of the science of learning and practical ideas, setting the tone for our INSET day and helping us to embed retrieval practice. The presentation was clear, engaging and informative. Teachers came away buzzing with ideas to try out in their lessons. She generously provided an amazing selection of resources that we have continually referred back to throughout the year and which support us with keeping our retrieval activities varied and interesting. Highly recommended!”
“As a school, we have worked with Kate on several occasions. Kate has delivered workshops for us both online and in person in Spain. She has always been incredibly generous in terms of her time and her resources. Our staff have very much appreciated her ideas and very clear presentation of educational research. In particular, she is very adept at sharing practical ways to implement key concepts in the classroom and her hands-on experience as a teacher shines through.”
“The strategies Kate shared are so simple to implement but make a massive difference to pupil recall. The pupils who used retrieval practice strategies to support them in revising for the English Literature NEA were able to recall the key concepts and information seven months later, post lockdown and the results were about 7 % higher overall, despite a significant gap in teaching due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The pupils remembered more effectively and were able to apply knowledge with greater depth of understanding than ever before. All subjects are now working on building retrieval practice as part of their lesson structure and we can confirm it is certainly making a positive and significant impact.”
“I really enjoyed Kate’s book and the opportunity to meet with her over Zoom. I am heartened that the retrieval techniques she advocates still allow for fun, spontaneity and creativity in their implementation. I also take away a personal challenge in that I will have to work towards involving every pupil, every lesson. I know I still need to improve the methods I use in day to day teaching to employ retrieval techniques in the most effective ways. “
“After 20 plus years of teaching, I am reinvigorated and up for the challenge. I’m still a work in progress and happy to keep learning and adapting”.
“I found the common mistakes with retrieval being highlighted particularly useful. I am definitely guilty of some of the pitfalls. I mostly use retrieval as a starter, sometimes rushing through answers, probably not giving enough
scaffolding with younger pupils and definitely focusing heavily on factual recall. The session has spurred me on to keep improving in these areas, by bringing them to my attention, and giving some ideas of how to broaden my use of retrieval with pupils”
“I enjoyed the down to earth approach Kate took and her honesty”.
“Kate has worked with our school over a period of time and has supported and challenged us to develop our practice. It has been great to work with Kate who is as comfortable in a classroom or delivering to a year group as she is delivering high quality professional learning to staff. We have really enjoyed working with Kate and appreciate the fact that her work is ongoing and not a one off.”
“We have worked with Kate for a couple of years across our Trust and not only is she extremely knowledgeable, she is an absolute delight to work with. She can not be more accommodating to our needs and the staff have requested that Kate comes back to do more work with us. We have seen demonstrable impact in classrooms across our schools, with children able to know and remember more due to the techniques we have put in place since Kate’s training with us.”
“I would recommend Kate without hesitation. Kate was one of our most universally loved CPD sessions to date and we see the impact of her CPD within almost every lesson. Kate is an authority in her field, she distills complex research and delivers this with humour, providing practical examples of how we can implement this within our own classrooms. She’s an excellent classroom practitioner and bridged the gap between theory and practice seamlessly! Kate really cares about the schools she works with, she worked with us to identify our schools needs and to provide bespoke training.”
‘Kate’s passion for high quality teaching and learning comes across. Her books are easy reads and enable teachers to quickly put ideas into practice. Kate has been working with our teaching staff over Zoom this year, leading staff meetings and inspiring our staff to try out different strategies. We are already reaping the rewards and recent monitoring shows that our pupils are already learning and remembering more!-thank you Kate!’
‘Kate delivered two 1-hour webinars to our teachers and they were hugely beneficial for us all. She reviewed the theory behind retrieval practice, which provided a great basis for all the practical techniques for retrieval that she then went on to share. Kate not only recorded these webinars so we could return to them as needed, she also shared a wealth of resources after the sessions that we continue to draw on in our daily teaching practice.’
“Kate’s session was really informative. She is well versed in formative assessment. I enjoyed listening to her perspectives on existing theories. I am keen to read Kate’s books following her session.”