Choosing and planting your enquiry questions

Drawing upon a range of practice, Michael Riley analyses the characteristics of a good enquiry question. He explores the importance of careful wording of the question if it is genuinely to help the teacher to integrate areas of content into a purposeful learning journey and without distortion.He then moves on to discuss criteria for arranging and positioning enquiry questions across the whole Key Stage. Attention to this bigger whole-Key-Stage picture is crucial if progression through reinforcement and revisiting is to be secured and if knowledge-growth is to be taken seriously, alongside the development of rigorous historical thinking.