Less time building lessons, more time teaching them

A shared starting point, adapted class by class

Stile gives Emma and her colleagues a common starting point, then room to adapt it. “We use the sequence as it is on Stile as a starting point, and then we branch off from that for our different classes and different teachers,” she said.

That shared foundation extends to how the school teaches note-taking, supported in science by Stile X. Students follow a four-year plan, building from simple, outline notes in Year 7 up to fully-realised Cornell notes by the time they reach senior science.

“We teach it to them, we don’t just expect them to learn this by osmosis,” she said. “We show them how to do it.”

Screens only when there’s a clear reason

In a school where most students don’t own a laptop, Emma is deliberate about when devices come out. “On average at the moment, they’d be on their laptops for no more than about a single period, maybe an hour,” she said. She reaches for a laptop when there’s a clear reason to, not by default: “Where is it a value add? There are some really great simulations, particularly around atoms.”

The rest of the week runs on exercise books, whiteboards, and Stile X revision materials. Students use printed Stile X booklets three times a week for 10 to 15 minutes of active review, often as a warm-up task at the start of a lesson, without needing a device at all.

Where the saved time goes

For Emma, using a ready-made curriculum lets her redirect energy into what’s most important. She spends less time building lessons and more time with the students in front of her. “I show my care for my students by taking something that I know is good, and making it suit them,” she said. “I’m still showing just as much care. I don’t care less because I haven’t created the thing myself.”

With a full year’s sequence and lesson plans already built, she prints and annotates rather than building from a blank page. The time that frees up goes straight back to students: more feedback, more one-on-one conversations, more of the things that make a real difference to student outcomes. “We put our heart and soul into our lessons because we care about our students,” she said, “but we can do it without draining ourselves as much, if we make good use of good resources.”