Lesson 2 of 6 · 6 min · 8-card deck

What makes feedback actionable

Specific, timely, and acted on — the EEF formula.

The EEF's evidence on feedback is striking: well-designed feedback is one of the highest-impact, lowest-cost things teachers can do — but most feedback in practice has near-zero impact on pupil progress. The problem is rarely that teachers care too little; it's that feedback is not designed to be acted on.

Effective feedback has three properties: it is specific (it identifies a precise improvement, not just 'good work'); it is timely (delivered close to the work, not three weeks later when it's irrelevant); and it is actionable (the pupil can do something concrete with it in the next few minutes).

Active recall flashcards

Work through every card. Try to answer in your head before flipping — the act of retrieving is what builds durable memory.

Card 1 of 80 understood

View every card to unlock the next lesson.

Practice scenario

Instead of writing detailed comments in 30 books, the teacher reads all 30, identifies that 18 pupils confused two key terms, and starts the next lesson with a 10-minute reteach plus a corrected re-write task. Far less marking; far more impact.

Try this in your classroom

Make feedback specific, timely and actionable.
Build response time into the next lesson — protect it.
Use whole-class feedback for common patterns.
Stop writing comments pupils don't read or act on.