Archive

Live Lesson Obs: Making lesson observations formative

Feb 03, 2013 | Category: Featured

You can push and prod people into something better than mediocrity, but you have to encourage excellence.David Lammy We've all experienced the dread and agony of formal lesson observations, haven't we...

#lesson observations #Phil Beadle #Clevedon School #David Lammy #Live Lesson Obs

Anatomy of an outstanding lesson

Jan 22, 2013 | Category: English

I'd want to make clear at the outset of this post that I no longer believe there is such a thing as an 'outstanding' lesson and would like to refer you to this post. Outstanding lessons are all alike;...

#Of Mice and Men #outstanding lessons #Joan Jett #The Perfect Ofsted English Lesson

Building challenge: differentiation that's quick and works

Jan 19, 2013 | Category: English

UPDATE: These two posts represent my latest think on differentiation: Is differentiation a zero-sum game? April 2015Why do we overestimate the importance of differences? November 2014Since having a go...

#Zoe Elder #Darren Mead #differentiation #Jim Smith #Lesson planning #6 degrees of separation #Before before after after #comparison alley #Lisa Jane Ashes

Effective group work

Jan 12, 2013 | Category: behaviour

[caption id="attachment_4388" align="alignleft" width="275"] Just another example of effective groupwork[/caption]OK. I have 3 points to make: Group work does not make us more creative and it does...

#Dylan Wiliam #groupwork #The Ringelmann Effect

Building anticipation... How to get kids to look forward to your lessons without dumbing down

Jan 11, 2013 | Category: English

One of the banes of every teachers' life is that endless, whining chorus of, "Can we do something fun today?" The correct answer to this pitiful plea is of course that learning is always fun and that...

#Hywel Roberts #Julius Caesar #The Clash

A Universal Panacea? - my homage to Twitter

Jan 20, 2013 | Category: Featured

The number one shift in education I wish to see in my lifetime? In an effort to participate in the Blog Sync project coordinated by @Edutronic_Net I blithely signed up to write about whatever was agr...

#Twitter

So, what IS the point of INSET days?

Jan 06, 2013 | Category: training

Every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better. Dylan Wiliam, keynote to SSAT conference, December 2012 Back in August 2011, long before I ev...

#Ian Gilbert #Dylan Wiliam #INSET #John Tomsett #CPD

How to get students to value writing

Dec 31, 2012 | Category: literacy

Sir, do we have to write in sentences? Yes, you bloody well do!Students do a lot of writing at school but, bless me, most of it's turgid stuff. In practically every lesson they're required to scribble...

#Darren Mead #Slow Writing #proof-reading

Outstanding teaching & learning: missed opportunities and marginal gains

Oct 14, 2012 | Category: learning

I work at an 'outstanding' school where the teaching and learning is 'good'. As such we are squarely in Wilshaw's sights and almost certainly due an inspection at some point this year. We were last in...

#Ofsted #Zoe Elder #Sir Michael Wilshaw #Dave Brailsford #marginal gains

A Room Of One's Own - the thin end of the staff room wedge

Oct 08, 2012 | Category: Featured

On the rare occasions I ever had cause to knock on the staff room door as the timid little chap I was back in the early 80s, a disgruntled teacher would throw it open, grumble about being disturbed, a...

#staffrooms