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The Variation Effect: How seating plans might be undermining learning

Observe always that everything is the result of a change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and to make new ones like them. Marcus Aurelius It is a truth universally acknowledged that a teacher in possession of a large roomful of children must be in want of a carefully crafted seating plan. Secondary schools in particular have normalised the idea that children should sit in the seat where they will be least distracted and best able to learn. There are many excellent reasons to use seating plans: they're a [...]

2015-05-17T13:01:36+01:00May 17th, 2015|Featured|

Seriously, what if you're wrong?

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. Bertrand Russell If there's one tip I might offer on how to think better it would this: try to explore rather than confirm your biases. I have spent a lot of time actively seeking out evidence which disconfirms my biases and then having a really [...]

2015-05-16T11:38:13+01:00May 16th, 2015|blogging|

Is displaying students' work worth the effort?

Of all the observations I made about Michaela School, one which proved particularly controversial was their decision not put display children's work. The rationale given for this was twofold. It takes teachers time to put up, refresh and replace classroom displays and it takes children time to create work for the purpose of such displays. I've spent the week mulling this over and have arrived at a few thoughts. I'm all for not wasting teachers' time in forcing them to engage in extraneous activities, but then, this is enshrined in legislation. The 2012 workload agreement says that teachers cannot be routinely [...]

2015-05-16T09:47:29+01:00May 16th, 2015|myths|

I fought the law and the law won

There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet. Samuel Beckett Yesterday I attended a Speed Awareness Course. I wasn't sure what to expect but was mainly relieved not to get another 3 points on my licence. At worst it would a dull four hours, at best I might learn something. The course started with participants being asked about what excuses we might make for speeding. We came up with the usual suspects: hospital emergencies, first offences, "it's perfectly safe on this stretch of road", needing a clean licence in order to work, lack of [...]

2016-09-14T11:01:09+01:00May 15th, 2015|behaviour|

What ‘no excuses’ means to me

And oftentimes excusing of a fault Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse, As patches set upon a little breach Discredit more in hiding of the fault Than did the fault before it was so patch’d. Shakespeare, King John Let's begin by defining our terms. The dictionary is instructive and offers several different definitions: an explanation offered as a reason for being excused; a plea offered in extenuation of a fault or for release from an obligation, promise,etc.: His excuse for being late was unacceptable. a ground or reason for excusing or being excused: Ignorance is no excuse. a pretext or subterfuge: He [...]

2020-07-07T12:03:57+01:00May 13th, 2015|behaviour|

'No excuses' is no excuse

We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse. Rudyard Kipling I was a bit taken aback at the vigour and vitriol with which some people condemned Michaela School's approach to behaviour. The argument seemed to go that if you refuse to accept poor behaviour then you simply pass on the problem to another school. As far as I can see, that's entirely up to other schools. Consider this scenario. A town has two secondary schools, New Free School and Old Comprehensive School. New Free School has just opened its doors and has made the decision that it [...]

2015-05-13T11:31:38+01:00May 13th, 2015|behaviour|

Robert Coe on #WrongBook

Robert Coe, Director of the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring at Durham University burst into my consciousness two years ago with his vigorous critique of the lack of evidence underpinning lesson observation. I'm sure he needs no introduction, but his papers Improving Education: a triumph of hope over experience and What Makes Great Teaching? are essentially reading for anyone interested in education beyond own narrow sphere of opinion. In short, he's an academic I greatly respect and whose good opinion matters. So I'm thrilled that he's written this brief review of my forthcoming book. This is a great book. Read it. David Didau [...]

2015-05-15T21:39:54+01:00May 13th, 2015|Featured|

Michaela School: Route One Schooling

I learned two very important principles from my visit to Michaela: You can do whatever you want as long as you hold your nerve and accept the consequences. You can always go a lot further than you first think is possible. The first principle is embodied in Head Teacher, Katherine Birbalsingh’s explanation of how to get the culture you want: you just don’t compromise. If a teacher sees or hears a phone at Michaela it’s confiscated until the following term. It doesn’t matter whether the phone accidentally slipped out of a pocket, and it doesn’t matter whether the parent is going [...]

2015-05-16T17:31:38+01:00May 12th, 2015|Featured|

Scaffolding: what we can learn from the metaphor

Pretty much everyone agrees scaffolding students' work is a 'good thing'. Whenever they get stuck we leap in with our trusty writing frames and help them get going. A good writing frame can teach an understanding of text coherence and structure, prompt metacognition and serve as jolly useful checklist. But I think we get a few things wrong. Thinking about where the scaffolding metaphor comes from is instructive. Builders use scaffolding to enable them to attempt projects which would be otherwise impossible - or at least very unsafe. They do not use scaffolding to help them knock together a dwarf wall in your [...]

2015-05-11T20:39:58+01:00May 11th, 2015|literacy|

Do all good ideas need to be researched?

We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about ‘and’. Arthur Stanley Eddington After my presentation on Slow Writing at the researchED Primary Literacy Conference in Leeds, I was asked a very good question by Alex Wetherall. Basically - and I hope he forgives my paraphrase - he asked whether it would be worth conducting some 'proper' research on my good idea. I said no. It seemed as though this came as something of a surprise to the research literate audience. [...]

2015-05-10T18:22:35+01:00May 10th, 2015|research|

How do we know if a teacher’s any good?

Obviously enough, not all teachers are equal. But how do we know which ones are any cop? Well, we just do, don't we? Everyone in a school community tends to know who's doing a decent job. But how do we know? Rightly, most school leaders feel it important to evaluate the effectiveness of their staff, but how can they go about this in a way that's fair, valid and reliable? Over the past year or so I've spent a fair bit of time explaining why lesson observation cannot be used to evaluate effective teaching. Mostly, the message has been received and understood. [...]

2020-07-23T15:07:13+01:00May 9th, 2015|leadership|

Top 20 principles from psychology for teaching & learning

The Coalition for Psychology for Schools and Education haves released a new report detailing what, in their opinion, are the most important and useful psychological principles teachers ought to be aware of. They break these principles in five areas: How Do Students Think and Learn? 1. Students’ beliefs or perceptions about intelligence and ability affect their cognitive functioning and learning. 2. What students already know affects their learning. 3. Students’ cognitive development and learning are not limited by general stages of development. 4. Learning is based on context, so generalizing learning to new contexts is not spontaneous but instead needs to [...]

2015-05-09T08:40:11+01:00May 9th, 2015|psychology|
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