Chilli Challenges

‘Chilli’ learning is a teaching and learning strategy designed to give students a degree of choice over the activities they complete and therefore more ownership of their own learning, which then allows work to be more closely matched with each student’s ability.

The question is how ‘hot’ will students go? At All Saints the teachers provide children with 3, and sometimes 4, levels of challenge that range from Mild to Spicy and sometimes Super Sizzling! Students then ‘choose’ their option. More often than not, students will choose an option that provides them with a degree of challenge. Teachers can also direct students to a menu choice and then encourage students to work their way up through the different levels. ‘Chilli’ learning provides students with choices and can therefore provide a pathway for students to progress. We have used our challenges to develop the children’s understanding of their learning.

The children can talk about where they are on the learning line and link this to which challenge they will do. Chilli Challenges are truly embedded within every day school life now and they encourage and promote the Pupil Voice.

Teachers identified that the next step for the school was for the children to be able to question each other about their learning through key questions and learning partners. We devised 3 questions that the children use. Each question has an action and all classes are now using them, with the support of posters as a prompt.