50 primary and secondary schools across the North East of England are wanted to trial a classroom app to supercharge maths, English and science learning across Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3.

The Learning by Questions (LbQ) app trial, funded by SHINE, aims to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds in year six to develop the skills and confidence to succeed in their Key Stage 2 SATs. It also helps secondary school teachers to support pupils in year seven to catch up to where they should be when they start secondary school.

The multi-award-winning app is filled with 1,450 National Curriculum aligned ‘Question Sets’ and works by supporting teachers in the classroom in real-time. Teachers teach as normal using their existing schemes of work, and during the lesson, they then launch a Question Set aligned to the lesson learning objective. The questions are sent to the pupil’s device and students work through the questions at their own pace. Incorrect answers are instantly followed by feedback to the pupil, helping to develop understanding and guide learning. Teachers receive results in real-time, enabling them to find out when students are struggling and intervene when the impact on learning and progress is greatest.

A recent trial of LbQ across England and Northern Ireland found, amongst other outcomes, that:

• 94% of primary and secondary school teachers said that LbQ has helped to reduce their workload;
• 96% of teachers said they have less marking to do when they use LbQ; and
• 98% of teachers said that they find LbQ easy to use in lessons.

If your school has above average intake of free school meals (13.7% primary – 12.4% secondary) you can apply to participate. We are particularly interested in secondary schools and their feeder primary schools to join the project. If you work on behalf of a school in the North East, sign up to take part in the trials now.

Fiona Spellman, Chief Executive of SHINE, said: “We know that teachers can find it difficult to give extra support to children who are struggling as well as helping other children, managing the rest of their workload, and marking. We would encourage any schools and teachers in the North East to trial the Learning by Questions app to see if it makes a difference in the classroom.”

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