How knowledge is being detached from skills in English
I don't normally do this. In fact, I haven't put up a post by anyone else since last August. But in this case Joe Kirby has expressed my own thoughts so articulately that there seemed little point trying to repeat the same thing myself. Not only that, Joe is somewhat of a phenomenon. His grasp of the nuances of education theory belies the fact that he is only just completing his NQT year. When I compare [...]
Testing & assessment – have we been doing the right things for the wrong reasons?
A curious peculiarity of our memory is that things are impressed better by active than by passive repetition. I mean that in learning (by heart, for example), when we almost know the piece, it pays better to wait and recollect by an effort from within, than to look at the book again. If we recover the words in the former way, we shall probably know them the next time; if in the latter way, we [...]
So, what does 'gifted' mean anyway?
As you may be aware, non-selective secondary schools are failing the 'most able'. How do we know? Because a brand new Ofsted report tells us so. The report's key findings include such revelations as the fact that "expectations of what the most able students should achieve are too low" and that not enough has been done "to create a culture of scholastic excellence" which leads, unsurprisingly, to, "Many students become [...]
Deliberately difficult – why it's better to make learning harder
The most fundamental goals of education are long-term goals. As teachers and educators, we want targeted knowledge and skills to be acquired in a way that makes them durable and flexible. More specifically, we want a student’s educational experience to produce a mental representation of the knowledge or skill in question that fosters long-term access to that knowledge and the ability to generalize—that is, to draw on that knowledge in [...]
Planning Lessons – lessons I’ve learned from lessons I've taught
This is a summary and a drawing together of several earlier posts. I consider it a refinement of my thinking and something which is painstakingly (and grandiosely) groping its way towards a total philosophy of planning. It does also attempt to offer something new but is this enough to deserve a new post? You decide. "Failing to plan is planning to fail." Smug teachers, everywhere Planning: still a good thing [...]
Thinking like a writer
How do we get better at writing? By writing. The advice I always give to students to improve their writing is to write. Often. Everyday if possible. This might be a private diary entry, an Amazon review, an essay or, even better: a public blog post which someone might actually read. For years now I've been in the habit of writing with my students; whenever they have a controlled assessment [...]
What is meta-cognition and can we teach it?
Meta-cognition is one of those terms that gets bandied about in educational circles as if we all know exactly what it is. And we do: it's...er...thinking about thinking, isn't it? Ever since the Education Endowment Foundation cited meta-cognition and self-regulation as the second highest impact strategy teachers can use in the class room I've felt I should be a bit clearer about what it actually is. They describe it as [...]
Magic glasses and the Meares-Irlen syndrome
In case you missed it, I published a post on the dubious existence of dyslexia this weekend. A few people have been in touch via Twitter to tell me about the remarkable effect of Irlen lenses and that their miraculous success is clear evidence of the existence of dyslexia. Well, despite their apparent impact on some people's ability to read, I'm not so sure it has much of a bearing of on whether [...]
This is how I work
I was very excited to hear the accusation that I am (or might be) leading a 'cult of personality', whatever that means. To that end, and just in case anyone is interested, Dai Barnes has posted this interview with me on his blog (see also below.) If you're interested in joining any cults which I may set up in the near future, do please let me know. Oh, and any suggestions [...]
Does dyslexia exist?
Schools are packed to the gunnels (whatever they are) with students diagnosed with dyslexia. And, of the hundreds of dyslexic students I've taught, many have languished helplessly in the doldrums of illiteracy while some seem suddenly to make rapid and remarkable progress. This year, two students who were presented to me as dyslexic have experienced very different trajectories. One, let's call him Ben, had spent Years 7 and 8 being [...]
Teacher talk: the missing link
Back in 2008 I was told by an Ofsted inspector that I talked too much. I had always prided myself on being considered an outstanding teacher, and was devastated to be told my lesson was "satisfactory to good". My attempts to probe this judgement got little further; he offered no criticism of what I'd said or how I'd said it, just that I'd spoken for too long. This came as huge blow to my [...]
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