UTET Paper 1 key terms

An assessment approach that judges learning throughout the year rather than in a single final test, and covers both scholastic subjects and non-scholastic areas such as attitudes, values and skills.

Ongoing, low-stakes checking of learning during teaching, used to give feedback and adjust instruction; it is assessment for learning rather than a judgement recorded only at the end.

Assessment carried out at the close of a unit, term or year to certify how much a learner has achieved; it summarises learning and is typically graded or marked for reporting purposes.

Vygotsky's term for the gap between what a child can do alone and what the child can do with guidance from a more capable person; teaching is most effective inside this gap.

Temporary support a teacher or peer provides so a learner can complete a task just beyond independent ability, with the help gradually withdrawn as competence grows.

The view, associated with Vygotsky, that knowledge is built through interaction with others and with cultural tools such as language, so learning is first social and then internalised by the individual.

A four-stage sequence (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational) describing how children's thinking moves from action-based to abstract logic, with each stage building on the previous one.

The understanding that quantity, mass or volume stays the same when appearance changes, such as water poured into a taller glass; typically achieved in the concrete operational stage.

In Piaget's theory, the young child's difficulty in taking another person's viewpoint or imagining that others see and know things differently from themselves.

A mental framework or organised pattern of knowledge that a learner uses to interpret new experience; learning happens when schemas are modified through assimilation and accommodation.

Two complementary processes of cognitive adaptation: fitting new information into an existing mental framework (assimilation), and changing that framework when new information does not fit (accommodation).

Gardner's proposal that intelligence is not a single general ability but a set of relatively independent capacities, such as linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinaesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal.

A learner's preferred way of taking in and processing information, for example through visual, auditory or kinaesthetic channels; preferences are treated as tendencies, not fixed categories that dictate teaching.

Variations among learners in ability, pace, interest, language background, motivation and temperament, which require differentiated tasks, flexible grouping and varied assessment rather than one uniform method.

An approach in which children with disabilities and other marginalised groups learn in regular classrooms, with the curriculum and environment adapted to remove barriers to participation.

Planned additional instruction for learners who lag behind in a specific skill, based on diagnosing the exact error or gap and then giving focused, repeated practice with feedback.

Intrinsic motivation comes from interest or satisfaction in the activity itself; extrinsic motivation comes from outside rewards or pressures such as marks, prizes or fear of punishment.

In behaviourist theory, any consequence that increases the likelihood of a behaviour recurring; positive reinforcement adds something pleasant, negative reinforcement removes something unpleasant.

Skinner's principle that behaviour is shaped by its consequences: actions followed by reinforcement are strengthened, while actions followed by punishment or no consequence become less frequent.

Pavlov's model in which a neutral stimulus repeatedly paired with a natural trigger comes to produce the response by itself, explaining how emotional reactions can become associated with school situations.

The drive to meet a standard of excellence and to persist at challenging tasks; it is influenced by prior success, task difficulty, teacher expectations and the learner's attribution of outcomes.

A learner's belief about whether they can succeed at a particular task; strong self-efficacy supports effort and persistence, while low self-efficacy encourages avoidance of difficult work.

The explanation a learner gives for success or failure, such as effort, ability, luck or task difficulty; attributing failure to insufficient effort supports persistence more than attributing it to fixed lack of ability.

The ability to notice and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words, such as blending or segmenting the sounds in 'cat'; it is a foundation for later phonics and spelling.

Teaching the systematic links between letters or letter groups and the sounds they represent, so learners can decode unfamiliar printed words rather than memorise each word as a picture.

The smallest unit of sound that can change meaning in a language, such as the difference between /p/ and /b/ in 'pat' and 'bat'.

The written symbol or group of letters that represents a single sound, for example 'sh' in 'ship' or 'a' in 'cat'.

Skimming is reading quickly for the general idea or gist; scanning is moving the eyes rapidly to locate a specific detail such as a date, name or figure.

Making meaning from a text by combining word recognition with vocabulary knowledge, background knowledge and active strategies such as predicting, questioning and summarising.

Drawing a conclusion that the text implies but does not state directly, using clues in the words plus the reader's prior knowledge and reasoning.

An approach that organises language lessons around real purposes and interaction, so learners use the target language to exchange meaning rather than only practising isolated grammar rules.

A method in which learners complete meaningful tasks, such as planning a trip or solving a problem, and acquire language through the process of doing the task rather than through prior rule study.

Acquisition is the natural, subconscious development of a language through exposure and use; learning is the conscious study of rules and forms, typically in a classroom setting.

The process by which a learner develops proficiency in a language other than the first, influenced by exposure, interaction, motivation, age and the learner's first-language background.

The learner's evolving rule system in a second language, which is neither the first language nor the target language but a systematic, changing approximation of the target.

The study of learner errors to understand the underlying rule the learner is using, distinguishing systematic errors that reveal a developing system from random slips or mistakes.

The principle that a digit's value depends on its position in a number, so in 3,472 the 4 means four hundreds and the 7 means seven tens.

Exchanging ten units of one place for one unit of the next place, or the reverse, when adding or subtracting; often called carrying and borrowing.

A straight line marked with evenly spaced numbers, used to show order, compare quantities and model addition, subtraction, fractions and negative numbers visually.

A number that represents part of a whole or part of a set, written as a numerator over a denominator; equal fractions describe the same quantity in different forms.

A ratio compares two quantities by division; a proportion states that two ratios are equal, allowing an unknown quantity to be found by cross-multiplication or unitary method.

A fraction or ratio expressed as a number out of one hundred, useful for comparing quantities and for solving problems on profit, loss, discount and simple interest.

Perimeter is the distance around a closed figure, measured in linear units; area is the amount of surface it covers, measured in square units.

The amount of three-dimensional space a solid occupies, measured in cubic units and calculated for a cuboid as length times breadth times height.

A property of a shape that can be folded or rotated onto itself; a line of symmetry divides a figure into mirror halves, and rotational symmetry repeats it around a centre.

A regular sequence or arrangement that follows a rule, such as repeating shapes, growing number sequences or number grids, used to build early algebraic reasoning.

A step-by-step procedure that always gives a correct result when followed, such as the standard column method for multiplication or long division.

Finding a sensible approximate answer by rounding or using compatible numbers, then judging whether a calculated result is reasonable in the context of the problem.

Assigning a number and unit to a quantity such as length, mass, capacity or time, including converting between units and choosing an instrument appropriate to the task.

A food chain traces a single path of energy from producer to consumer; a food web links many chains together and shows how organisms in an ecosystem depend on one another.

Producers, mainly green plants, make their own food using sunlight; consumers eat other organisms and are grouped as herbivores, carnivores or omnivores according to diet.

An organism such as bacteria or fungi that breaks down dead plants and animals, returning nutrients to the soil so they can be used again by producers.

The process by which green plants use sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to make food, releasing oxygen; chlorophyll in leaves captures the light energy needed.

The loss of water vapour from tiny pores called stomata in leaves, which pulls water upward through the plant and helps cool it.

The continuous movement of water through evaporation, condensation into clouds, precipitation and collection in rivers, lakes and soil, driven mainly by the sun's heat.

Weather is the day-to-day condition of the atmosphere in a place; climate is the average pattern of weather there over many years.

Contamination of the air by harmful gases, smoke and dust from vehicles, industries and burning of fuels, which damages health and contributes to acid rain and global warming.

Renewable resources such as sunlight, wind and water are naturally replenished; non-renewable resources such as coal and petroleum are finite and are used up faster than they form.

Protecting natural resources and ecosystems by reducing waste, reusing and recycling materials, saving water and energy, and preserving habitats for wildlife.