Archive

What if I'm wrong? @HeyMissSmith savages #WrongBook

Jul 08, 2015 | Category: writing

Several people have very kindly written about why they like my new book, What if everything you know about education is wrong? but refreshingly, Jane Manzone (@HeyMissSmith) has reached entirely diffe...

#WrongBook

Why we really mistrust Ofsted

Sep 15, 2015 | Category: Featured

In the Schools Week profile on Ofsted's head honcho, Sir Michael Wilshaw apparently puts the teaching professions' lack of confidence in Ofsted down to "his relentless drive for challenge". He is repo...

#Ofsted #Sir Michael Wilshaw #Schools Week

When should we stop making students redraft work?

Sep 14, 2015 | Category: writing

I managed to catch a bit of #Engchatuk today and was interested to see that the discussion was on how to get students to redraft their work. Redrafting is something I advocate when travelling round di...

#proofreading #drafting

The uses of disappointment

Sep 13, 2015 | Category: psychology

"Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue." Samuel Johnson I had very low expectati...

#expectations

Should we learn to love our shackles?

Sep 12, 2015 | Category: leadership

"Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better." Albert Camus There's already been some pretty scathing reactions to the master plan to introduce a common curriculum and assessment system into U...

#Dylan Wiliam #assessment #curriculum #Dame Sally Coates

You can have a voice

Sep 11, 2015 | Category: blogging

I am a product of social media. I've been writing this blog since June 2011 and whilst this pales next to the senescence of veteran edubloggers like Old Andrew and Tom Bennett, it does mark me as a co...

Research vs evidence

Sep 09, 2015 | Category: research

"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof." JK Galbraith, Economics, Peace and Laughter (1971), p. 50 Eviden...

Pedagogy? I hate the word

Sep 06, 2015 | Category: Featured

If you can’t convince them; confuse them. - Harry S. Truman Pedagogy is defined as either the function or work of a teacher or as the art or science of teaching. As such, it probably seems a bit ext...

#pedagogy

Foxy Thinking: why we should embrace ignorance and learn to love uncertainty

Sep 05, 2015 | Category: Featured

"The grand perhaps! We look on helplessly, there the old misgivings, crooked questions are." Robert Browning Ted Hughes' poem The Thought Fox is an attempt to describe the mysteries of the creative...

#researchED #Donald Rumsfeld #ignorance #Laura McInnerney #Nate Silver #uncertainty

See it, own it: how to destroy a school

Aug 31, 2015 | Category: behaviour

I went for a coffee with a former colleague a few days ago and inevitably, after some small talk, the conversation turned to a discussion of his school. He started off by confiding that the GCSE resul...

#behaviour