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On behaviour

Most of what makes classrooms work lies beneath the surface. The here and now of lessons and classrooms is dependent on the routines and relationships teachers have forged over time. If you’re clear about what is (and is not) acceptable behaviour, firm and fair in applying consequences, and provide meaningful feedback on how pupils’ can improve, it almost doesn’t matter what you do in a lesson: children will learn. But that’s by no means the complete picture. One of the most damaging and appalling lies circulating around schools and teacher training institutions is this: if you plan your lessons well, children [...]

2014-03-26T14:39:06+00:00March 20th, 2014|leadership|

Getting feedback right Part 3: How can we increase pupils' effort?

I started to explore how we might make feedback more meaningful a few weeks back but then got sidetracked. If you haven't already looked at them, it might be worth spending a few moments on Part 1 (which discusses the different purposes for giving feedback) and Part 2 (which looks at how to increase pupils' understanding) before reading any further. Right. Still with me? Once we can be reasonably sure that pupils understand how to improve, our next step is to check that they can actually be bothered. It's become something of a cliché to say that success depends on hard [...]

2014-03-19T13:44:26+00:00March 19th, 2014|assessment|

The mystery of Oldfield School's missing Ofsted report

Oldfield School in Bath has a long history of being graded Outstanding and throughout Headteacher Kim Sparling has been at the helm. I worked there briefly and took part in their successful 2003 inspection. The school was rated as being Outstanding again in 2012 after converting to Academy status, but following a "number of complaints and allegations made to Ofsted about the effectiveness of safeguarding arrangements at the school," Oldfield was reinspected under Section 8 (and Section 5?) last December. The report remains unpublished. However on 11th February, this letter was sent to the school from the Lead Inspector Simon Rowe (HMI), concluding, "The [...]

2014-03-17T14:08:59+00:00March 17th, 2014|Featured|

Watching the watchmen: Is Ofsted fit for purpose?

You may remember a blog I posted back in December: Get ahead of the curve: stop grading lessons written after being invited to chat to Jonathan Simons and Harriet Waldegrave, the authors of Policy Exchange's new report on Ofsted's fitness for purpose: Who Watches the Watchmen? Well, today the report finally sees the light of day. It asks some big questions, and makes some bold recommendations on the future of school inspections, concluding that although we need an independent inspectorate, "significant changes ought to be made to the way in which Ofsted conducts school inspections to make it as effective as it should [...]

2014-03-17T09:08:43+00:00March 16th, 2014|Featured|

What if there was no outstanding?

The cynics are right nine times out of ten. H.L. Mencken Does the outstanding grade retard innovation or drive us towards excellence? This is just a flight of fancy; a thought experiment. What would happen if we did away with the outstanding grade for schools? What if 'good' was good enough? What would be different? Let's remember that Ofsted have acknowledged that there is no such thing as an outstanding lesson, but all schools are still judged on a four point scale with 'outstanding' being the highest accolade a school can receive. Imagine this bauble was taken away. What then? I [...]

2014-07-09T23:30:36+01:00March 16th, 2014|leadership|

Why AfL might be wrong, and what to do about it

Some cows are so sacred that any criticism of them is fraught with the risk of bumping up against entrenched cognitive bias. We are fantastically bad at recognizing that our beliefs are often not based on evidence but on self-interest, and it’s been in everyone’s interest to uphold the belief that AfL is the best thing that teachers can do. When confronted with ‘others’ who disagree with our most fervently held beliefs, we tend to make the following series of assumptions: They are ignorant They are stupid They are evil When in the past I have been critical of AfL (or [...]

2014-04-25T09:31:57+01:00March 12th, 2014|myths|

Everything we've been told about teaching is wrong, and what to do about it!

It was great to be back at the IOE for Pedagoo London 2014, and many thanks must go to @hgaldinoshea & @kevbartle for organising such a wonderful (and free!) event. As ever there's never enough time to talk to everyone I wanted to talk to, but I particularly enjoyed Jo Facer's workshop on cultural literacy and Harry Fletcher-Wood's attempt to stretch a military metaphor to provide a model for teacher improvement. As I was presenting last I found myself unable to concentrate during Rachel Steven's REALLY INTERESTING talk on Lesson Study and returned to the room in which I would be presenting to catch the end [...]

2014-03-09T11:19:44+00:00March 9th, 2014|myths|

What I've learned about functional grammar

Yesterday I had the good fortune to listen to Professor Mary Schleppegrell from the University of Michigan talk about how functional grammar is having an impact on EFL students in US schools. Ever since reading Lee Donaghy's evangelistic account of its importance I've been batting it around and trying work out what to do with it. But I'm a big fan of traditional grammar teaching and I couldn't really see the point in teaching pupils another grammar system. How would they actually use it? So beyond getting my head round the principles, I've largely ignored it. Now though, I see the light. As Lee [...]

2014-03-06T18:42:37+00:00March 6th, 2014|literacy|

Getting feedback right Part 2: How do we provide clarity?

As discussed in yesterday's post, I am currently working on the assumption that there are only 3 meaningful purposes of feedback: To provide clarity To increase pupils' effort To increase pupils' aspiration I had planned to discuss how we might go about giving each of these kinds of feedback in one post, but on reflection it seems sensible to divide the how of giving feedback into 3 separate posts which will discuss each process in detail. So, first off is providing clarity. It ought to go without saying that if pupils aren't clear about how to improve, they're unlikely to get [...]

2016-05-26T23:50:49+01:00March 5th, 2014|assessment|

Getting feedback right Part 1 – Why do we give it?

It's become a truism that feedback is the most important activity that teachers engage in. Feedback, we are repeatedly told, is tremendously powerful and therefore teachers must do more of it. Certainly Hattie, the Sutton Trust and the EEF bandy about impressive effect sizes, but the evidence of flipping through a pupil's exercise book suggests that the vast majority of what teachers write is ignored or misunderstood. Teachers' feedback can certainly have a huge impact but it's a mistake to believe that this impact is always positive. I written in detail about marking and the power of Directed Improvement Reflection Time. I've  also considered [...]

2014-04-02T01:34:07+01:00March 4th, 2014|assessment|

Focusing on performance is the enemy of the growth mindset

Over the past year or so I've been following a line of thinking which has gone something like this: Learning and performance are not the same thing. Pupils' performance in lessons does not correspond with learning. Learning is invisible and takes place over time. We may be able to infer something about what has been learned by examining performance, but more often than not, we won't. Learning may follow from performance, but it may not. Performance may indicate learning, but, again, it may not. Responding to cues when something is fresh in our minds is easy. Learning is only learning if skills [...]

2014-03-02T22:06:46+00:00March 2nd, 2014|learning|

The dyslexia debate – is the label 'meaningless'?

Back in May last year I wrote a post which asked whether dyslexia actually exists. Some people really liked it and others (particularly those with children who have been diagnosed with dyslexia) got pretty angry: it's one of my most commented on posts. With the imminent release of professor Julian Elliott's new book, The Dyslexia Debate, a bit a media storm has blown up. Yesterday I was asked by BBC local radio to be interviewed on the Mark Forrest show and The Independent got in touch to see if I would write a short article summarising my thoughts. Naturally, being a big old show off [...]

2014-02-27T14:01:02+00:00February 27th, 2014|literacy|
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