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Forget about assessing learning after lessons

Today I not only have my first ever article published by the TES, it's made the front page! Those of you familiar with my output will recognise the arguments and be familiar with the thinking that's led to these conclusions. But for anyone new to the blog, a little background wouldn't go amiss. The first and perhaps most important brick in the teetering edifice I've been constructing over the past couple of years is the idea that learning and performance are not the same thing. Maybe this sounds obvious, but it rocked my world to its rotten foundations. Read this post if [...]

2014-09-19T18:27:37+01:00September 19th, 2014|Featured|

What I learned in my visit to King Solomon Academy Part 2 – The Lemov lecture

When I reported my observations about King Solomon Academy, a number of commentators pointed out the similarities to some of the Charter Schools in the US. Any similarity is the Charter model, particularly the KIPP schools (Knowledge is Power Programme) share many of the same aims, values and structures as KSA. Although I've never visited one of these schools I was aware of the influence they've had on a number of English Free Schools and Academies. How synchronous then Doug Lemov, managing director of the Uncommon Schools network in New York state and author of the highly influential, Teach Like a Champion: [...]

2014-09-12T13:57:31+01:00September 12th, 2014|Featured|

What I learned in my visit to King Solomon Academy Part 1

Yesterday I wangled a visit to the latest ministerial touchstone for excellence in English education, King Solomon Academy just off the Edgware Road in Westminster. The Ark sponsored academy has the dubious privilege of being situated in the most deprived, socially disadvantaged ward in London. 12% are on the SEN register; 51% are in receipt of free school meals and 65% speak English as a second language. They can hardly be accused as cherry picking the most able. And yet it achieves some of most astonishing GCSE results recorded this summer with 93% of pupils getting 5 good grades including English and Maths and 75% obtaining [...]

2018-10-24T17:55:35+01:00September 11th, 2014|Featured|

Do you need a research champion in your school?

If you haven't read this great article by Carl Hendricks, Director of Research at Wellington College, on the need for 'research champions in schools, you should. In it Hendricks persuasively sets out the case for the importance of there being a designated member of staff to champion the cause of education research in every school: Education research has provided teachers with enlightening and elegant ways of approaching their practice. There is an ever-growing and robust evidence base in a wide range of areas that have improved standards and enfranchised both teacher practice and student achievement. However there has also been a history of ideologically driven, [...]

2014-09-08T17:19:14+01:00September 8th, 2014|Featured|

#ResearchED – Everything you know about education is wrong

If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong. Charles F. Kettering I realise I must have come as something as a disappointment for all those expecting the curly-headed medical mischief-maker, Ben Goldacre, but it was wonderful to have the opportunity to try to explain where my thinking currently is on the thorny matter of education research. Really I have no right to a place on the big stage at a conference like ResearchED; I've never done any proper research; I have no qualifications beyond my PGCE. I'm just a very geeky chancer with a big gob and [...]

2014-09-07T17:36:49+01:00September 6th, 2014|Featured|

Further thoughts about evidence in education

Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality, because reality is a spirit. G. K. Chesterton Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them. Hermann Hesse I reached some tentative conclusions about evidence in education in my last post. One of the criticisms I keep coming up against is that my thinking is 'positivist' and therefore either limited or bad, depending on the biases of the critic. To understand this criticism we need to briefly explore some conceptions about reality, or ontology. Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature [...]

2014-08-31T15:21:42+01:00August 31st, 2014|Featured|

Some tentative thoughts about evidence in education

To get anywhere, or even live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer. Robert A. Heinlein I've been thinking hard about the nature of education research and I'm worried that it might be broken. If I develop a theory but have no evidence for it then it is dismissed as 'mere speculation'. "Show me the evidence!" comes the crowded shout, and currently in the sphere of education evidence is all. But can we really trust the evidence we're offered? Clearly, sometimes we can. I don't want to be [...]

2014-08-30T16:31:39+01:00August 29th, 2014|Featured|

I ♥ rote learning

Memory is the cabinet of the imagination, the treasury of reason, the registry of conscience, and, the council chamber of thought. St. Basil I've been reading and enjoying Getting it Wrong from the Beginning: Our Progressivist Inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget in which Kieran Egan launches a blistering attack on the tenets of progressivism. What's particularly interesting about it is that it's written by a man who describes himself as "someone who has considerable sympathy with progressive ideals." (p6) I'll write more on the general and fascinating thrust of the book another time. Today I want just to pick up [...]

2014-08-30T23:17:04+01:00August 26th, 2014|learning|

Back to School Part 5: Marking

This series of #backtoschool blogs summarises much of my thinking as it’s developed over the past few years and is aimed at new or recently qualified teachers. Each area has been distilled to 5 ‘top tips’ which I hope prove useful to anyone embarking on a career in teaching. That said, I’ll be delighted if they serve as handy reminders for colleagues somewhat longer in the tooth. Marking is a chore. Whether or not it has a measurable impact of pupils' outcomes is arguable; that's not the reason we do it. The reason we spend so much time marking is a combination of we're [...]

2014-08-25T17:23:42+01:00August 24th, 2014|assessment, Featured|

Back to School Part 4: Planning

This series of #backtoschool blogs summarises much of my thinking as it’s developed over the past few years and is aimed at new or recently qualified teachers. Each area has been distilled to 5 ‘top tips’ which I hope prove useful to anyone embarking on a career in teaching. That said, I’ll be delighted if they serve as handy reminders for colleagues somewhat longer in the tooth. So far in this back to school series we've covered establishing clear routines, building relationships and an awareness of the need to make language and literacy explicit in lessons. This next post concerns itself with the time consuming business [...]

2020-09-02T14:06:11+01:00August 23rd, 2014|Featured|

What does John Hattie think about education?

If you don't yet know, BBC Radio 4 have lined up a series of 8 interviews with the leading lights of the education world. In the second programme of the series, Sarah Montague interviews professor John Hattie on 'what works' in education. Here it is. Whatever your opinion of effect sizes and meta-analyses, Visible Learning has changed the way many of us think about teaching and Hattie has become one of the most respected and widely known academics in the field of education. For those too busy or too uninterested to invest 25 minutes of their lives actually listening to the broadcast, I'll [...]

2014-08-22T00:12:59+01:00August 22nd, 2014|Featured|

Back to school Part 3: Literacy

This series of #backtoschool blogs summarises much of my thinking as it’s developed over the past few years and is aimed at new or recently qualified teachers. Each area has been distilled to 5 ‘top tips’ which I hope prove useful to anyone embarking on a career in teaching. That said, I’ll be delighted if they serve as handy reminders for colleagues somewhat longer in the tooth. It's all very well establishing all those routines and relationships, but sooner or later you'll have to teach them something. And whatever you teach, you'll also be teaching literacy. Every time you open your mouth you’re modelling how to speak; every time you ask students to [...]

2015-01-04T18:28:17+00:00August 21st, 2014|literacy|
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