Teaching & Learning
At Bedale High School our approach to teaching and learning is deep rooted in educational research, our own first-hand experiences of what we know works well for our students, and also what we have observed working well elsewhere. To simplify our approach, our strategy is encapsulated within what we call the ‘BHS Way’. Within the ‘BHS Way’ six core teaching and learning strategies exist and are quality assured in order to maximise student retention and progress. These are set out below.
Way
To support consistency in our approach, the areas of our strategy above are all encapsulated into what we call the 'BHS Way'. Our strategy does not specify how to teach content within a subject area; however, it provides tried and tested school wide strategies to support teaching and learning. All areas of the 'BHS Way' are quality assured within 'Teaching and Learning Checks', and 'Marking and Feedback Checks'.
Positive Behaviour (PB) is the bedrock of teaching and learning at Bedale High School. Within our classrooms, teachers seek every opportunity to praise young people for effort and achievements.
Equally, however, PB ensures that low level disruption is eliminated by setting the very highest of expectations of all young people. Without PB, our strategy cannot operate.
Iterative Assessment is the process by which students are assessed on the content they have learned over time, not just the most recent content taught.
At Bedale High School, all starter activities are iterative in their nature and at key assessment points, students will be assessed on all content that came before the assessment, not just that completed in recent weeks.
Planning effective lessons routed in a highly developed Curriculum & Rubric Map, ensures that progress is maximised. At Bedale High School we call sequences of learning the 'Three Storey lesson'.
- Students gather critical prior information.
- They then process the content to improve understanding.
- Finally, they apply their learning to demonstrate understanding.
The Purple Zone is the most challenging part of the lesson and sits in the area between what students can do without support, and the area where support is needed.
Students are required to work in silence and independently during the Purple Zone, ensuring that they 'grapple' with challenging and difficult concepts, thus developing their resilience and confidence to take on the unknown.
To understand where you are going, it is important to reflect on where you have been.
At least once per half term at Bedale High School students will undertake a 'green for growth' activity that provides them with the opportunity to undertake meaningful reflection on their work, normally in response to a piece of marking completed by their class teacher.
At Bedale High School we passionately believe that the quality of a piece of work is not only assessed by its content, but also by the effort that has been put into ensuring that it is produced in the best possible way.
The 'Perfect 10 Standards' are a set of minimum expectations that we ask our students to meet when completing all pieces of work in their exercise books both in school and at home.
About Us
Bedale High School is a high performing coeducational, community school situated on Fitzalan Road, Bedale, North Yorkshire, England. Our Core Values of Courage, Commitment and Compassion ensure that our students operate in a nurturing school environment and go on to achieve great success at the end of year 11.
Copyright © 2026 Bedale High School. All Rights Reserved.