In my early teaching years, I’d got the memo at some point that in order to be a good teacher, you had to be an all-singing, all-dancing, one-woman band. After all, the more that was going on, the more engaged and interesting your lesson would be, right?

I would plan and plan the night before, making hundreds of new resources, and, magpie-like, I would throw new teaching methods I had read about into the nest of my bloated planning documents.

It was quite a performance in my classroom. I would finish a lesson panting for breath, with my arms raised, waiting for my applause. I was like a gymnast who had just finished a particularly energetic routine.

I was gold standard, I was sure.

But then, after a particularly energetic observed lesson, everything came crashing down. My head of department sat me down and asked: “So do you think they all achieved the learning outcome?”

“Of course,” I replied, incredulously.

“Sometimes, Miss,” she stuttered, treading carefully because I’m sure she knew she had the potential to break the spirit of a new teacher, “less is more.”

My heart sank.

“I have no doubt that you are ... enthusiastic for the subject,” she continued, “but I’m not so sure that the progress in the lesson is measurable. Some of those pupils looked a little lost on how the learning objective matched the activity, as was I …”

She was absolutely right. That lesson was actually chaotic. It jumped around all over the place. I lost the focus of my class, but, more importantly, I lost their interaction, their effort and maybe even their need to engage their brain at all.

From that moment on, I was still intent on being a lively, engaging teacher, but I would conduct my teaching differently.

I now like to spend the first few months with my classes training them. I make sure they know where to go if they need to stretch and challenge themselves. I make sure that when I project the activity on the board, they are able to get what’s needed and get on with it. I make sure they understand the routines for learning, so that they are able to be accountable and take responsibility for moving themselves forward.

You know what? It works. The energy is now all in my delivery, not in the task design or approach. I don’t dominate or bamboozle them with fireworks. I keep it simple.

I often challenge myself to see how little I can do these days. Sometimes I even get one of the pupils to take part of the lesson.

It’s liberating, this knowledge I now have: I can keep it fun, punchy and engaging without putting on a matinee performance.

Less is, indeed, more.

Nikki Cunningham-Smith is an assistant headteacher in Gloucestershire

This article originally appeared in the 24 April 2020 issue under the headline “Teaching isn’t an all-singing, all-dancing performance”