Employ strategies to develop young people’s metacognition and self-regulation (i.e. the ability to monitor, direct and review their own learning, through explicitly thinking about their own learning, setting goals and evaluating progress) and executive function skills (these are a set of skills and mental processes that develop throughout young personhood and adolescence, which support young people to self-regulate, initiate, attend to and persevere with activities successfully).

Overview – always give an overview of what the lesson is about- orally or visually with a lesson or task timetable. Present information in a clear and concise way with visual prompts and memory hooks.

When asking questioning, allow for processing time.

Explicit teaching of metacognitive strategies, following the seven-step model:

1. Activating prior knowledge. - (establish clear links (visual and oral) with previous learning- photos, mind maps);

2. Explicit strategy instruction - be clear about key information, regularly checking students understanding ask them to explain their understanding to a partner;

3. Modelling of learned strategy. (With supported visuals to take back to desk);

4. Memorisation of strategy. - throughout lesson revisit strategies and key information- present in multi-sensory ways, to provide memory hooks and pathways in the brain;

5. Guided practice. (Provide a task plan or printout of bullet pointed coloured step by step instructions);

6. Independent practice;

7. Structured reflection. (Reflection of your own learning experience with prompts, questions, activities leading to positive change and growth) ---creating memes and cartoons around concepts and strategies will help students realise how much they have learned (and will create another memory hook). 

Organise and structure classroom talk and dialogue, including ‘Socratic talk’, (discussions requiring students in use high order thinking and to reflect and critique multiple perspectives) talk partners, and debating.

Teacher modelling of own thinking and understanding at a whole-class level (e.g. modelling self-talk when preparing for a task, making mistakes or monitoring reading comprehension).

Use of open questioning to support young people thinking around a task (e.g., 'what do we have to do here?' 'How might we start?').

Use of structured planning templates (e.g. visual task plans or check lists), teacher modelling, worked examples and breaking down activities into steps.

Access to key information (e.g. visually-subject specific vocabulary, key spellings, number facts etc.).

Access to resources to support Independence and prevent memory from being overloaded- use of recordable apps, - notetaker, Pages, pear note (mac), apple dictation, Microsoft dictate, windows dictate.

Use of verbal and visual cues/prompts to direct or redirect attention – access to opportunities for movement and brain breaks and different modalities of teaching and learning.