The surplus model of school improvement
As teachers we are sometimes guilty of assuming that all would be well if only children behaved better and worked harder. This is basically sound; everything would be better if kids did what was in their best interests. So why don't they? Well, in some schools they do. In some schools there are strong social norms which ensure that misbehaviour and laziness are the exception. This isn't because only children from [...]
Can you be too independent?
If the man doesn’t believe as we do, we say he is a crank, and that settles it. I mean, it does nowadays, because now we can’t burn him. Mark Twain Today I discovered I had been 'let go' by Independent Thinking Ltd. Of course accidents happen, but I hadn't received this email so it came as something of a shock. This post is in no way intended to be sour; [...]
Where do I want my daughters to go to school?
My eldest daughter is in Year 6 and applications for secondary school applications need to be in by the end of October. To my shame, I've taken the route my middle-class parents take; we're moving into the catchment of the school of our choice. But why have we chosen it? Well, the results are very good; the view of parents is overwhelmingly positive; it offers about the right blend of academic [...]
Forget about assessing learning after lessons
Today I not only have my first ever article published by the TES, it's made the front page! Those of you familiar with my output will recognise the arguments and be familiar with the thinking that's led to these conclusions. But for anyone new to the blog, a little background wouldn't go amiss. The first and perhaps most important brick in the teetering edifice I've been constructing over the past couple [...]
What I learned in my visit to King Solomon Academy Part 2 – The Lemov lecture
When I reported my observations about King Solomon Academy, a number of commentators pointed out the similarities to some of the Charter Schools in the US. Any similarity is the Charter model, particularly the KIPP schools (Knowledge is Power Programme) share many of the same aims, values and structures as KSA. Although I've never visited one of these schools I was aware of the influence they've had on a number [...]
What I learned in my visit to King Solomon Academy Part 1
Yesterday I wangled a visit to the latest ministerial touchstone for excellence in English education, King Solomon Academy just off the Edgware Road in Westminster. The Ark sponsored academy has the dubious privilege of being situated in the most deprived, socially disadvantaged ward in London. 12% are on the SEN register; 51% are in receipt of free school meals and 65% speak English as a second language. They can hardly be accused as cherry [...]
Do you need a research champion in your school?
If you haven't read this great article by Carl Hendricks, Director of Research at Wellington College, on the need for 'research champions in schools, you should. In it Hendricks persuasively sets out the case for the importance of there being a designated member of staff to champion the cause of education research in every school: Education research has provided teachers with enlightening and elegant ways of approaching their practice. There is an ever-growing and [...]
#ResearchED – Everything you know about education is wrong
If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong. Charles F. Kettering I realise I must have come as something as a disappointment for all those expecting the curly-headed medical mischief-maker, Ben Goldacre, but it was wonderful to have the opportunity to try to explain where my thinking currently is on the thorny matter of education research. Really I have no right to a place on the [...]
Further thoughts about evidence in education
Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality, because reality is a spirit. G. K. Chesterton Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them. Hermann Hesse I reached some tentative conclusions about evidence in education in my last post. One of the criticisms I keep coming up against is that my thinking is 'positivist' and therefore either limited or [...]
Some tentative thoughts about evidence in education
To get anywhere, or even live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer. Robert A. Heinlein I've been thinking hard about the nature of education research and I'm worried that it might be broken. If I develop a theory but have no evidence for it then it is dismissed as 'mere speculation'. "Show me the evidence!" [...]
I ♥ rote learning
Memory is the cabinet of the imagination, the treasury of reason, the registry of conscience, and, the council chamber of thought. St. Basil I've been reading and enjoying Getting it Wrong from the Beginning: Our Progressivist Inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget in which Kieran Egan launches a blistering attack on the tenets of progressivism. What's particularly interesting about it is that it's written by a man who describes himself [...]
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