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 [...]
Back to School Part 5: Marking
This series of #backtoschool blogs summarises much of my thinking as it’s developed over the past few years and is aimed at new or recently qualified teachers. Each area has been distilled to 5 ‘top tips’ which I hope prove useful to anyone embarking on a career in teaching. That said, I’ll be delighted if they serve as handy reminders for colleagues somewhat longer in the tooth. Marking is a chore. Whether or [...]
Back to School Part 4: Planning
This series of #backtoschool blogs summarises much of my thinking as it’s developed over the past few years and is aimed at new or recently qualified teachers. Each area has been distilled to 5 ‘top tips’ which I hope prove useful to anyone embarking on a career in teaching. That said, I’ll be delighted if they serve as handy reminders for colleagues somewhat longer in the tooth. So far in this back to school series [...]
What does John Hattie think about education?
If you don't yet know, BBC Radio 4 have lined up a series of 8 interviews with the leading lights of the education world. In the second programme of the series, Sarah Montague interviews professor John Hattie on 'what works' in education. Here it is. Whatever your opinion of effect sizes and meta-analyses, Visible Learning has changed the way many of us think about teaching and Hattie has become one of [...]
Back to school Part 3: Literacy
This series of #backtoschool blogs summarises much of my thinking as it’s developed over the past few years and is aimed at new or recently qualified teachers. Each area has been distilled to 5 ‘top tips’ which I hope prove useful to anyone embarking on a career in teaching. That said, I’ll be delighted if they serve as handy reminders for colleagues somewhat longer in the tooth. It's all very well establishing all those routines and relationships, but [...]
Back to school Part 2: Relationships
This series of #backtoschool blogs summarises much of my thinking as it’s developed over the past few years and is aimed at new or recently qualified teachers. Each area has been distilled to 5 ‘top tips’ which I hope prove useful to anyone embarking on a career in teaching. That said, I’ll be delighted if they serve as handy reminders for colleagues somewhat longer in the tooth. Once clear and sensible routines are in place, [...]
Back to school Part 1: Routines
This series of #backtoschool blogs summarises much of my thinking as it’s developed over the past few years and is aimed at new or recently qualified teachers. Each area has been distilled to 5 ‘top tips’ which I hope prove useful to anyone embarking on a career in teaching. That said, I’ll be delighted if they serve as handy reminders for colleagues somewhat longer in the tooth. It's normally at about this point in August [...]
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