New Staffroom episode is up — this week it's about the five foundations that make or break the first fortnight with a new class, and what to do when a real question meets a silent room.

In that first fortnight, what's your go-to way of lowering the stakes without lowering the bar?

Hit play, then tell me your answer in the comments.

This week's Staffroom is about turning warnings into precorrections — the proactive reminder that heads off trouble before it starts. If you had to turn your usual warning into a positive precorrection, what would you actually say, in the couple of seconds before it happens? Hit play, then tell me your answer in the comments.

Hey everyone — quick one from me.

I want to build this community with you, not just post into it. So: what would make this a space worth checking regularly for you? More discussion threads on recent editions, a place to ask your own classroom questions, resource swaps, something else entirely?

Drop a reply below — even one line helps me shape where this goes next.

P.S. If you're on mobile, add this community to your home screen — you'll get a notification the next time someone replies to your post.

This week's Staffroom is about handwriting versus typing, and why generating — not the pen — is what actually makes it work.

The question: think about the last time a class produced written work — were they actually generating, or just copying, whatever the tool?

Hit play, then tell me your answer in the comments.

🔔 The second free DistillED Explainer video is live on DistillED and YouTube. It unpacks why classroom culture is the foundation of effective instruction.

You're the right audience for thoughts and feedback — what do you think? Leave your comments below.

Our first ⚗DistillED Explainer Video is now live — and it's completely free.

It's a short, evidence-informed guide to one of the most important topics in teaching: attention.

In under three minutes you'll get:

▸ Why attention is the gateway to all learning
▸ The science behind working memory and cognitive load
▸ Five practical strategies you can use in your classroom right away

👉 Watch it here:

This is the first in a growing library of free DistillED Explainer Videos — short, evidence-informed clips covering the strategies and ideas that matter most in classrooms. More coming soon.

If you find it useful, share it with a colleague or repost it on LinkedIn or X — it helps more teachers find DistillED. 🙏 Let me know what you think in the comments 👇 — Jamie

This week's Staffroom is about fading support — and the finding that surprised me most: removing the end of a worked example first beats removing the beginning, even though most of us do it the other way round.

When you fade a worked example, which end do you usually take away first — the beginning or the end?

Hit play, then tell me your answer in the comments.

This episode is narrated using an AI clone of Jamie's voice. Every word is written by Jamie. Read the full post on Fading Support in the latest edition of DistillED.

👋 Hey everyone,

I'm running a free online PD session: Hard Thinking for Everyone.

If, as Daniel Willingham reminds us, "memory is the residue of thought," the real question in any lesson is whether all students are attentive and cognitively engaged — or whether we're relying on poor proxies that just look like learning.

In this session, I'll walk through the proxies, the principles, and the strategies of hard thinking, and outline the ETA framework — Everyone, Together, Anyone — three deliberate ways to sample student thinking.

📅 Saturday 15th August
🇦🇺 Australia Time: 8:00–9:00pm (AWST, Perth)
🇬🇧 UK Time: 1:00–2:00pm (BST)

👉 Register here: https://luma.com/kzs49pjx

Note: this is the online version of my researchED Melbourne talk, which I'll deliver live on 8th August.

​Can't attend live? A recording of the webinar will be available afterwards in the DistillED+ Hub for DistillED+ members. If you're not yet a member, you can explore the upgrade options here: https://newsletter.jamieleeclark.com/distilled-hub

newsletter.jamieleeclark.com

luma.comHard Thinking for Everyone (Free Webinar) · Zoom · LumaEnsuring that all students are thinking is one of the most challenging and important aspects of effective teaching. If, as Daniel Willingham reminds us,…

This week's Staffroom looks at micro-decisions — the constant, in-the-moment calls teachers make about whether to carry on or change course. Jamie zeroes in on the pull between finishing what's planned and stopping to check when the room stops matching the plan, and why that pull only gets stronger under time pressure.

Think of a lesson this term where you ploughed on instead of stopping to check in. What actually made you keep going, and would you make the same call again with the benefit of hindsight?

This episode is narrated using an AI clone of Jamie's voice. Every word is written by Jamie. Read the full post on Micro-Decisions in the latest edition of DistillED.

The Staffroom is open. This is the new voice-note companion to DistillED — short, informal audio for this community. First episode explains how it works, and ends with a question for you: what's one teaching strategy you've genuinely changed your mind about — something you swore by early on that you now do completely differently? Hit play, then tell me your answer in the comments.

This week's edition explores a simple but important distinction:

A strategy is what you do. A principle is why you do it.

When planning lessons, it's easy to begin with a favourite strategy—cold calling, mini-whiteboards, retrieval practice—but effective teaching starts by identifying the learning problem first. The principle comes before the strategy.

The edition introduces a simple five-step planning framework, along with a free planning tool and one-page guide to help move planning from strategy-first to principle-first.

Question for the community:

When you're planning a lesson, what do you naturally think about first?

• The strategy I'll use?

• The learning problem I'm trying to solve?

• The curriculum content?

• Or does it depend on the lesson?

I'd be interested to hear how others approach this.

Welcome. This is where the conversation continues beyond the newsletter.

Use this space to:

• Discuss each week's ⚗DistillED edition.

• Ask questions about evidence-informed teaching.

• Share classroom examples and implementation ideas.

• Recommend research, books and resources.

• Learn from other educators.

To get started, introduce yourself below — don't be shy!