Many of the things we now see as unhelpful started out as good idea to address real problems but morphed into obligatory rituals rather than useful solutions to genuine problems.

For example, there really was a problem with activity led lessons where being busy doing stuff seemed the main driver. Lots of faffy stuff, lack of focus on actually learning anything as long as everyone busy cutting, sticking & colouring

Tight learning objectives were a real game changer and really helped teachers think about the point of activities. The emphasis on ‘rigour & pace’ (they were a pair) was also great at focusing minds with a sense of urgency.

Bringing in data to reflect on how well children were doing was ground breaking too. When I first started teaching there was none of that & no lesson observations or book looks or marking policies.

At first, all these things really helped and teaching really improved. But over time we lost sight of the problem these were intended to fix and they deteriorated into rituals of obedience & caused unforeseen other problems.

So now we are trying to address different problems with knowledge organisers and retrieval practice, WCF & so on, we need to bear in mind that unless we think about the problem these are intended to solve, these too might morph into unhelpful orthodoxies that cause other problems