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The surplus model of school improvement

In chapter 2 of Intelligent Accountability I suggest that schools can operate either a surplus or deficit model of school improvement. Schools often seem to be run on a deficit model whereby any deficiencies or failings are attributed to a lack of understanding, information, effort or good will. The efforts of ‘experts’ (school leaders, inspectors, consultants, senior teachers, etc.) who understand what needs to be done are stymied by the actions (or inaction) of non-experts (classroom teachers) who do not. In a deficit model, failings are attributed to the inability of non-experts to understand or enact “realistic budgets, plans and targets”. [...]

2020-11-02T13:04:52+00:00November 2nd, 2020|leadership|

Why we need to embrace ignorance and learn to love uncertainty

The opening chapter of my book Intelligent Accountability is an attempt to clear the way of objections and obstacles in order to create the conditions for teachers to thrive. As such, I argue that schools are incredibly complex institutions where it is impossible for school leaders to have certain knowledge of the best courses of action or the results of the decisions they make. This being the case, I suggest that the only reasonable alternative is to act with tentativity and humility. For all school leaders, one of the following option will be true: You believe you know everything you need [...]

2020-11-01T15:13:43+00:00November 1st, 2020|leadership|

Curriculum related expectations: using the curriculum as a progression model

One of the barriers to using the curriculum as a progression model is that there is too little understanding of what this might mean. It sounds great but a bit mysterious. I've spoken to a number of people who are happy to agree that the curriculum provides a map of the quality of education a school provides and even approvingly use the phrase 'curriculum as a a progression model' who never the less continue to attempt measuring progress using 'age related expectations' or some other meaningless confection. Let's first deal with why age related expectations are unhelpful. First, they are guesswork. [...]

2020-10-27T11:08:23+00:00October 27th, 2020|assessment, curriculum|

Intelligent Accountability: An overview

My new book, Intelligent Accountability: Creating the conditions for teachers to thrive is out now. The argument I make is that while accountability is wholly necessary for teachers to thrive it is too often applied unintelligently and so backfires. I discuss a set of principles designed to get the best out of teachers, thereby getting the best from your students. And when I say ‘best’, I categorically do not mean piling stress onto teachers in the hope of gaming exam results. By creating the conditions for teachers to thrive, we are likely to get much more of what we want: better exam [...]

2020-11-07T12:23:08+00:00October 24th, 2020|leadership|

How to read creatively: noticing in English

… languages recognized, not as the means of contemporary communication but as investments in thought and records of perceptions and analogical understandings; literatures recognized as the contemplative exploration of beliefs, emotions, human characters and relationships in imagined situations, liberated from the confused, cliché ridden, generalized conditions of commonplace life and constituting a world of ideal human expressions inviting neither approval nor disapproval but the exact attention and understanding of those who read … Michael Oakeshott, ‘The Voice of Liberal Learning,’ p. 23. In my forthcoming book, Making Meaning in English, I suggest two disciplinary branches of knowledge in English which I've [...]

2020-11-14T12:39:05+00:00October 3rd, 2020|English|

Are knowledge organisers flawed?

Like many others, I got quite excited about the idea of organising the knowledge students needed to learn on a single page when I first encountered it on Joe Krby's blog. As Joe said, a knowledge organiser (KO) can "specify subject knowledge in meticulous detail," provide "clarity for teachers" and provide a mechanism for "boosting students' memory". Used well, they can be part of a coherent five year revision strategy. I had a go at making some examples of KOs for English and started recommending the approach to schools I worked with. Then a thousand flowers bloomed; KOs popped up everywhere. [...]

2020-09-20T15:14:30+01:00September 20th, 2020|psychology|

#BackToSchool – free webinars

Over the next few weeks I'll be hosting a series of five 'back to school' webinars on a range to topics aimed at early career teachers, those with a mentoring responsibility and anyone who simply feels they could do with a refresher of some teaching basics. And this year, of all years, who couldn't do with a refresher? Each of the webinars is focussed around a particular area of teaching and would make ideal CPD. Each webinar will be going out at 4pm and registration is FREE for those who need it to be, while those who feel able to pay [...]

2020-08-26T20:48:29+01:00August 26th, 2020|Featured, training|

Learning Spy Academy: the story so far…

A little over a month ago I streamed my first ever webinar with the technical support of B&T Education. I decided right from the outset that I wanted to make the content free to anyone who wanted it but I also wanted to give people the opportunity to pay a tokenary amount if they felt able to do so. Afterall, streaming webinars isn't free; not only does it take time and effort but there's all sorts of hidden, behind-the-scenes costs. Much to my surprise and delight the first webinar was a huge success selling out 1000 tickets. We had a few [...]

2020-07-25T17:04:01+01:00July 24th, 2020|Webinars|

Interview on Shoreditch radio

Last week I was interviewed by Liam Davis on Shoreditch Radio about why I became a teacher, what got me into writing, the ideas in some of my books and the effects of Covid-19 on education. You can listen to the interview above. Is the player not loading above? Then you can listen directly on MixCloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/liam-davis3/educationalist-and-author-david-didau-joined-me-on-shoreditch-radio-to-discuss-his-work/

2020-07-02T07:20:59+01:00June 23rd, 2020|Featured|

Five things new school leaders need to know

1. The primary role of school leadership is to remove extraneous demands on teachers so that they can focus on planning and teaching the very best curriculum possible. If you're doing anything that interferes with this primary responsibility take a long, hard look at yourself. For clarity, this includes behaviour. While teachers have a responsibility to both uphold the standards you've set and to hold students to account, behaviour is, primarily, your responsibility. If you find yourself blaming teachers for poor student behaviour you are part of the problem. Of course, some teachers will need more support than others but [...]

2023-03-28T09:51:15+01:00June 22nd, 2020|leadership|

Q&A: Five Things Every Teacher Needs to Know about Reading

If you missed it, here's a link to the presentation I gave in my webinar on Five Things Every Teacher Needs to Know about Reading. There were a number of question that I didn't have time to answer during the webinar, so here are my thoughts. Q: Do you think schools should be pushing for subject specific reading in every lesson and subject? My school wants this but some subjects, e.g. Dance, think it is not relevant to them. Is there benefit? A: The idea that there should be reading - subject specific or otherwise - is deeply flawed and leads [...]

2021-10-03T11:58:18+01:00June 21st, 2020|reading, Webinars|

Webinar: Five things every teacher needs to know about writing

Last Thursday's inaugural webinar, 'Five things every teacher needs to know about reading,' was, on the whole, a great success. We sold out 1000 tickets and about 500 people showed up on the night. There were a few technical hiccups on the day including a power cut during set up, and our server going down when so many people tried to get into the webinar all at once. We also forgot to record the Q&A which was, arguably, the best bit. Never mind. We're going to run another - different - reading webinar on Tuesday 30th June at 4pm (BST): Building [...]

2020-06-20T14:57:05+01:00June 20th, 2020|Webinars|
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