Archive

How to start a lesson

Jul 29, 2017 | Category: Featured

Starters are, as the name suggests, meant to start off your lesson and engage students in some sort of learning related activity the moment they shuffle though your classroom door. I’ve seen (and been...

#starters #multiple choice questions

Can grammar teaching improve pupils’ writing?

Nov 29, 2017 | Category: writing

Let me begin with an anecdote. The first time I ever really encountered the meta language of grammar was after finishing my degree in English Literature and embarking on a six-week course to qualify t...

#grammar #Dominic Wyse

Why I recommend self-report to audit teachers' grammatical knowledge

Nov 21, 2017 | Category: Featured

The response to my recent post on supporting teachers' standards of literacy was overwhelmingly positive, although, as expected, there was also some criticism.Some of the criticism was directed at my...

Fundamental British Values: What are they and how should we teach them?

Oct 27, 2017 | Category: Featured

The Department for Education is in the process of setting up an expert advisory group to look at how best to develop and resource a curriculum intended to instil fundamental British values in our youn...

#British values

Leading literacy in schools

Oct 17, 2017 | Category: Featured

Leading on literacy can be a thoroughly thankless task. It can often feel like you're working incredibly hard to produce resources and strategies which colleagues at best ignore and at worst resent. T...

#literacy

Are IQ tests biased or meaningless?

Sep 15, 2017 | Category: Featured

Since my last foray into the world of intelligence testing, I've done a lot of reading about the idea that a) IQ tests are culturally biased and b) that the entire concept of intelligence is culturall...

#intelligence #IQ tests #Jarred Diamond #Richard Haier #Robert Serpell

Is gaslighting a thing, or am I going mad?

Sep 12, 2017 | Category: Featured

In the 40s crime film, Gaslight, a murderous husband tries (and ultimately fails) to convince his wife she's going mad by hiding various of her possessions and then accusing her of having done it hers...

#gaslighting

Why I'm grateful for black people talking to me about race

Sep 05, 2017 | Category: Featured

I've just finished reading Reni Eddo-Logde's Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race.* As a result I feel I need to update some of what I've recently written. Eddo-Lodge does an excellent...

#racism #Reni Eddo-Lodge #Robin Richardson #white privilege

The Back to School Collection

Sep 03, 2017 | Category: Featured

So, Monday morning looms and another term begins. For everyone stepping back into a classroom this week, chin up, don't work too hard, and remember, it's just a job. For those new to the profession -...

#back to school

The tension between 'what is' and 'what ought to be'

Aug 24, 2017 | Category: Featured

One of the great problems of philosophy, is the relationship between the realm of knowledge and the realm of values. Knowledge is what is; values are what ought to be. I would say that all traditiona...

#Jacques Monod #Rapoport's Rules