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The dyslexia debate – is the label 'meaningless'?

Back in May last year I wrote a post which asked whether dyslexia actually exists. Some people really liked it and others (particularly those with children who have been diagnosed with dyslexia) got pretty angry: it's one of my most commented on posts. With the imminent release of professor Julian Elliott's new book, The Dyslexia Debate, a bit a media storm has blown up. Yesterday I was asked by BBC local radio to be interviewed on the Mark Forrest show and The Independent got in touch to see if I would write a short article summarising my thoughts. Naturally, being a big old show off [...]

2014-02-27T14:01:02+00:00February 27th, 2014|literacy|

Don't read these books!

You may have missed it but there was something of a spat on Twitter a few weeks back when one blogger suggested that certain books weren't worth reading. After all sorts of guff about the 'pedagogy police' was slung back and forth the dust settled, an apology was issued, and we all went on with life as before, bruised but wiser. But there was some sort of consensus that slagging off ideas wasn't very nice and that criticism should be constructive. I think. Last week, as you've probably heard, I got to meet with Ofsted's National Director of Schools, Mike Cladingbowl. [...]

2014-02-24T14:37:26+00:00February 24th, 2014|blogging|

An inconvenient truth? The surplus model of school improvement

Schools often seem to be run on a 'deficit model': "this attributes scepticism or hostility to a lack of understanding, resulting from a lack of information. It is associated with a division between 'experts' (school leaders, Ofsted inspectors, consultants etc.) who have the information and non-experts (classroom teachers) who do not. The model implies that communication should focus on improving the transfer of information from experts to non-experts." But what if we ran our schools on a surplus model? What if we assumed that teachers were basically trustworthy, hard-working, and knew what they were doing? What it were agreed that school leaders [...]

2014-02-23T16:59:17+00:00February 23rd, 2014|leadership|

Ofsted's Evaluation Form: the next skirmish!

The 'do they/don't they' buggers' muddle of whether or not Ofsted inspectors are supposed to grade lessons hasn't really been put to rest. Schools' National Director, Mike Cladingbowl's attempts at clarification have only really served to underline some of the inconsistencies. The crux of the situation as it stands is that while inspectors are not supposed to judge the overall lesson "it is still possible for an inspector to record a graded evaluation on an evidence form under one or more of the four main judgement headings, including teaching". This clumsy compromise is encapsulated in the Evaluation Form used by inspectors to [...]

2014-02-22T10:23:54+00:00February 22nd, 2014|Featured|

Are we any clearer? Ofsted explain what they do and don't do

The story so far... On Tuesday I, and four other education bloggers met with Ofsted's National Director of Schools Mike Cladingbowl to discuss, among other things, now and why lessons are graded by Ofsted. We were told, "Inspectors must not grade lessons," and announced this to a jubilant public. Then, questions started popping up and inconsistencies began to emerge. Various inspectors expressed their confusion about what this meant as, it transpired, Ofsted's evaluation forms (EFs) contain a box within which inspectors record a grade for teaching quality. So, what were we to believe? Were inspectors meant to grade lessons or not? [...]

2014-02-21T19:42:02+00:00February 21st, 2014|Featured|

What I learned from my visit to Ofsted

Before reporting on my impressions of the conversation Tom "behaviour guru" Bennett, Ross "the most followed teacher in the UK" McGill, Sheena "Clerk to Governor" Lewington, Tom "head guru" Sherrington and I had with Ofsted's Director of Schools, Mike Cladingbowl, I first need to make a few things clear. I blog about education in no capacity other than as an individual. I am beholden to no one. I have no constituency. I represent no one other than myself, and I am in no way an ambassador for the teaching profession. That said, I've been writing about education for almost three years [...]

2014-02-21T16:26:14+00:00February 19th, 2014|blogging|

What inspirational teaching looks like according to Ofsted

So, as we know, Sir Michael Wilshaw is determined to make clear that Ofsted has no preferred teaching style. Right? Wrong. Just in case you were breaking open the Spumante to celebrate a return to common sense and autonomy, Ofsted have released a brand new example of best practice in English just so as we're all clear on exactly the type of thing inspectors are looking for. I really don't want to denigrate anything the school in question has done in order to be awarded their outstanding badge; their results speak for themselves: In 2013, 83% of the cohort gained a GCSE [...]

2014-02-18T17:27:12+00:00February 18th, 2014|Featured|

Questions about questioning: just how important is it?

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” Nietzsche It's a little tiresome, but I feel I must preface this by saying that these are just my thoughts. I'm not claiming anyone is wrong (or right for that matter) just that it always pays to question anything that passes as conventional wisdom. And what could be more conventionally wise that the assumption that teachers need to commit time and resources to improving their ability to ask questions of their pupils? The research suggests that teachers, traditionally, aren't that great at asking questions. We often answer our own [...]

2014-02-19T09:54:12+00:00February 16th, 2014|training|

The glamour of grammar: in context or not?

It's something of an understatement to say that glamour and grammar are not usually closely associated in many people's minds. One of the 100 words David Crystal uses to tell The Story of English is ‘grammar’. It turns out that grammar and glamour come from the same root. Grammar originally meant the study of everything written but, as reading must have seemed like an almost magical skill to your average medieval peasant, grammar became synonymous with supernatural or occult knowledge. ‘Grammary’ came to mean magical or necromantic learning. And this leads us to ‘glamour’ which first meant a magical spell or enchantment and has since [...]

2015-11-09T14:55:47+00:00February 13th, 2014|English, literacy|

What if we stopped making the same mistakes?

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. Henry Ford Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. Fake Einstein quote How many of us have worked in schools which have as one of their teaching & learning priorities differentiation, questioning, or assessment & feedback? Most of us, right? You'll be hard-pressed to find a school which isn't working hard on trying to improve one or other of these aspects of teaching. But why? No one seems to have 'the answer', and we're all desperately scrabbling about trying to get better at doing the same things. [...]

2017-03-10T16:52:25+00:00February 11th, 2014|Featured|

Still grading lessons? A triumph of experience over hope

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. Francis Bacon To paraphrase Rob Coe's seminal research, yesterday's National Teacher Enquiry Network (NTEN) conference at KEGS in Chelmsford was a triumph of experience over hope. just hoping we're doing the right things is potentially worse than useless: it might be downright damaging. This was a gathering of teachers and school leaders from a wide range of settings, all of whom are focussed on trying to move from a 'hopeful' approach to improving teaching and learning to a more expectant one. Finally there might the first faint glimmers of a new [...]

2014-03-17T11:21:08+00:00February 8th, 2014|Featured|

"The kids absolutely love it!" The phrase that launched a thousand gimmicks

I attended a TeachMeet recently where a number of the presenters argued that their teaching strategy of choice was worth trying out because, "The kids absolutely love it!" This seems to me to be a wholly inappropriate reason for teaching something. Then, in a wildly irresponsible fit of despondency, I tweeted the following: Predictably several people saw fit to take me to task, saying variously that I sounded "really boring", was in favour of "dour" lessons, that I judged the success of my teaching on whether kids hated learning, or that I was just indulging in some sort of "bear baiting". [...]

2014-02-05T22:39:28+00:00February 5th, 2014|learning|
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