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Obtain a High Success Rate
Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction [FREE GUIDE & RESOURCE]
Jamie Clark
October 17, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes
👋 G’day mate!
In this edition of ⚗️DistillED, we’re focusing on one of Rosenshine’s most illuminating — yet often misunderstood — principles: Principle 7, Obtain a High Success Rate.
What is a ‘High Success Rate’?
Rosenshine observed that the most effective teachers engineered lessons where students were successful around 80% of the time during guided practice. That sweet spot provides the right balance between security and stretch: it’s challenging enough to sustain effortful thinking, yet achievable enough for students to consolidate new knowledge and taste the joy of success.
Rosenshine based the 80% figure on classroom studies showing that in the most effective lessons, students were correct about 80% of the time during guided practice.
Crucially, this 80 percent figure isn’t about “80 percent of students understanding the idea.” As Tom Sherrington clarifies, it reflects the overall accuracy of student responses across the class. When success rates are too low, students can rehearse misconceptions; when too high, the cognitive demand drops and it’s too easy. As Rosenshine explains:
“In order for students to learn new material, they must be successful approximately 80 percent of the time during guided practice… When the success rate is too low, students are practicing errors and misconceptions. When it is too high, the material is probably too easy.”
Rosenshine’s insight reminds us that effective teaching is about designing lessons that engage students in short, sharp practice. Essentially, obtaining a high success rate is:
The Sweet Spot: Aiming for around 80% accuracy during guided practice — enough challenge to think hard, but not so hard that errors multiply.
The Calibration: Adjusting task difficulty to stretch thinking, not measuring how many students “get it.”
The Confidence Builder: Creating frequent moments of success to motivate and sustain effortful learning.
The Feedback Loop: Using regular checks for understanding to guide next steps and pacing.
This visual illustrates why that balance matters. When tasks are too easy, there’s little challenge or growth. When they’re too hard, accuracy drops and misconceptions form. The goal is to design learning so that students are challenged and successful — hitting the optimal zone where confidence and progress grow together.
So why is obtaining a high success rate important? Let’s jump into some key research…
Why is Obtaining a High Success Rate Important?
Rosenshine’s emphasis on a high success rate is rooted in both classroom research and cognitive science. When students experience frequent success, they build fluency and confidence, reinforcing the belief that effort leads to improvement.
“Teachers who had students with a high success rate during guided practice and seatwork also had students who were more engaged and who learned more.”
What’s more, each successful retrieval strengthens schema and helps students to cement connections between ideas, moving knowledge from working memory to long-term memory. This process has the benefit of freeing up cognitive capacity for more complex thinking. See the visual below:
Conversely, when students practise with a high error rate, misconceptions can become embedded, making future tasks harder. Maintaining an optimal level of success—around 80 percent—creates the right conditions for effortful yet rewarding practice. This balance doesn’t just improve retention; it also nurtures motivation, resilience, and the sense of mastery that keeps learners engaged.
Maintaining a high success rate on tasks helps maximise learning because it:
Builds Confidence: Frequent success strengthens motivation and reinforces the link between effort and progress.
Strengthens Memory: Accurate, repeated practice consolidates knowledge and develops fluency (Rosenshine, 2012; Sweller, 1988).
Prevents Overload: Tasks pitched at the right level reduce cognitive strain and sustain focus (Kirschner, Sweller & Clark, 2006).
Avoids Misconceptions: Students practise what’s correct, not errors that become ingrained in long-term memory.
Enables Responsiveness: Real-time monitoring lets teachers adapt challenge and support to keep learners in the optimal ‘struggle zone’.
So, how do we ensure achieving a high success rate is not left to chance, but purposefully designed into every lesson to balance challenge, accuracy, and progress?
Let’s explore.
How Do I Obtain High Rates of Success?
When aiming for the sweet spot and obtaining high rates of success, build in short, purposeful practice opportunities throughout your lessons. Strengthen fluency through guided and repeated practice, and revisit key material until accurate responses become automatic.
Designing Lessons for High Success
Vary the way you structure and monitor success to keep all learners in the optimal zone. See Tom Sherrington’s Rosenshine Masterclass: Stages of Practice and Conclusion for more on engineering practice and feedback loops that sustain high accuracy.
Here are some practical ways to build and maintain high success rates in your lessons:
Guided to Independent: Begin with heavily modelled examples, then gradually release responsibility as accuracy improves.
Small-Step Sequencing: Introduce one concept or procedure at a time — ensure secure success before layering complexity.
Frequent Low-Stakes Checks: Use short, visible-response tasks (mini-whiteboards, paired-talk, hinge questions) to monitor accuracy.
Error-Detect and Correct: Normalise errors as feedback — stop, re-model, and practise again until most students get it right.
Cumulative Review: Revisit prior content through retrieval or mixed practice to maintain fluency over time.
Success Stretch: Once accuracy stabilises, slightly increase complexity or remove scaffolds to maintain challenge.
Celebrate Mastery: Acknowledge effort and improvement — highlight that sustained success, not perfection, drives learning forward.
In the traditional ⚗️DistillED fashion, here’s a six-step approach to ensuring your teaching with the sweet spot in mind:
Step | Explanation | Example |
|---|---|---|
1. Sequence for Success
| Structure learning so new material builds on what’s already secure. Smaller steps and frequent checks maintain accuracy and confidence. | “Let’s master this stage first — once most of us are confident, we’ll add the next layer.” |
2. Model with Precision
| Provide clear, step-by-step demonstrations while verbalising your thought process. Visual and verbal clarity help students internalise the model of success. | “Watch how I organise this paragraph — I’m aligning evidence and explanation just like this each time.” |
3. Check and Adjust
| Use mini-whiteboards, short quizzes, or verbal responses to gauge class-wide accuracy. Adjust teaching when success drops or tasks become too easy. | “I can see a few slips on this step — let’s go over it again together before moving on.” |
4. Scaffold, Then Fade
| Begin with structured supports such as sentence stems, worked examples, or visual cues. Withdraw these as competence grows to sustain high success independently. | “Try the next one without the guide — same structure, just on your own this time.” |
5. Reinforce and Revisit
| Recycle key content through low-stakes retrieval, spaced review, and practice drills. Frequent success strengthens memory and automaticity. | “Let’s revisit last week’s concept — aim to get 8 out of 10 correct before we extend it.” |
6. Celebrate Progress
| Emphasise progress, not perfection. Reinforce that small, repeated successes lead to mastery and confidence. | “We’re sitting right in the sweet spot — around 80% accuracy. That’s where the best learning happens.” |
Until next time — keep aiming for that sweet spot!
Jamie
Free Resource Download
The 80% Task Success Tracker Free Download
To help you monitor and sustain high success rates in your classroom, I’ve created a one-page 80% Tracker— a printable, editable tool for teachers to record lesson accuracy, identify when to reteach or extend, and reflect on student progress over time. It’s a simple way to keep learning within the optimal 80% zone — where challenge, fluency, and confidence meet.
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DistillED+ Checklist and Slideshow
This week’s ⚗️DistillED+ resources include a High Success Rate Checklist and a CPD Slideshow. Together, they unpack the what, why, and how of designing lessons that keep students in the optimal 80% zone — where challenge, accuracy, and confidence align to drive lasting learning.
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