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What Your School Will Receive
Common Understanding provides a fully funded pilot partnership for a select number of UK secondary schools. We supply ready-to-use lesson materials, staff CPD, direct delivery support, and ongoing partnership so that schools can build students’ critical reasoning, oracy, and information literacy in a way that is rigorous, neutral, and practical.
Ready-to-Use Lesson Resources
Printable, classroom-ready lesson materials that reduce planning burden.
Direct Delivery & Training
We provide staff CPD and can deliver initial student sessions directly.
Ongoing Partnership
We work with schools over time, refining the offer and measuring impact.
The CERL Framework™
CERL™ is a simple framework for helping students think more clearly, speak more carefully, and evaluate ideas more rigorously. It gives teachers and students a shared structure for discussion, analysis, and reasoning across subjects.
(C)
Claim. What is the main point?
(E)
Evidence. What information supports the claim?
(R)
Reasoning. How does the evidence support the claim?
(L)
Limits. When would the claim become weaker?
Why This Matters in Schools
Schools are working in a context where students encounter more information, more opinion, and more emotionally charged claims than ever before. Teachers need practical ways to help students question what they see, discuss difficult issues well, and separate strong reasoning from weak reasoning without turning discussions into arguments.
Common Understanding exists to support that work: helping schools make discussion more rigorous without making it more complicated.
How the Pilot Partnership Works
Staff CPD and Planning
We introduce the CERL™ framework, explain how it supports teaching and learning, and help staff see how it can be used confidently in real classroom discussion.
Ready-to-use Lessons and Classroom Delivery
Schools receive complete lesson materials, and we support the initial delivery so that the framework is introduced clearly and with minimal additional workload for staff.
Ongoing Support and Feedback
We stay involved, gather feedback, and help schools refine how the framework is used so that it becomes a sustainable part of classroom practice rather than a one-off intervention.
A Trusted, Teacher-Friendly Approach
Our approach is designed to help teachers handle difficult, controversial, or contested topics with greater confidence. CERL™ supports clarity, neutrality, and structured discussion, helping teachers focus on the quality of reasoning rather than becoming the arbiter of the “right” answer.
This makes it a practical tool for strengthening oracy, supporting safeguarding, and building more thoughtful classroom reasoning across the curriculum.
Safe.
Safeguarding students from misinformation and radicalisation.
Neutral.
Meeting statutory impartiality duties under the Education Act 1996.
Rigorous.
Improving critical thinking skills and media literacy through a structured framework.
About Us
Common Understanding is an educational charity focused on teaching the mechanics of thinking well. We work with schools to help students analyse claims, weigh evidence, explain reasoning, and recognise limits, not only in formal debate, but in everyday classroom learning and in the wider information environment they encounter beyond school.
Become a Founding Partner School
We are currently inviting a limited number of schools to join our fully funded pilot partnership. If your school is looking for a practical, low-workload way to strengthen critical thinking, oracy, and media literacy, we would be glad to speak with you.
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