Using inquiry learning to teach early literacy or numeracy is educational malpractice.

The evidence is clear that novices need explicit guidance, fully worked examples, guided and scaffolded practice. Only once these are embedded will children successfully use these tools to complete more open-ended tasks.

Who suffers most from inquiry learning? The most disadvantaged. The ones who bring the least prior knowledge. Inquiry learning isn’t kind, it is ruthlessly Darwinian.

In contrast, explicit teaching is the most effecting method for gifting the cultural tools we have painstakingly invented over millennia to young people. It is not ‘oppressive’; it is liberating.