Archive

Some thoughts on truth

Oct 19, 2014 | Category: Featured

Every truth has two sides. It is well to look at both before we commit ourselves to either side.Aesop This weekend I took part in a panel discussion on the meaning of literacy at the Battle of Ideas...

#Keats #Nevile Gwyne #truth

Negative framing and No Pens Days

Oct 16, 2014 | Category: literacy

The framing effect is an example of cognitive bias, in which our reactions to a choice depend on whether it is presented as a loss or a gain. Our tendency is to avoid risks when they're framed negativ...

#writing #Mick Waters #Framing effect #No Pens Days #The Communication Trust

The surplus model of school improvement

Oct 15, 2014 | Category: leadership

As teachers we are sometimes guilty of assuming that all would be well if only children behaved better and worked harder. This is basically sound; everything would be better if kids did what was in th...

#school improvement #deficit model #surplus model

Can you be too independent?

Oct 01, 2014 | Category: Featured

If the man doesn’t believe as we do, we say he is a crank, and that settles it. I mean, it does nowadays, because now we can’t burn him. Mark Twain Today I discovered I had been 'let go' by Inde...

#Independent Thinking

Where do I want my daughters to go to school?

Sep 27, 2014 | Category: Featured

My eldest daughter is in Year 6 and applications for secondary school applications need to be in by the end of October. To my shame, I've taken the route my middle-class parents take; we're moving int...

#bloom's taxonomy #Thinking Hats #character #King's Leadership Academy #Shane Iertson #Sir Iain Hall

Forget about assessing learning after lessons

Sep 19, 2014 | Category: Featured

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 le...

#Dylan Wiliam #TES #Robert Bjork

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

Sep 12, 2014 | Category: Featured

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, particu...

#Teach First #Doug Lemov #KIPP #Policy Exchange #King Solomon Academy #Zenaida Tan

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

Sep 11, 2014 | Category: Featured

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 d...

#King Solomon Academy

Do you need a research champion in your school?

Sep 08, 2014 | Category: Featured

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...

#Tom Sherrington #Robert Coe #Carl Hendricks

#ResearchED - Everything you know about education is wrong

Sep 06, 2014 | Category: Featured

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 mis...

#Wittgenstein #Carl Weiman #Carl Sagan #Bayes' Theorem #Gerd Gigerenzer #Karl Popper #Richard Feynman