Keep, Stop, Start
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Three piles, ten minutes
Keep, Stop, Start is a ten-minute look at your own half term, on your own, with a pen. Three piles, then one sentence you can act on. This tutor has worked on one group all term and, asked how it is going, can only say it is a struggle.
For example“Still a bit of a struggle.” Change that comes slowly is hard to feel from the inside.
With your learners
- Before an assessment, each learner writes one thing they will keep doing when they revise, one they will stop and one they will start.
- The same rule applies. Revising for an extra hour is not a Stop. Which habit pays for it?
- Nothing is collected. They tell a partner their one sentence.
Pick an activity. Each takes two or three minutes.
Ten minutes at half term, on your own. A pen and three sticky notes will do.
Why this works in your room
Every new thing you start is paid for by something you stop.
For your learners: They get the things that work, done properly, and not ten things done in a hurry.
For you: Your list gets shorter. What stays on it is there on purpose.
Keep
Said so you could point to it.
What would a visitor see?
What could I count? Twelve of fourteen, not “calmer”.
Stop
The hard pile. Do not leave it empty.
What do I do because I always have?
What would nobody miss for a fortnight?
Start
One is plenty.
What is worth trying?
What does it replace?
The words
Say it as one sentence.
I will stop…
so that I can start…
Watch out for
A Start that nothing pays for.
Find five more minutes from somewhere is not a Stop. Name what goes.
The next step
A fortnight on.
Did anyone miss the Stop?
Is the Start still running?
Elsewhere in Bradford ThreadWorks
Lesson WeaverThe Loom: plans other staff have shared, so you can stop making what already exists.Open Lesson Weaver (opens in a new tab)
WalkThrusFeedback that moves learners on: whole-class feedback, in place of marking every piece.Open WalkThrus (opens in a new tab)
Prompts to paste into Copilot
Copilot can help you find a Stop, which is the pile people leave empty, and turn a feeling into something you could count. Change what is in brackets, and leave out learners' names.
Help me find a Stop
I am a [subject] tutor. Here is what I do in a normal week: [list of tasks and habits]. Ask me three questions about each of the five that take the most time, to find out which ones my learners would not miss. Then suggest two I could stop for a fortnight as a test.
Turn my feeling into evidence
I teach [subject] to [level] learners. I feel that [how it feels now, for example the group is calmer]. Give me five things I could see or count in one lesson that would show whether that is true. Each must take me less than a minute to note down.
Asked of learners, it works
In one study, students asked for feedback under stop, start and continue headings wrote more constructive comments than students asked open questions. The headings make it easier to say something useful.
Hoon, Oliver, Szpakowska and Newton, 2015 (opens in a new tab)Why Stop matters
A national review of marking in England found much of it was done from habit and for show, with little effect on learning, and told schools to stop what does not help learners. The same is true of plenty beyond marking.
Independent Teacher Workload Review Group, 2016
How sure is this?
Not very. Keep, Stop, Start is a practitioner's frame, not a research finding. It lasts because it is quick, anyone can do it, and it ends in a decision. The studies above support its parts, not the whole.
No source claimed