Unpacking the “Pace” Problem: Moving Beyond a Vague Target

“Pace” is a frequent, yet often nebulous, target beginning teachers are given by their mentors. Mentors readily identify pacing issues, but pinpointing the root cause is challenging. Consequently, mentees struggle to translate “improve your pace” into actionable steps. To truly support their progress, we must define “pace” with precision.

What do we mean by “Pace”?

When mentors set pace as a target, they usually mean one of the following things:

1. Transitions between tasks are not being anticipated/ managed appropriately.
2. Instructions lack clarity, meaning pupils are slow to get started on tasks.
3. Tasks lack purpose, meaning pupil motivation declines as they struggle to understand why they are completing an activity.
4. The amount of time needed for each task has been misjudged in the planning phase.
5. The time allocated to each task has not been adjusted during the lesson in response to checking for pupils’ understanding/ assessment for learning feedback.
6. An appropriate balance of abstract and concrete conceptual thinking has not been achieved.

However, because this level of specificity about the “Pace” target is rarely provided, beginning teachers can find it hard to understand what they should do to address the development challenge.

How can “Pace” be addressed? Let’s break this down.

Pace Targets 1, 2 & 3: Transitions, instructions and purpose.

I have previously talked about pace targets 1, 2 & 3 in a blog exploring how a mentor could go about targeting their mentee’s transitions to help them move more smoothly between lesson phases.  In this blog I focused on the ‘loss of momentum during critical transition moments caused by logistics, clarity of instruction and clarity of purpose, and the knock-on effect this has on behaviour and learning.’  I have seen the benefit of specifically naming one of these three aspects of my tutees’ practice when setting “Pace” targets.  Being more specific in target setting has meant the beginning teacher has greater clarity about where things could be improved, and a more concrete idea of how to put the target into action.

Pace Target 4:   The amount of time needed for each task has been misjudged in the planning phase.

It’s really difficult for less experienced teachers to anticipate how much time it will take a class to complete a task. Overplanning is, in my experience, far more common than under planning.  Beginning teachers usually wildly underestimate how much time it will take for pupils to complete even the simplest of tasks and often fail to factor in those lost minutes inevitably taken up by classroom interruptions.  Conversely, they also tend to overestimate how long pupils will take on tasks that contain repeated steps.

Helping beginning teachers to develop this sense of timing can be supported by:

• equipping mentees to undertake observations where they actively notice the time being allocated to, and spent on, different types of tasks.  For example, getting a beginning teacher to time on a stopwatch how long it takes for Year 7 to locate the correct page in the textbook or copy the title and date from the board can be very enlightening! 
• encouraging mentees to add timings onto their plans – not just how long they intend the activity to take, but where they will have got to in the plan by key timestamps.
• providing guidance around the times that have been allocated in their planning until they are better able to judge timings for themselves: “Year 8 just won’t be able to complete the comprehension and write 3 sides of A4 for their assessment in 13minutes. They will likely need 12minutes for the comprehension and 30 minutes for the writing chunked into three 10minute portions to maintain focus.”

Pace Target 5: The time allocated to each task has not been adjusted during the lesson in response to checking for pupils’ understanding/ assessment for learning feedback.

Beginning teachers find in-lesson adaptations of their plans very tricky indeed. The cognitive overload they experience while teaching means that making live adjustments to the time allocated for tasks is a bridge too far for many (even at the halfway point of their ITE programme).  Sometimes the lack of an embedded approach to assessment for learning means they fail to notice when an activity is going on too long because they can’t spot that the learning has already been secured.  For similar reasons, they also miss the need to slow down or reteach elements of an activity.   However, even when they can spot that a task needs to be shortened or extended, they often feel unable to change the length of time allocated to the activity for fear of derailing other aspects of their lesson. 

This kind of pace target is supported by mentors:

• working on the beginning teacher’s knowledge and implementation of assessment for learning strategies (for example inserting hinge questions into their planning)– helping them to focus on checking for understanding and thinking about how they use that information to make decisions about where to take the lesson next.
• helping the beginning teacher to think through the rationale for their activities – what is it the pupils should know as a result of the task.  If they have a clearer sense of what the activity is for, they are better able to judge if pupils have grasped the purpose it was intended to serve, and can therefore make decisions to move on or reteach more easily –  this is explored at the end of the blog about transition. 

Pace Target 6: An appropriate balance of abstract and concrete conceptual thinking has not been achieved.

One of the more complex meanings of the pace target relates to the balance of abstract and conceptual thinking included in the lesson.  Lessons which move back and forth between concrete to abstract thinking (in a semantic wave) make learning meaningful for pupils and secure their understanding*.  Effectively shifting between concrete and abstract thinking creates a sense of purposeful pace. Concrete frameworks build student confidence and facilitate rapid knowledge acquisition. Conversely, slowing down the lesson for elements which introduce or include abstract conceptual thinking, allows students to grapple with complex ideas and apply their knowledge.  This in turn fosters deeper understanding. 

This kind of pace target is much harder to explain to beginning teachers – they usually need to see it to grasp it!

Pace targets relating to the balance of abstract and conceptual thinking can be supported by:

• mentors undertaking a whispered observation with their mentee (or observing a filmed lesson together) drawing their attention to the way the teacher varies the pace of the lesson as they move between abstract and concrete activity phases.
• equipping beginning teachers to complete semantic wave observations of experienced teachers or use the semantic wave as a lesson planning tool.

Saying what we mean

Effective mentors provide clear, actionable feedback and support their mentees to develop targets that get to the heart of the development challenge they are facing. So, the next time we find ourselves writing “Pace” as an area for development in a lesson observation, perhaps we should pause and instead:

• Identify the specific aspect of practice that requires attention.
• Provide targeted strategies and support.

If we do this, the teachers we support are more likely to understand how they can address their development needs, and this should lead to more meaningful improvement.

*with gratitude to Alex Ford who first introduced me to the work of Prof. Lee Rusznyak, the concept of LCT and semantic wave observations.