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Creativity, analysis and comparison

2013-09-22T15:22:20+01:00February 11th, 2012|English, literacy, reading, writing|

English teachers have a tough gig. We need to constantly hone the hard-edged skill of analysis whilst simultaneously encouraging the fluffy stuff of creativity. There’s a lot said and written about creativity these days, much of it by Sir Ken Robinson. Basically, Ken's argument goes along these lines: schools should value the Arts more highly and find ways to foster creativity in those subjects where it doesn’t necessarily appear naturally. We should do this because creativity (the ability to have new ideas which have value) is increasingly important in a world where jobs that don’t require creativity have disappeared or outsourced to [...]

How effective learning hinges on good questioning

2013-07-19T11:08:43+01:00February 4th, 2012|assessment, English, learning|

Hands up who likes asking questions? Questioning is an essential part of helping students to make progress but only if it causes thinking or elicits evidence that informs our teaching. And the thing with asking questions is that while there are some kids who know how to make the system work for them and actively participate in lessons because that they way they’ll learn more, there are those who don't. Dylan Wiliam claims that the students who are sufficiently engaged to put up their hands and answer everything we ask them are “actually getting smarter. Their IQs actually go up.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtZ1pmY0VzI&feature=related [...]

Hexagonal Learning

2012-01-28T14:52:41+00:00January 28th, 2012|English, learning, SOLO|

The mantra of all successful lesson observations these days is that students should be seen to be making progress. Perhaps the best way to show that you’re having an impact on their knowledge and understanding is to show that the learning is ‘deep’. By that I mean, knowledge that transfers from students’ working memories into their long-term memories. Students understand new ideas by relating them to existing ones. If they don't know enough about a subject they won’t have a solid base from which to make connections to prior knowledge. Students are more likely to remember learning if they "make their [...]

What makes a perfect English lesson?

2011-11-27T17:02:23+00:00November 27th, 2011|English, learning|

Click me Is there such a thing as the perfect English lesson? Well, no, probably not. At least, not that I’m aware of. There is, you may be disappointed to discover, no single lesson that you can trot out endlessly and clap yourself on the back for being a good egg. If there were it would quickly become dry, boring and you'd quickly be exposed as a fraud. But, if we remove the definite article (whoa! Grammar!) and consider perfect English lessons, then we can probably agree that there is some mileage in having the discussion. If you're reading [...]

Does creativity need rules?

2013-11-01T17:09:03+00:00November 20th, 2011|English, learning, literacy, writing|

Grammar for toast? Last week's #ukedchat was titled, How can we build children’s imaginations so that they have more to choose from for their writing? and focussed on the dark art of creativity. My contribution to the discussion was to suggest that without clear knowledge of the forms and 'rules' of writing, creativity is inevitably stifled. Ideas become a kitchen-sink soup with everything chucked into the pot with little regard for structure, audience or purpose. I was a little disappointed to see that the archive reduces this thread of the debate to "There was a discussion around grammar and [...]

Is grammar glamorous?

2015-01-26T12:38:54+00:00November 16th, 2011|English, literacy|

Well, no it's not is it. Grammar's that dull stuff what kids got taught in the 60s. And then enlightened educationalists decided it was unfashionable for children to know how to parse sentences and wotnot. Which leaves me part of a lost generation who trundled through our schooling without learning a blessed thing about this arcane and mysterious subject. And that neatly segues into the fact that I've recently been enjoying my favourite linguistic professor and all round eccentric, David Crystal's lovely new book, The Story of English in 100 Words. One of his chosen 100 is 'grammar'. You see, it [...]

Objective Quest – Day 5

2015-04-22T17:57:14+01:00October 18th, 2011|English, learning|

Phew! After two days of 'curriculum enrichment' followed by an evening compering awards evening I'm knackered. Friday's lessons seem a long time ago now but I'm committed to reviewing the learning objective techniques used. Sadly though, I've reached my limit and this will be the final installment of the Objective Quest for a while at least. So, without further self-justifying twaddle, here are Friday's lessons: Lesson 1 - Yr 9 - 3-2-1 This is the first of two lessons with Year 9 today and they are spending both lessons reflecting on the term's learning and preparing a presentation for Thursday afternoon. [...]

Objective Quest – Day 4

2011-10-13T22:59:25+01:00October 13th, 2011|English, learning, SOLO|

Am starting to feel slightly exhausted by all the different objective introducing techniques whirring around my head like a cloud of relentless cheerful wasps. I long to use the same one all day for all my lessons but am stubbornly committed to seeing it through. At least until the end of the week. And the surprising reality is that as of today I have only managed to plough through 15 of the buggers! Lesson 1 - Year 9 - Create Fun Signs This was a lesson I'd agreed to cover for a colleague so that she could go on a learning [...]

Objective Quest – Day 3

2011-10-12T20:34:06+01:00October 12th, 2011|English, learning|

Quick update on the Learning Objectives google doc: we're now up to 47 ways to introduce learning objectives! Only three more to go so if you have any good stuff lurking in the cluttered cupboard of your brain, please add it here. Another 3 lesson day, punctuated by Jim Roberson doing some motivational speaking for our Year 10 & 11 students. P1 Year 11 Connected Words Lesson 1 was with Year 11 and our objective was To be able to explore the ways power is presented in Of Mice and Men. The chosen techniques was Connected Words. I gave different tables different [...]

Objective Quest: Day 2

2011-10-11T18:47:42+01:00October 11th, 2011|English, learning|

OK, after a positive start yesterday on my quest to try out 40 different learning objectives before the end of term, I was raring to go today. I only have three lessons on Tuesday and spend a lot of time running around trying sort things out, have meetings and generally try to stay on top of running the faculty. P1 Year 11 - Order the Learning The basic premise of this one is to take out the words of the objective and arrange them in order of importance. Today's was on the ending of Of Mice and Men. I wanted them [...]

50 ways to lead your lesson

2013-07-20T12:33:38+01:00October 9th, 2011|English, learning|

The problem is all inside your head", she said to meThe answer is easy if you take it logicallyI'd like to help you in your struggle to be freeThere must be fifty ways to lead your lesson...Paul Simon Last week the inimitable Kristian Still challenged the good people of Twitter to amass 50 different ways to introduce learning objectives. Well, after much cajoling and exhortation from Mr Still we managed it! 40 Ways to_introduce_learning_objectives_ from David Didau I thought it might make an interesting experiment to see how well they each work. I reckon I can cover most of them before [...]

Reading should be our top priority

2011-09-28T20:55:52+01:00September 28th, 2011|English, literacy|

I've just read a sobering piece on reading in UK schools from Mike Baker's website written by Roy Blatchford, a former headteacher and Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools, and Director of the National Education Trust. Here it is: Provisional figures for 2011 indicate that, in England, one child in five reaches age 11 unable to read confidently. Confident, that is, to access the secondary school curriculum they are embarking on this month. History suggests that those same children will struggle over five years of secondary schooling to achieve an English grade C at 16+. The latest GCSE tables indicate that thirty [...]

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