Archive

Why I ♥ blogging (and believe there is hope for Ofsted)

Dec 03, 2015 | Category: blogging

Earlier today I posted an outraged spume of invective directed at a recently publish Ofsted inspection report. Since then Sean Harford, Ofsted's National Director for Education, has been in touch to s...

#Ofsted

Marking: What (some) Ofsted Inspectors (still) want

Dec 03, 2015 | Category: workload

It is up to schools themselves to determine their practices and for leadership teams to justify these on their own merits rather than by reference to the inspection handbook. UPDATE: There is a happy(...

#Ofsted #marking #workload

November on The Learning Spy

Dec 01, 2015 | Category: blogging

Here's all the stuff I wrote last month. Knock yourself out.3rd November Five techniques for overcoming overconfidence & improving decision-making - more wisdom from messrs Kahneman & Klein4th Novembe...

Opportunity knocks: the hidden cost of bad ideas

Nov 30, 2015 | Category: leadership

Remember that Time is Money. He that can earn Ten Shillings a Day by his Labour, and goes abroad, or sits idle one half of that Day, tho’ he spends but Sixpence during his Diversion or Idleness, ought...

#marking #opportunity cost

Should students respond to feedback?

Nov 30, 2015 | Category: assessment

The opposite of talking isn’t listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.Fran Lebowitz One of the criticisms of my post about book monitoring is that I have omitted checks to see whether students...

#Dylan Wiliam #marking #feedback #book monitoring #student response

What I want from a school leader

Nov 28, 2015 | Category: leadership

In response to various posts on book monitoring earlier in the week, Lee Donaghy asked what the role of school leaders ought to be.Now, some would have it that because I don't lead a school any opinio...

#school leadership

The problem with book monitoring

Nov 26, 2015 | Category: leadership

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.Albert Camus Most schools these days routinely monitor students' exercise books in an attempt to extrapolate the quality of teaching. In some ways this is po...

#book monitoring

Is it just me or is Sugata Mitra an irresponsible charlatan?

Nov 23, 2015 | Category: myths

Knowledge comes by eyes always open and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power.Ralph Waldo Emerson When I first saw physicist, Sugata Mitra speak about his Hole in the Wall exper...

#Sugata Mitra #Tom Bennett #ED Hirsch #Daisy Christodoulou #Kieran Egan #Donald Clark

Workload, retention & accountability: One policy to rule them all

Nov 22, 2015 | Category: leadership

More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies. Rudyard Kipling There's a lot wrong with the way schools are held to account which result in perverse incentives for schoo...

#workload

We don't know what we don't know: the uses of humility

Nov 05, 2015 | Category: leadership

Humility is the only true wisdom by which we prepare our minds for all the possible changes of life. George Arliss In my last post I challenged the widely-held belief that teachers' judgements are g...

#Daniel Kahneman #Gary Klein #intuition