Effective classroom practice

Effective Classroom Practice is an original and highly relevant book with unique messages relating to teaching quality and teacher standards. Providing rigorous evidence and rich insights into teachers’ practices, the authors identify important features of effective classroom practice including, for example, interactions with students, the role of feedback, the learning climate, positive relationships, planning and meeting student needs. Moreover, they explore a number of important influences on classroom practice and teachers’ work in terms of career phase, teacher identity, self-efficacy and role of school support. This, in turn, provides powerful evidence of the contextual complexities of teachers' classroom practice. The book further highlights the role of core classroom competencies in terms of organization and management, pedagogical context knowledge, innovative pedagogical skills, and interpersonal qualities. It also shows that these can be enacted differently by teachers in different sectors, year groups, subject groups and socio-economic contexts. This research evidence – awarded an ‘outstanding’ grade by the Economic and Social Research Council – confirms that the concept of an ‘effective teacher’ is a complex one. Copyright © 2014 Alison Kington, Pam Sammons, Elaine Regan, Eleanor Brown, James Ko and Scott Buckler.