5 Ways to Improve Pupil Engagement in the Primary School Classroom

Engaged pupils are focused, motivated and eager to participate. The more engaged a pupil is in the primary school classroom, the more they absorb, learn and retain.

Lack of engagement in the classroom, however, doesn’t just negatively impact an individual. It can easily spread to the wider class. Pupils who are fidgeting, chatting amongst themselves and not paying attention can be distracting for other pupils, making it difficult for anyone to learn.

So, we know engagement is key but how can we best engage primary school pupils and sustain a good level of engagement throughout the school day? It’s a challenging task to say the least, especially when short attention spans also come into play.

In this blog, we discuss five simple yet powerful tips which could help you boost engagement levels in your classroom. These are:

1. Ensure the learning meets your pupils where they are

If your activities are not set at a level appropriate for your pupils, they are less likely to find them interesting. A task that is too hard may make a child give up easily, or they might even misbehave to avoid failing, whilst work that is too easy may result in boredom.

Starting at the right point with clear instructions as to what is expected is vital. For your most able pupils, an explanation may be all that is necessary. Other children may need you to break the task down into manageable steps for them to stay engaged and succeed. You can do this at the outset by giving out appropriate support materials (sentence starters, word banks) and prompts for your different ability groups. Alternatively, you can supervise the learning more closely and provide extra coaching and guidance as and when required.

2. Offer choice

Pupils are more likely to be motivated when they have a say in what they’re doing. Whilst we wouldn’t want to give them full control, as specific learning objectives need to be met, we can allow them a certain amount of choice.
At primary school level, we could, for example:

• Allow the children to choose from a selection of activities that cater to their different learning preferences (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic).
• Let them choose how to present their work (poster, video, written piece, etc.).
• Initiate pupil-led projects where children explore topics that interest them.

By providing options, learning becomes student-led rather than teacher-led, builds autonomy and accustoms children to making decisions.

3. Link learning to the real world

Make learning ‘real’ and pupils will understand why something is useful to know. It makes the learning more than just the correct answer to a question. Think about languages as an example. Speaking German isn’t that useful here in the UK, but imagine you’re in Europe and alone, knowing a few words could mean the difference between catching or missing a train!

4. Make learning fun

Children learn best when they’re enjoying themselves, and by offering a selection of learning experiences, you are more likely to have the widest appeal. There are a huge number of different options you could experiment with which take the children away from their desks and workbooks. You could get the children to brainstorm something together on the whiteboard, have pupils rotate around different stations or move the learning online!

5. Have some Brain Breaks

It may seem strange, but interrupting pupils after a short time is a good thing. A brief change of focus gives the brain a rest, enabling the children to concentrate better when they return to the task.
So, after about 10 minutes on task, take a break. Exercise for 2 minutes, sing a short song, or do something mindful.

The increase in oxygen will stimulate the brain, and pupils can pick up the task refreshed.
When you first try this, it may take a while for the children to settle back to work but if you make this a normal part of their routine, they will soon get used to re-starting promptly.

Conclusion

Engagement in the primary school classroom is a constant challenge. You won’t be able to achieve it 100% of the time, but careful planning, reading of the room and real-time adaptations to your plans will make the world of difference.

In this blog, we’ve mentioned Busy Things in several instances. If you would like to see the impact that Busy Things’ engaging, interactive activities have on your class’s engagement levels, please take a free trial. This will give you, your colleagues and your pupils 28 days to explore the platform at your leisure.

If you need any further information, please do get in touch by email or call us on +44 (0)1332 364.