Deputy Principal (Andrew Healey)

Lemov’s No Opt Out

In a previous Heard on the Hill, I introduced Lemov’s No Opt Out as part of the school’s knowledge of best practice. The No Opt Out is a strategy that gently pushes greater accountability on to a student. The strategy starts to eliminate the option whereby a student does not provide an answer or says ‘dunno’. As with any strategy, building relationships with students is paramount for the strategy to start being effective.

What Is an Answer?

In order to take on opt-out responses, you need to have a clear idea of what kind of response is not opting out. In other words, what would be an acceptable attempt at responding?

One suggestion is the “However/Best” approach. In it, a student can say, “I don’t know” if it’s followed by the word “however” and his best try, as in “I don’t know; however, I think I need to multiply here.”

You can always repeat the question in case it wasn’t heard or understood. A suggestion is that you can request the student to follow before you conclude he is opting out, including audibility and complete sentence format. When a student is opting out by mumbling, you can comment,

“John, please speak up so everyone can hear. I’ll repeat the question ...”

“I didn’t catch that. Can you say it again more loudly and at a little more length? Say it as a complete sentence.”

The question I’m asking is ...” “I’ll accept that you don’t know all of it but summarise what you do know. Try it again.”