What’s the big deal about school uniform?
Is there any evidence that school uniform affects learning? In a word, no. Or, rather I should say, I'm not aware of any beyond weak testimonials offered by uniform manufactures and the personal anecdotes of true believers. Where there is reputable research, it's equivocal. So, why do schools make such a big deal about uniforms? Well, although it would very difficult to conduct a study which isolated the effects of [...]
Fun is being “killed off”! Really?
Every now and then, children's author Michael Rosen writes a snarky open letter to whomever happens to be education secretary of the day castigating them for his bugbear du jour. His latest offering makes the hyperbolic accusation that Justine Greening is "killing off painting, pottery, thinking … and fun." What an evil witch! What are the grounds for Michael's claim? Well, firstly he identifies several potentially ill-thought out approaches to education currently mandated in many primary [...]
Are teachers cursed with knowledge?
The Curse of Knowledge: when we are given knowledge, it is impossible to imagine what it's like to lack that knowledge. Chip Heath, Made to Stick How much do teachers need to know? In my last post I proposed that an effective teacher - one who is warm, friendly and a great speaker - is minimally effective if they have nothing to teach. The Dr Fox (or Ken Robinson) [...]
What Dr Fox teaches us about the importance of subject knowledge
In 1970, psychologists and psychiatrists were invited to a lecture on "Mathematical Game Theory as Applied to Physician Education." The lecture, supposedly given by Dr Myron L. Fox, a graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a student of the great John van Neumann, was actually given by an actor who knew nothing about either Game Theory or Physical Education.The audience of MDs and PhDs were in fact unwitting [...]
5 things every new (secondary) teacher should know about writing
Academic success is dependent on students being able to communicate their understanding of a subject and, sooner or later, that communication will be written. For many secondary teachers writing is something that just happens; some students do it well, others poorly and there's precious little you can do about it. In secondary schools teachers teach subjects and although some effort will be put into essay writing skills in some subject areas, by [...]
5 things every new (secondary) teacher should know about reading
Reading's a funny old business. Generally, secondary school teachers expect kids to come with a pre-loaded reading module. If they have it, all well and good. If they don't, we're stuffed. Luckily, the vast majority of students can read by the start of Year 7, even if they say they can't. But being able to read and being able to access the kind of material required to be academically successful are [...]
Some questions for the College of Teaching
So, plans for the College of Teachers are gathering pace. It increasingly looks like it's going to be a thing, whether teachers want it or not. I'm not against a College per se, but I do have some questions which I think need answering before we go too much further or invest any more than the £5 million the government has already handed over. 1. What is it actually for? [...]
The Capital Letter Problem Part 2: Pressure and release
In my last post I defined what I'm calling The Capital Letter Problem and set out some of its causes. Briefly, children pick up and embed bad habits when writing and, although they often know what should be done, they'll revert to what's been practised when under any kind of pressure. One solution could be to take a lesson from the world of horse training. Horse trainer Linda Parelli talks about the [...]
The Capital Letter Problem – Part 1
I have almost never met a secondary age child who doesn't conceptually understand how to use a capital letter.* But, you'd never know. Students regularly hand in work liberally sprinkled with missing - or extraneous - capitals and conscientious teachers spend hours circling the errors and patiently explaining why proper nouns and words at the beginning of a new sentence need capitals. In return, students say, "I know. It's just [...]
On report
Most of the schools I've taught in have operated some sort of 'on report' system for poorly behaved students. The idea is said poor behaved student presents his or her report card to teachers at the beginning of each lesson and the teacher records how satisfied they are with the behaviour exhibited in the lesson. Usually, the teacher will have to score the students behaviour, punctuality and sundry other qualities out [...]
Five things every new teacher needs to know about behaviour management
Managing students' behaviour can be the most terrifying aspect of becoming a teacher. Although it's the nightmare scenarios of being told to eff off on your first day, or having a chair hurled at your head that tend to keep new teachers awake at nights, these are - in most schools - relatively rare events. More often than not it's the small stuff that undermines lessons and erodes the best [...]
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