I have been in London for the past few days with a group of education professionals from Flanders. We visited, among others, the British colleagues of Leerpunt, the EEF, and yesterday, a research school that collaborates with the EEF. This primary and secondary school tries to work as evidence-informed as possible and simultaneously inspire and support a network of other schools. The central theme of the school visit was reading, although speaking skills were also discussed a lot.

The class observations were the highlight. Many visitors were impressed when they saw 4-year-olds in the nursery group reading words in a school example of direct instruction. It was a shame I couldn’t film it because Sigfrid Engelmann would have been proud. It happened in a very loving and pleasant way, with children of whom a large group have a non-English speaking background, and a large part also from a poor and insecure situation. We saw really young children discussing a text read aloud in groups of four, with a ‘summarizer’ appointed in each group, who summarised the discussion for the entire class. We saw 5-year-olds doing things we sometimes only get to do in the second year.

This was done without putting pressure on the children. What’s more, we did see these moments, but the school also has a lot of room for play and more.

But other things struck me:

• The entire team feels responsible for learning. This school is an example of collective teacher efficacy. If one of the people who guided us through the school noticed that a child was stuck in an exercise, he helped immediately. If the support teacher there to support a child with a disability saw another child daydreaming momentarily, she gently and lovingly brought the child back to the lesson.
• The collective was also recognisable in the clear routines common to all the teachers, ensuring peace and predictability. The strength of the texts and the quality of the (thinking) questions asked about them were incredibly high.
• We saw an exceptionally high level of involvement and motivation among the children. And no, it wasn’t because we were visiting.
• The vocabulary of the teachers, or do you think that many teachers in the second year use words like extrapolate and that the children understand it?

The warmth stood out in the Torriano Primary School and Parliament Hill School. I knew the latter well myself because I had often visited it in recent years for the ResearchED National Conference.

Part of what we saw was due to a fantastic team; one of the teachers we saw was only teaching in her second year, but you couldn’t see it. Part of it is due to the input from EEF and other organisations. But part of it is also due to the policy of an imposed Phonics approach and a compulsory reading test in what would be our first year. By the end of the second year, every child should be able to read fluently.

As an educational scientist, did I see things that could be improved? Of course, everything can constantly be improved, but I was happy that we could see with our group of visitors:

• why England is doing so much better than many other countries at the moment
• and that children and education can sometimes do much more than we think