Archive

The GCSE English "fiasco" - Why shouldn't all have prizes?

Sep 02, 2012 | Category: English

Lots of folk have had lots to say about what went on behind the scenes at the various exam boards this summer and throughout it all I've largely kept my peace. Having absorbed the various arguments an...

#English #GCSEs #Gove #literacy #grade inflation

Planning a 'perfect' lesson

Jun 30, 2012 | Category: training

How long does a decent lesson take to plan? Ofsted have recently made clear that they're not interested in over complicated lesson plans noting that "excessive detail within plans causes teachers to l...

#Ofsted #Phil Beadle #John Tomsett #Lesson planning #checklists #Michael Fullan #random lesson generators

A review of 2012 on The Learning Spy

Dec 17, 2012 | Category: Featured

[caption id="attachment_2173" align="alignleft" width="300"] It wasn't THAT bad![/caption]Well, it's the end of another year and as the past month has seen me too drained to write anything even vaguel...

Is teaching cheating?

Nov 26, 2012 | Category: assessment

[caption id="attachment_2179" align="alignnone" width="259"] The Teachmobile[/caption]Today I was sent this:[slideshare id=15358374&sc=no]It purports to be a briefing sheet used by an AQA advisor to j...

#English #AQA #GCSE fiasco

Is there a right way to teach?

Nov 24, 2012 | Category: learning

It’s become a trite and hackneyed truism that if they’re not learning you’re just talking. We’re all clear that teaching only happens when the little tinkers manage to make some sort of progress – pre...

#Ofsted #Hattie #direct instruction #Wilshaw

Go with the flow: the 2 minute lesson plan

Nov 17, 2012 | Category: learning

NB: This post does no longer represents my latest thinking. I've updated my approach to planning here.Like all teachers, my main aim in life is to run, whooping, out of the school gates by 3 o’clock....

#Ofsted #Ross McGill #John Tomsett #Lesson planning #Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Of cabbages, round tables and kings

Nov 03, 2012 | Category: leadership

Back in the day King Arthur had a problem. Bickering barons made a great deal of fuss about who was the biggest cheese. When they sat down together for a friendly chat things soon came to head becaus...

#Ofsted #Exams #Headteachers' Roundtable #King Arthur

The mathematics of writing

Oct 30, 2012 | Category: English

A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns… The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s must be beautiful; the ideas like the colours or the words, must fit t...

#Phil Beadle #grammar #writing #Dancing About Architecture #maths #Michael Swann

Knowledge is power

Oct 21, 2012 | Category: learning

I've been having a bit of think this week.Firstly I read Daisy Christodoulou's post on Hirsch's Core Knowledge curriculum. She points out that Hirsch, oft-condemned for being the darling of ideologues...

#Sir Ken Robinson #SOLO taxonomy #knowledge #correlation is not causation #ED Hirsch #Francis Bacon #Independent Thinking #Little Miss Sunshine #pirates #The Thick Of It

Project Based Learning: I did it my way

Sep 23, 2012 | Category: English

I've finally managed to cobble together my first post since starting back in September. What with starting a new job, teaching A level for the first time in over a decade and languishing in post-publi...

#Ron Berger #Buck Institute of Education #Cramlington Learning Village #Critique #Project Based Learning