Archive

Getting feedback right Part 1 - Why do we give it?

Mar 04, 2014 | Category: assessment

It's become a truism that feedback is the most important activity that teachers engage in. Feedback, we are repeatedly told, is tremendously powerful and therefore teachers must do more of it. Certain...

#Dylan Wiliam #John Hattie #feedback

Focusing on performance is the enemy of the growth mindset

Mar 02, 2014 | Category: learning

Over the past year or so I've been following a line of thinking which has gone something like this:Learning and performance are not the same thing. Pupils' performance in lessons does not correspond w...

#Carol Dweck #Graham Nuthall #Growth mindset #Barry Hymer

An inconvenient truth? The surplus model of school improvement

Feb 23, 2014 | Category: leadership

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 '...

#Dylan Wiliam #school improvement #John Tomsett #Tom Sherrington #Liam Collins #accountability #Chris Moyse

What I learned from my visit to Ofsted

Feb 19, 2014 | Category: blogging

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" Sherringto...

#Ofsted #lesson observation #Mike Cladingbowl

What inspirational teaching looks like according to Ofsted

Feb 18, 2014 | Category: Featured

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 comm...

#Ofsted #Sir Michael Wilshaw #Michael Gove #Mr Men #Mike Cladingbowl

Questions about questioning: just how important is it?

Feb 16, 2014 | Category: training

“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...

#questioning #Kris Boulton

The glamour of grammar: in context or not?

Feb 13, 2014 | Category: English

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 ‘...

#David Crystal #grammar #Alex Quigley #Education Endowment Foundation #Daisy Christodoulou #Debra Myhill

What if we stopped making the same mistakes?

Feb 11, 2014 | Category: Featured

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...

#Ofsted #Alex Quigley #Robert Coe #Lesson Study

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

Feb 05, 2014 | Category: learning

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 who...

#fun

The Cult of Outstanding™: the problem with 'outstanding' lessons

Jan 16, 2014 | Category: learning

First of all I need to come clean. Up until pretty recently I was a fully paid up member of the Cult of Outstanding™. Last January I considered myself to be a teacher at the height of my powers. In th...

#Ofsted #lesson observations #Cristina Milos #outstanding lessons #Robert Bjork