UTET Paper 2 key terms

A school-wide approach in which children with disabilities, children from marginalised groups, and children with differing learning needs are taught in the same regular classroom and supported to take part fully in all activities.

A teacher's planned adjustment of content, process, product, or learning environment so that pupils at different readiness levels and with different interests can work towards the same learning goals.

Vygotsky's term for the gap between what a learner can do alone and what the learner can achieve with guidance from a more capable adult or peer; teaching is most effective inside this gap.

Temporary support given by a teacher or peer, such as a hint, model, prompt, or worked step, that lets a learner complete a task just beyond independent reach; it is withdrawn gradually as competence grows.

A theory holding that learners build knowledge by connecting new information to what they already know rather than receiving it passively, so teaching begins with learners' existing ideas and provides active, hands-on tasks.

Assessment carried out during teaching to reveal what pupils understand and to adjust instruction and feedback; it is low-stakes and diagnostic rather than used mainly for grading or reporting.

A scheme that assesses both scholastic and co-scholastic areas throughout the year using several tools, replacing reliance on a single end-of-year examination with regular formative and summative evidence.

A persistent difficulty in one area such as reading (dyslexia), writing (dysgraphia), or mathematics (dyscalculia) in a child of otherwise normal intelligence, not caused by poor teaching, sensory loss, or lack of opportunity.

Awareness and control of one's own thinking: knowing what one has understood, choosing a strategy, monitoring progress, and correcting mistakes while learning.

The smallest unit of sound that can change meaning in a language, such as the /p/ and /b/ that separate 'pat' from 'bat'; phonemes are sounds, not written letters.

The smallest unit of language that carries meaning, such as 'book', 'un-', or '-ed'; a single word may contain one morpheme or several.

Reading quickly to grasp the general idea or gist of a text, for example by looking at headings, first lines, and topic sentences instead of reading every word.

Reading quickly with a specific target in mind, such as a date, name, or number, and ignoring other content until that target is located.

Understanding a text by using prior knowledge, expectations, and context to predict meaning, working from the whole text towards words; it complements bottom-up decoding of letters and words.

An approach that treats language as a tool for real communication, so lessons use meaningful tasks, pair and group interaction, and fluency work rather than only grammar drills and translation.

Chomsky's proposed innate capacity that lets children acquire language naturally from the speech around them; teachers cite it to justify rich language input rather than only explicit rules.

The influence of a learner's mother tongue on the second language, producing transfer errors of sound, word order, or grammar wherever the two systems differ.

An approach in which learners complete meaningful tasks, such as planning a trip or solving a problem, using the target language; attention to language form follows the task rather than preceding it.

The variety of language a speaker selects for a particular situation and audience, for example formal wording in a job application and informal wording in a message to a friend.

The view that a pupil's home languages are assets supporting learning, so teachers permit translation, comparison between languages, and discussion in the first language instead of banning it.

Reasoning that moves from particular examples or observations towards a general rule or pattern, as when pupils examine several cases and then state a formula.

Reasoning that moves from an accepted general statement to a specific conclusion, as in a geometric proof where each step follows from definitions and earlier proved results.

A testable, tentative statement predicting a relationship between variables, which an investigation then sets out to support or reject using evidence.

A problem with more than one acceptable method or answer, which requires the pupil to explain and justify reasoning rather than reproduce a single remembered procedure.

Understanding that two quantities can vary together at a constant rate, allowing ratios to be compared and problems to be solved using unit rates, scaling, and cross-multiplication.

A sequence describing how pupils learn geometry, from recognising shapes visually, through analysing properties and informal deduction, to formal proof, with instruction matched to the pupil's current level.

Science teaching in which pupils pose questions, plan and carry out investigations, collect and interpret data, and build explanations, while the teacher guides rather than simply lectures.

The systematic study of pupils' wrong answers to identify the rule or misunderstanding behind them, so teaching addresses the cause instead of only correcting the answer.

The observable abilities scientists use, including observing, classifying, measuring, inferring, predicting, and communicating, which form the practical objectives of school science.

First-hand evidence produced at the time of an event, such as a photograph, inscription, diary, or official record, which historians use instead of later summaries and interpretations.

The arrangement of events in the order in which they happened, together with the ability to use dates, timelines, and periods to place events in sequence and trace causes and effects.

The effort to understand past people's choices and beliefs within their own time and circumstances, rather than judging them only by present-day values and knowledge.

The ratio relating distance on a map to distance on the ground, for example one centimetre representing five kilometres, which allows real distances to be calculated.

Development that meets present needs without destroying the resources and environment on which future generations depend, balancing economic, social, and ecological aims.

An oversimplified, fixed image applied to a whole group of people that ignores individual differences and is often used to justify prejudice or discrimination.

An organised trip to a real site such as a market, monument, factory, or river, where pupils observe and record information first-hand and link classroom concepts to the local environment.