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Yearly Archives: 2012

Myths: what Ofsted want

2012-03-17T16:14:40+00:00March 17th, 2012|English, myths|

With galling hypocrisy and seemingly no sense of irony, Ofsted have released their latest subject report for English snappily titled, Moving English Forward. The report is a step by step guide on how to suck eggs. Apparently, teachers should concentrate on engendering a passion for learning instead of worrying about all the waggle of passing exams! Who knew? Apart from its obvious interest to English specialists, there's stuff in here that all teachers will benefit from knowing. Moving English forward View more documents from Ofsted Possibly the most immediately pertinent information for all teachers is contained in the section Some common myths [...]

When independent learning meets high stakes success

2012-03-10T22:09:40+00:00March 10th, 2012|assessment|

I've been thinking: our Year 11 students have just had their results back for the January sitting of the English Language GCSE exam. Currently English is a modular course, and this accounts for 40% of their final grade. 70% of our cohort have already got the marks for at least a C grade and now we are mobilisling a phenomenal battery of resources to ensure that this figure rises to at least 84% in order to equal last year's results. Obviously there is a certain amount of pride in our achievements, but make no mistake; this is high stakes stuff and [...]

High Performers

2012-03-04T13:50:15+00:00March 4th, 2012|leadership, learning|

The postman delivered High Performers - The Secrets of Successful Schools by Alistair Smith this week. For anyone who's not read it, the book contains bucket loads of wisdom and tons of practical advice on every single page. To tell the truth, I feel a little breathless about all the good stuff contained therein. Alistair took it upon himself to visit 20 high performing schools up and down the land and try to distill what it is that makes them successful. Predictably, he found that there is no 'one size fits all' silver bullet which can make schools outstanding but he has [...]

How should we teach reading?

2015-10-23T20:58:41+01:00February 29th, 2012|English, Featured, literacy, reading|

A few months ago I posted a piece in which Roy Blatchford (founder of The National Education Trust) outlined his manifesto for ensuring that every child gets at least a C grade in English. But, reading is complex. So how exactly should we teach children to read? This vexing question is utmost in many teachers' minds and is tangled up in three separate issues: Decoding - the process of turning symbols into sounds - generally taught using synthetic phonics Understanding - actually comprehending what's been read after it's been decoded Enjoyment - it's World Book Day tomorrow and getting kids to enjoy [...]

Are teacher observations a waste of time?

2013-08-24T15:18:16+01:00February 24th, 2012|assessment, training|

"I never allow teachers or school leaders to visit classrooms to observe teachers; I allow them to observe only students". John Hattie (2012) I've been mulling this statement over for the past few weeks and it seems to boil down to this: are we interested in how teachers teach, or how students learn? It's become a truism in recent times to say that just because a teacher is teaching there is no guarantee that students are learning anything. But, if you walk into a classroom it's hard not to look at the teacher. Especially if they're standing at the front delivering [...]

Feedback: it's better to receive than to give

2012-02-20T22:48:10+00:00February 20th, 2012|assessment, learning|

As every teacher ought to already know, feedback and formative assessment are the most powerful, most effective things you can be doing. This means we need to be taking every opportunity to let our students know, "where they are going, how they are going there and what they might go next." Obvious, isn't it? Well, maybe not. Here are a few interesting points I have gleaned about the effective use of feedback from Visible Learning for Teachers. Hattie says that feedback should be: 'just in time', 'just for me', 'just where I am in my learning process', and 'just what I [...]

Learning objectives and why we need ’em

2020-02-12T21:55:33+00:00February 18th, 2012|learning|

I remember the first time I saw a learning objective being used in a lesson. My school had just been placed into Special Measures and things were looking grim. I'd only joined the school a few months previously and was wondering how to get out. Then, at an INSET event organised to rally the troops I watched a video of David Gale (a maths teacher who tweets as @reflectivemaths) writing the learning objective on his white board, questioning the class about what they might learn and then getting them to learn it. The scales fell from my eyes. That's what I [...]

Reading List

2012-02-16T15:00:11+00:00February 16th, 2012|reading|

Am in the process of trying to digest a number of education texts at the moment. Here is my current stack of reading courtesy of the lovely people at Crown House: My thoughts so far: The Little Book of Music in the Classroom by Nina Jackson The effect of music on students isn't something I've put much thought into before. Yes, I know playing Bach is meant to be good for brainwaves or something, but to my shame, this is an area of my practice which has been sadly neglected. A colleague of mine makes a point of playing deliberately cheesy, [...]

The ultimate teaching technique

2020-10-03T16:19:30+01:00February 14th, 2012|learning|

UPDATE: I no longer agree with any of the following. It remains on my blog as a warning against hubris. June, 2016 Maybe it's just me, but I seem to be encountering an awful lot of people railing against 'progressive' teaching methods of late (see this for an example.) There seems to some sort of consensus that all schools are bastions of constructivist theory in action and that seldom, if ever, are teachers allowed to waffle from the front. Sadly, my experience is that many teachers still spend far too much time standing at the front of their classes talking at [...]

Creativity, analysis and comparison

2013-09-22T15:22:20+01:00February 11th, 2012|English, literacy, reading, writing|

English teachers have a tough gig. We need to constantly hone the hard-edged skill of analysis whilst simultaneously encouraging the fluffy stuff of creativity. There’s a lot said and written about creativity these days, much of it by Sir Ken Robinson. Basically, Ken's argument goes along these lines: schools should value the Arts more highly and find ways to foster creativity in those subjects where it doesn’t necessarily appear naturally. We should do this because creativity (the ability to have new ideas which have value) is increasingly important in a world where jobs that don’t require creativity have disappeared or outsourced to [...]

Who inspects the inspectors?

2013-07-21T08:17:33+01:00February 5th, 2012|Featured|

Are Ofsted fit for purpose? This week Dylan Wiliam threw a wet leather gauntlet in the face of monsieur d'Ofsted, saying, "Ofsted do not know good teaching when they see it”. If this is true (and how would we know because obviously no one ever bovvers to check up on Ofsted, do they?) it casts HMCI Sir Michael Wilshaw's assertion that teachers' pay progression should depend on them teaching 'good' lessons into serious doubt. Wilshaw says “The thing that irritates good teachers, people who work hard and go the extra mile is seeing people that don’t do that being rewarded." No. The [...]

How effective learning hinges on good questioning

2013-07-19T11:08:43+01:00February 4th, 2012|assessment, English, learning|

Hands up who likes asking questions? Questioning is an essential part of helping students to make progress but only if it causes thinking or elicits evidence that informs our teaching. And the thing with asking questions is that while there are some kids who know how to make the system work for them and actively participate in lessons because that they way they’ll learn more, there are those who don't. Dylan Wiliam claims that the students who are sufficiently engaged to put up their hands and answer everything we ask them are “actually getting smarter. Their IQs actually go up.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtZ1pmY0VzI&feature=related [...]

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