About · Founder

Meet Paul Main, founder of Structural Learning

Twenty years alongside teachers, one foot in research and the other in the classroom, chasing one question: how do we all think and learn?

Training and speaking Email Paul

Based in Cambridge. Working with schools in the UK and around the world.

Paul Main speaking into a microphone, mid answer, at a conference.
“The evidence has plenty to say. It only counts once it survives a real classroom.”

Paul Main

What he works on

Research made simple and practical enough to stick.

Structural Learning exists to put metacognitive tools in every classroom, built on the belief that we can all get better at learning. Three things carry the work.

  1. The Thinking Framework

    A one-page map of the kinds of thinking a lesson asks for, with a card for each. It goes on the wall, into hands and into plans, so every teacher and every learner uses the same words for the thinking a task asks for.

    The Thinking Framework

  2. Writer’s Block

    The blocks. The shape of an answer, built before a word of it is written, and still movable. A learner who can build an idea has a hold on it that a learner who only listened does not.

    Writer’s Block

  3. The platform

    A topic in, a lesson artefact out, in the same language as the Thinking Framework. Map It, Say It and Build It: drawing the thinking out, talking it through, making it with blocks.

    The platform

Alongside schools

The work happens in the room, with the people who teach.

Staff work on their own curriculum, not on an example of Paul’s. They build it, draw it and argue about it, and they keep what they made.

Paul Main talking with four teachers in front of a wall of learning journeys they have drawn.
Talking through the learning journeys a team has just drawn.
Paul Main standing with a teaching team at a conference table, one holding a small tower of labelled blocks, a drawn plan on the table in front of them.
A teaching team with the blocks and the plan they built in the session.
Teachers crowding round a table to photograph a learning journey they have drawn, at a conference outside Delhi.
Photographing a learning journey before it comes off the table, outside Delhi.
Three teachers smiling behind a wall of labelled Writer's Block, at a session in Cape Town.
A wall of labelled Writer’s Block, Cape Town.
Teachers at round tables working through a session outside Delhi.
A full room at round tables, mid session, outside Delhi.

Delhi, India (the iPropel conference) Sofia, Bulgaria (the Foundation for Educational Transformation) Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa Dubai (Nord Anglia and Victory Heights schools) and schools across the UK

“We are excited to have 2 more workshops planned with Paul and will maintain contact as this practice is something I would like to see embedded into the work of the school.”
Maarten Crommelin, Headteacher, Maudsley and Bethlem Hospital School

The path here

How minds work first, then how schools teach.

Five steps, one question: how do we all think and learn?

  1. the mind firstPsychology

    A psychology degree, then a master’s: how minds work, before how schools teach.

  2. creativityCurious Minds

    Ran a government creativity programme across North West schools, for Creative Partnerships.

  3. innovationFuturelab

    Designed programmes for teachers and helped schools put the evidence to work.

  4. enquiryOpen Futures

    Enquiry-led learning across primary schools, with children asking the questions.

  5. todayStructural Learning

    Writer’s Block, the Thinking Framework, and sessions in schools around the world.

Research and writing

The research, in plain words.

Everything in a session is research made simple and practical enough to stick. The writing sets the same research down for anyone to read.

  • Research briefings

    Evidence-honest summaries of the research, written for teachers.

  • The blog

    Evidence-based teaching guides for teachers and school leaders.

Paul Main mid session, explaining with his hands, at a conference outside Delhi.
Mid session at a conference outside Delhi.

Speaking and training

Keynotes, staff meetings, workshops and full training days.

Remote or in person. Every session puts the Thinking Framework to work on your own curriculum, with Map It, Say It and Build It.

  • Paul brings everything. Blocks, organisers, talk structures, enough for the room.
  • You keep what you made. The rebuilt lesson, the one page for the wall, the routines.
  • No licence, no subscription. The platform is optional and separate.
See the training and speaking page

Get in touch

Tell Paul what your school is working on.

You will speak to Paul, not a sales team.

paul@structural-learning.com