Should Ofsted observe lessons?
As you may have seen, Ofsted have published a report which lays the ground work on how they might start observing lessons once more: Six models of lesson observation: an international perspective. Most people will probably accept that if Ofsted are going to inspect schools then should almost certainly observe lessons as part of the inspection process. And, as someone who spends a fair bit of time visiting schools around the [...]
Lessons from the dojo
Struck with the inescapable knowledge that I'm not getting younger and, therefore, am unlikely to stay fit and healthy without some investment in exercise, I've struggled over the past few years to find a form of physical activity that I don't actively dread. In January I made the decision to try out my local karate club and, thus far at least, I love it. I've been going two, sometimes three, [...]
What can you practise in English lessons?
Over my last two posts I've argued that, contrary to popular opinion, English is not a 'skills based' subject. In fact, what appear to be skills are actually composed on many thousands of individual components of knowledge organised together as schema. In my last post I tried to demonstrate that practising 'inference skills' won't actually help students get better at making inferences, and that this ability depends on what they [...]
Why practising inference doesn’t work
In my last post I argued that thinking about English as a 'skills based' subject is counter-productive. One response to this was to say, "Hang on, what about practice. If you can practise something you become more skilled at it, so how can you say English isn't a skills-based subject?" It seems obvious that "just knowing" something is different from practising it. Pretty much anything we do can be improved [...]
Why English is not a ‘skills based’ subject
The idea that English is a skills based subject has become axiomatic. Most English teachers of my acquaintance accept it unquestioningly, as did I until a few years ago. How do we know English is skills based? Because it depends on the skills of reading and writing. And, in turn, reading depends on such skills as inference and analysis, while writing depends either on the skill of making points, using [...]
Leading literacy in schools
Leading on literacy can be a thoroughly thankless task. It can often feel like you’re working incredibly hard to produce resources and strategies which colleagues at best ignore and at worst resent. Part of the problem is that we’re expending effort in the wrong place and trying to persuade teachers to do the wrong things. Frustratingly, there’s very little guidance about how best to spend your precious time and it [...]
The death of my father
Yesterday my father died in his flat. He was a difficult man, and our relationship had been strained for years. He could be capable of great warmth, wit and wisdom, but he was also the most self-centred, childish and dogmatic person I have known. He loved solving mathematical puzzles, winning at Scrabble, studying the Bible, and being made cups of tea. He was a very bright man and, at the [...]
The Case Against Education
I've been reading the economist Bryan Caplan's new book, The Case Against Education with great interest. His is very much a contrarian point of view: that most of the time and effort spent on the project of education is wasted. Cue steep intake of breath. He's not saying time and money spent on an individual's education is a waste, but that the billions of tax dollars spent on educating society [...]
The nail in Growth Mindset’s coffin?
As I'm sure everybody already knows, mind sets are beliefs about the nature of characteristics like intelligence. The theory is that students with growth mindsets believe their ability can be changed with effort and therefore do better academically than their peers who have fixed mindsets. Given the appeal of this theory, it's small wonder that schools around the world have rushed to intervene with their students in order to mould their mindsets. In January [...]
The problem with ‘unconditional positive regard’
If you're a parent and your child misbehaves in public, what do you do? If you're not a parent, and someone else's child misbehaves in public, what would you like the parents to do? Adults are predisposed to like children, and it comes as something of a surprise when they’re unaccountably brattish and unpleasant. When children behave badly in public, people dislike them. We know it's unreasonable, but most of [...]
12 rules for schools: Rule 8 Tell the truth – or, at least don’t lie
This is part of a series of posts adapting Jordan Peterson’s book, 12 Rules of Life to the context of eduction. You can find my thoughts on the rest of his rules here. The Truth is a commodity in short supply. The world around is objectively real and packed with immutable facts, but it is also a never-ending conveyor belt of spin, fake news, advertising, self-promotion and bullshit. It can often seem hard to [...]
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