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In this edition of ⚗️DistillED, we’re exploring how to circulate the classroom purposefully to give specific and actionable feedback to improve learners.
📊 Quick Poll!
Before we dive in, I’d love to know how circulation currently works in your classroom. Your response helps shape future editions of ⚗️DistillED.
What’s the biggest barrier to circulating in lessons?
What is Circulation and Actionable Feedback?
Circulation is a deliberate action where the teacher moves purposefully around the room to check for understanding from individual students, using that information to give short, precise, actionable feedback that students act on immediately — closing the loop before errors become embedded in long-term memory.
Most teachers don’t circulate enough and if they do, it tends to be to police behaviour. However, the best teachers plan their route strategically. Circulation is key because it allows you to check and respond to learning rather than relying on assumptions from the front.
As Doug Lemov emphasises in Teach Like a Champion, great teachers don’t “wander” — they sweep the room with purpose. Instead of zig-zagging between raised hands or hovering in a familiar corner, expert teachers plan their path so they can see more, and respond faster to everyone.
“Break the plane… It’s important to try to break the plane within the first five minutes of every class. You want to make it clear to students that you own the room — that it is normal for you to go anywhere you want in the classroom at any time.”
A well-planned circulation route helps you:
Break the Plane Early: Step past the front row quickly so students feel your presence from the start.
Cover the Full Field: Move through every part of the room so no student is ever out of sight.
Prioritise Must-Check Students: Use a paper tracker to visit key students early and often.
Move Systematically: Follow a smooth, consistent loop instead of zig-zagging reactively.
Face the Class: Stay angled toward the room to maintain awareness and authority.
This graphic below visualises an effective formative feedback route including areas for pausing, scanning and taking note of interventions. The loops is systematic as it enables the teacher to check everyone - including students who require most support.
Example circulation route in a typical classroom.
When done well, strategic circulation is a driver for formative assessment — what Dylan Wiliam famously describes as “assessment becoming formative only when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet student needs.” (Black & Wiliam, Inside the Black Box, 1998).
Here are five common types of directive feedback on the fly:
Check for Understanding: Gain insight into who is getting it and who isn’t.
Verbal Feedback: Praising work before giving a specific improvement action.
Live Marking: Annotating, correcting, writing prompts or questions on the spot.
Non-Verbal Feedback: Pointing, finger circles for rechecking, tapping work.
Whole-Class Feedback: Stop the class to address a common misconception.
So, why does formative feedback matter? Let’s find out.
Why Does Circulation and Actionable Feedback Matter?
Crucially, Dylan Wiliam reminds us that the purpose of formative feedback is not to improve the work but to improve the learner. This distinction matters: if feedback merely fixes a paragraph, a diagram, or an equation, the improvement ends with that task. But if feedback changes what the student understands or can do next time, the impact compounds across every future piece of learning.
“Feedback only matters if students act on it… The purpose of feedback is to improve the learner, not just the work.
Circulation makes this possible because it allows you to intervene while thinking is still forming. It becomes a mechanism for adaptive teaching, equity of attention, and boosts progress. Ultimately, it transforms feedback from an end-of-learning event into a continuous, interactive process that builds more capable, confident, and independent learners. In a nutshell, here are three reasons why formative feedback matters:
It improves the learner, not just the work, helping students develop strategies they can use long after the current task.
It catches and corrects misconceptions early, preventing errors from becoming embedded in long-term memory.'
It boosts confidence, because students experience immediate success and see themselves improving in real time.
How do I Implement Circulation and Actionable Feedback?
Before breaking circulation into its core practices, it’s important to recognise that it only becomes powerful when it’s part of the classroom culture. Students should expect that you will move, check, prompt, and support them every lesson. This predictability builds trust and reinforces the message that their thinking will always be seen and improved in real time.
To make this work, here’s a practical six-part guide to circulating and giving feedback effectively in your classroom partially drawing from Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion awesome techniques.
Step | Explanation | Example |
|---|---|---|
1. Plan and Break the Plane Early
| Before students begin independent work, plan a predictable route that breaks the plane within the first minute and gives you access to every student. This signals attentiveness and prevents reactive zig-zagging. | “Start your task… I’ll be moving around to check your first steps.” |
2. Move Systematically (Cover the Full Field)
| Follow a deliberate loop (e.g., down one side → across the back → up the other → through the centre). Stay angled toward the room to maintain awareness and authority. Prioritise “must-check” students based on your tracker. | Teacher moves steadily down the left aisle, scans four desks, crosses the back row, checks a must-see student, and continues the loop without breaking rhythm. |
3. Diagnose Precisely Using a Tracker
| Match your tracker to the worksheet so you can compare work to criteria in seconds. Record strong examples, partial attempts, and misconceptions. Spend no more than 10 seconds per student and plan who you will re-check later. | ✓ Great opener – model later △ Missing evidence – revisit ● Misconception: confuses cause/effect |
4. Give Actionable Feedback (Prompt → Clue → Direct)
| Start with prompting questions to activate prior knowledge. Move to clueing if needed. If still stuck, give directive feedback using imperative verbs. Mark the exact place to fix and keep language economical. | Prompt: “What’s the first step here?” Clue: “Check the criteria — what’s missing?” Direct: “Add one example here. Then rewrite this sentence.” |
5. Bound the Task and Require Action Now
| Give small, finite corrections that students can complete immediately. Circulate back to check the improvement. Bounded tasks increase clarity and success. | “Fix these two lines only.” “Add one quotation.” “Do three like that, then stop and wait for me.” |
6. Close the Loop and Respond as a Teacher
| Revisit students you fed back to and check their improvement. Praise tied to criteria and prompt next steps. If many share a misconception, pause and reteach. Use strong examples you spotted earlier to model success. | “Much clearer — your reasoning now matches the criteria. Apply that to the next one.” Whole-class: “Lots of us mixed up cause and effect. Watch how I fix this example…” |
Circulation and actionable feedback, done well, are two of the most powerful ways to make teaching responsive and improvement inevitable. They allow you to check everyone and respond at the moment it matters. These practices are also about connection. They communicate to every student, “I see your thinking, and I’m here to help you strengthen it.”
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Jamie
Free Resource Download
Circulation and Feedback Tracker Free Download
This one-page tracker helps you circulate with purpose by giving you a clear space to note what you see as students work. It includes a seating map space, must-check students, success criteria, exemplar notes, misconceptions, and whole-class reteach triggers — everything you need to gather evidence quickly and give precise, in-the-moment feedback.
DistillED+ Checklist and Slideshow
This week’s ⚗️DistillED+ members get access to a Circulation & Actionable Feedback CPD PowerPoint and a Printable Strategy Checklist PDF. Together, these resources unpack the what, why, and how of purposeful circulation, modelling evidence-informed routines such as planned movement loops, scanning and tracking, Prompt → Clue → Direct feedback, non-verbal nudges, and whole-class reteach triggers. Each element is designed to help you see more, respond faster, and improve every learner in real time.
If you’re a ⚗️DistillED+ member, scroll to the bottom of this post to access the exclusive download. You can also visit the DistillED+ Hub to explore the full library of member-only resources.
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