Effective questioning techniques

Skilful questioning is a key feature of high-quality teaching. Get to grips with how effective questioning can improve practice and support learning, and find tips and strategies you can share with your staff.

Last reviewed on 25 February 2025
School types: AllSchool phases: AllRef: 1072
Contents
  1. What is effective questioning?
  2. How does effective questioning support pupils?
  3. Build a positive, safe classroom culture
  4. Support teachers with tips for using effective questioning 
  5. Use different kinds of questions
  6. Strategies for effective questioning

What is effective questioning?

High-quality, effective questioning allows teachers to test pupil attainment within lessons and helps to develop pupil understanding. 

For questioning to be effective, it shouldn’t just focus on basic information retrieval. It should also test understanding by exploring the ‘how’ (the process) and the ‘why’ (the reasoning), rather than just the ‘what’.

Find more on effective information retrieval and how to embed it into teaching practice in our other article.

Using pupil responses, teachers can:

  • Address gaps in pupil knowledge in the moment
  • Direct lessons more efficiently
  • Note points of strength and security

After a lesson, pupil responses to questioning can then be used to inform lesson planning and refinement.

See more information on the importance of questioning in the classroom in these training materials for early career teachers (ECTs) from the Education Development Trust

Forms of feedback, like questioning, can accelerate learning by