Getting primary school pupils focused and excited about learning comes down to a few simple, hands-on strategies. There are three types of engagement:
- Body (Behavioural): Are they sitting up, looking, and following along?
- Heart (Emotional): Do they feel safe, happy, and excited to be in school?
- Mind (Cognitive): Are they actually thinking hard and wanting to figure things out?
Teachers are vital in sustaining engagement by monitoring pupil focus. Key strategies include building trust-based relationships, providing learner autonomy through choice, ensuring tasks are appropriately challenging, and using interactive methods.
This staff meeting starter encourages staff to consider why some pupils do not engage as readily, the reasons for this, and strategies to use to improve engagement essential for fostering motivation, reducing disruption and improving outcomes.
Linked resources
Premium subscribers can access various resources about learner engagement. In the resource bank there is the ICAP learner engagement checklist and a self-evaluation tool for leaders to use to review the impact of learner engagement across the school.
If you want to explore this topic in more depth, we also have a training module entitled ‘How to review learner engagement’. Click the relevant button below to access these resources. To find them quickly, type ‘learner engagement’ into the search box on each page.
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