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Grit and growth: who's to blame for low achievement?

2014-07-10T16:56:48+01:00July 10th, 2014|Featured|

I’ve recently read a couple of interesting articles which question the efficacy of the research of Carol Dweck (Mindset) and Angela Duckworth (Grit). The complaint is that if we attribute an individual’s failure to a fault or lack in their character then we are apportioning blame; the reason we are unsuccessful is down to our own weak will and poor attitude. The counter argument is that society should be held to account for the failure of those at its margins; if we fail it is down to our lack of opportunity and the prejudices we encounter. No one would argue that [...]

Now we are three

2014-07-04T09:07:19+01:00July 3rd, 2014|Featured|

In a pleasingly synchronous turn of events this post marking the end of the third year of writing The Learning Spy is also the 300th post I've published on the site. That's about a blog every 4 days. I knew I'd written a lot, but this smacks of some sort of worrying compulsion. This last year has been by far the busiest yet with over 600,000 views but I'm sure that has more to do with the explosion of high quality education blogging that's taken place in the past year or so than it has to do with anything special about me. And [...]

Why we disagree: the purposes of education

2014-08-07T13:33:48+01:00June 25th, 2014|Featured|

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle (possibly a fake quote) We are fantastically bad at recognising that our beliefs are based not on evidence, logic and reason, but on self-interest, preference and emotion. When confronted with ‘others’ who disagree with our most fervently held beliefs, we tend to make assumptions that they are ignorant. When our opponents prove they are sufficiently well-versed in the particular issue about which we disagree, we jump to conclusion that they must be stupid. If they then prove that their arguments are coherent enough to [...]

What I got up to at the Wellington Festival of Education Part 2

2014-06-24T07:13:00+01:00June 24th, 2014|Featured|

Day Two of the Education Festival dawned rather too early; I was camped out in my van and could have done with another hour or so before the hordes descended. By the time I was decent, and had scoffed a quick breakfast in the almost oppressively convivial surroundings of the Master's Lodge, I was ready to rejoin the fray. My first stop was a debate rather pointedly entitled, What's Wrong With English Schools? or something equally foolish. The panel was ably chaired by veteran debater Clair Fox and consisted of everyone's favourite campaigning headteacher, Geoff Barton; grammar grandfather Nevile Gwynne; the [...]

Pseudo intervention and the power of placebo

2016-11-21T16:31:00+00:00June 17th, 2014|Featured|

…it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives… Francis Bacon Today's post has been contributed by a reader who has asked to remain anonymous, but got in touch after reading my blog explaining why I'd abandoned the SOLO taxonomy. Whilst this post isn't directly related to SOLO, it does address the need to provide compelling evidence when we start getting excited about a particular style or approach to teaching. Increasingly I've become convinced that one way to increase students' attainment might be to harness some sort of permanent Hawthorne Effect by [...]

Ofsted: The end of the (lesson grading) affair

2014-06-04T22:11:27+01:00June 4th, 2014|Featured|

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. Ralph Waldo Emerson Back in 2011 I started to decide that grading lessons was wrong. I wasn't exactly sure how to justify this decision beyond the fact that I could see how it warped teaching, made lessons unbearably superficial and put everyone thought an awful lot of completely unnecessary stress. Since then I have put together, what I feel is a pretty convincing case on why it is wrong (on every conceivable level) to grade individual lessons. In December, after sharing these views with the thoroughly charming, 'right-leaning' chaps at [...]

Wanna play fantasy GCSE Literature specifications?

2015-12-08T19:24:35+00:00June 1st, 2014|English, Featured|

The exam boards have played their hands and they're relying on jokers rather than aces. GCSE English literature is a race to the bottom: with the overwhelming concern seemingly being how to retain schools' business by offering the most predictable, easiest texts. The biggest shock for me has been the suspicious consensus on what constitutes the canon. Every single board is specifying Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice, while Jeckyll and Hyde and A Christmas Carol are available on 3 out of the 4's lists. It's not that any of the texts are bad - they're not; I've read and enjoyed all of them - but [...]

A round up of some of my favourite posts so far this year

2014-05-29T15:15:05+01:00May 28th, 2014|Featured|

I was going to that thing where you round-up some of your favourite blog posts in the hope of getting a few more hits, but couldn't muster the enthusiasm. Instead, I thought I'd rip off some of the best posts I've read this year from some of the most interesting education bloggers out there. It's by no means a definitive list; I haven't spent much time honing it - these are just some of the posts I've enjoyed most so far this year. Maybe you'll like them too. They are in no particular order. More WHAT less HOW – or ‘your shepherds [...]

Should Ofsted judge 'quality of teaching'?

2014-05-26T13:23:05+01:00May 26th, 2014|Featured|

We all know, that as well as giving an overall grade, Ofsted give schools an individual judgement against 4 criteria: attainment, behaviour & safety, leadership & management, and quality of teaching. Theoretically it would possible to possible for a school to different grades for all four areas in one inspection. To my knowledge this has never happened. The correlation between some judgements is a lot stronger than others. There is fairly weak correlation between the behaviour grade or the leadership grade with a school's overall grade. It's reasonably common for schools to be awarded one grade higher than their overall grade in either of these categories. But [...]

A horror story: Does Ofsted get it wrong again?

2014-05-24T10:26:46+01:00May 23rd, 2014|Featured|

Following my the post earlier in the week on the fact that Ofsted inspectors seemingly continue to break the rule with impunity, a number of people got in touch with similar tales of woe. It certainly seems that a lot of teachers seem to be experiencing inspectors flouting the very clear instructions in the new April 2014 edition of the Inspection Handbook. Maybe someone should keep some sort of database of these instances?  I have to say that Mike Cladingbowl, the National Director of Schools seems to be doing his best to combat so-called 'rogue inspectors and yesterday tweeted this: I'd love to know [...]

A new twist on Slow Writing

2014-05-23T13:49:51+01:00May 22nd, 2014|Featured|

Since first writing about Slow Writing back in May 2012 the original post has had almost 12,000 views and I've received regular emails and tweets from teachers who have been inspired to use and adapt what is in essence an incredibly simple idea. Last week I got just such an email from primary teacher, Michael Lomas. His tweak is so simple and so good I thought I should share it with you. Just thought I would fire off a quick email to let you know that I have been having a go at using Slow Writing in my Year 2 (age 6 and 7) English lessons after reading about [...]

Ofsted inspectors continue to do whatever they like

2014-05-21T16:34:37+01:00May 21st, 2014|Featured|

A few days a go after reading and retweeting this blog post from @cazzypot on the ongoing vagaries and inconsistencies of Ofsted, A head of MFL at a school in Hounslow got in touch to let me know how dissatisfied she was were here recent experience of the inspectorate. What follows is an edited version of the email she sent me. Ofsted visited my new school in April this year, a week after they had 'done' my previous school. Former colleagues told me of unfair grading despite the fact that inspectors have been instructed not to grade individual lessons. The first day of the inspection just came and [...]

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