Learning by Questions turns Year 6 guide into live teacher training event
The one-day PGL Dearne Valley event brought teachers from across the UK together for SATs, transition, inclusion and wellbeing workshops after more than 24,000 downloads of the 2025 guide
Teachers from across the UK attended Learning by Questions’ Year 6 Travel Guide LIVE event at PGL Dearne Valley in Doncaster
Learning by Questions has taken its Year 6 teacher guide into a live professional development format, bringing educators from across the UK to PGL Dearne Valley in Doncaster for a day of workshops, advice sessions and peer discussion.
Year 6 Travel Guide LIVE took place on September 12 and was developed specifically for teachers working with Year 6 students. The program covered areas including SATs, reading and writing, transition, inclusion, wellbeing and mathematics, alongside opportunities for teachers to compare experiences and approaches.
The event grew out of Sophie’s Travel Guide Through Year 6, a free handbook launched by Learning by Questions, or LbQ, in 2025. The company says more than 24,000 teachers downloaded the guide within its first two weeks, prompting the team to turn the 2026 edition into an in-person event.
Sophie Bartlett, a primary teacher, speaker and writer who specializes in SATs and Year 6, led the event with analysis and classroom resources.
She was joined by specialists including wellbeing expert Charlie Burley, transition specialist Emily Weston, Anna Crowther-Riley from The SEN Expert, maths lead and reading specialist Steph Rhodes, and Dr John Allan, Educational Psychologist and Head of Impact at PGL Beyond.
Workshops built around Year 6 priorities
Teachers could select sessions according to their own priorities rather than following a single timetable.
Topics ranged from classroom practice and curriculum support to wellbeing, transition and inclusion, with the program designed around the particular pressures and decisions teachers face in Year 6.
Heather Abela, Head of Marketing at LbQ, says the idea was to create a space where teachers could share those challenges directly: “Teachers of year 6 have so much to get to grips with these days that we thought it would be a fantastic idea to bring everybody together to offer support, share challenges and celebrate the brilliance of year 6.”
Hannah Bickerton from Varna Community Primary School in Manchester commented about the event: “The workshops have been exactly what I would have chosen to do. They’ve been very purposeful and focused on what matters most to year 6 teachers.”
Teacher development moves beyond the workshop room
The format also made use of the PGL setting, with teachers able to take part in activities including rock climbing, archery and ziplining between the professional development sessions.
The day also included time at an adventure basecamp and finished around a campfire, adding a more informal element to the networking between teachers.
Clare Jaggar from Barnham Primary School in Bognor Regis says that shared experience was one of the useful parts of the day: “It’s been great to meet up with lots of other year 6 teachers and realise that we’re all facing the same challenges and experiences together.”
Learning by Questions is a teaching and learning platform used in more than 1,500 schools, 340 multi-academy trusts and multiple local authorities. It provides live question-level data intended to support adaptive teaching and give teachers visibility of student responses as they work.
The company was also a winner at the ETIH Innovation Awards 2026, taking the Best Digital Learning Platform for Schools award, which recognizes platforms delivering digital learning across school settings with a focus on content, engagement, data use and learning experience.
