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Don't trust your gut: a little bit more on the problem with grading lessons

This evening, there will be debate on the role lesson observation in England's schools with such educational luminaries as Professor Robert Coe, David Weston (the man behind the Teacher Development Trust), Lead Ofsted inspector Mary Myatt, Sam Freedman (Director of Teach First and ex-special advisor to Gove),, Dame Alison Peacock (Headteacher of The Wroxham School) and, er... me. Quite what qualifies me to participate beyond having a big gob and a stubborn streak a mile wide I'm not sure. However, I'm pretty damn excited to have been asked and, despite suffering with an appallingly debilitating cold, am sure it will be an excellent event. [...]

2014-01-13T11:34:37+00:00January 13th, 2014|learning|

Coming soon… the secret of literacy revealed

This isn't really a post, more a shameless piece of self-promotion. I would normally cringe at the idea of publicly bathing in the warm glow of congratulations but in this case it feels exciting enough to be worth making an exception for: one of my education heroes, Doug Lemov, the mastermind behind the Uncommon Schools network in the US and best selling author of the marvellous Teach Like A Champion and Practice Perfect took time out of his hectic schedule to say he likes my new book! In a review for The Secret of Literacy: making the implicit explicit, Doug says: [...]

2014-01-13T09:53:19+00:00January 10th, 2014|Featured|

What you may have missed on The Learning Spy in 2013

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a teacher in possession of an internet connection, must be in want of an annual review for each of the education blogs to which they're subscribed. As is traditional, the descent into the dark days of December demands that education bloggers will be preparing their annual statements. Here, not to be left out or out done, is mine. 2013 has been something of a watershed for the blog. It's racked up almost 350,000 hits (over 200,000 of which have been this year) and has been ranked by Onalyptica as one of the most influential [...]

2013-12-18T10:01:14+00:00December 17th, 2013|blogging|

Principled curriculum design: the English curriculum

The tragedy of life is that one can only understand life backwards, but one must live it forwards Søren Kierkegaard Back in March 2013, I wrote about the principles underlying my redesign of a Keys Stage 3 English curriculum. It received a mixed response. Since then Joe Kirby and Alex Quigley have published their ideas on redesigning this area of the curriculum and have, in different ways, influenced my thinking. Recently, I've presented my ideas on the English curriculum to over 100 English teachers and the consensus seems to be that there is no consensus. Having thought quite a bit about [...]

2014-07-29T21:27:26+01:00December 16th, 2013|English, Featured|

Can a good teacher teach anything well?

I used to work for a headteacher who was fond of saying "We're teachers of children, not teachers of subjects." This was justification for having non-specialist teachers in certain shortage subjects. Like any axiom, there's some truth in this statement: teaching children is an art unto itself. There's definitely a case to be made for the fact that I might do a better job of teaching a maths lesson than a random maths graduate. My years of teaching experience mean that I'm well-versed in the essentials of persuading teenagers to sit down and do some work instead of snap-chatting each other. [...]

2016-09-03T16:06:52+01:00December 14th, 2013|learning|

Get ahead of the curve: stop grading lessons

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead Over the past few years I’ve been articulating my objections to Ofsted in general and classroom observation specifically. Being a simple soul I was under the impression that whilst these observations may have struck a chord with some teachers, the rest of the world continued rotating in blithe indifference. Other education bloggers seem to be regularly name checked by Michael Gove or invited to meeting at the DfE, but not me. Altogether now… So imagine my [...]

2014-06-04T20:39:29+01:00December 11th, 2013|blogging|

Black space: improving writing by increasing lexical density

Style ... is not—can never be—extraneous Ornament... ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.’ On the Art of Writing, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch So, what is lexical density? Basically, all texts are made up of lexical words which carry meaning (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) and grammatical words which act as the glue which hold the lexical words in place (Conjunctions, prepositions, articles, auxiliary verbs, some adverbs, determiners, and interjections.) It is the lexical words that explain information. As a general rule texts with lots of [...]

2013-12-10T08:40:46+00:00December 9th, 2013|writing|

With great power comes great responsibility: an apology

Every now and then I'm faced with the realisation that I can be a bit of a twat. I'm sure I regularly upset people by making carelessly forthright assertions about what they should or shouldn't be doing, but this week someone chose to write a blog post about it to let me know how they felt. They accused me of a "thoughtless and unnecessary abuse of [my] status", and described me, with some degree of irony I'm sure, as "the esteemed and highly regarded teacher, blogger and author of The Perfect Ofsted English Lesson". I want to make it clear that [...]

2014-06-25T20:51:07+01:00December 8th, 2013|blogging|

Awards Season 2013 – my votes in the Edublog Awards

It's that time again. The rhythm of the year inevitably reaches a staccato climax as the Edublog Awards, or Eddies, trundle laboriously into view. And happily the voting process appears much less flawed than in past years with every individual only able to vote once for each entry. Even better you can actually see who has voted for you. So I will know! Back in 2011 I was nominated for Best New Blog and got very over excited. In my self-depreciatory way I tried to mobilise my very modest Twitter following, and my mum, to vote for me. With almost imperceptible results. [...]

2013-12-07T09:48:11+00:00December 7th, 2013|blogging|

Some dichotomies are real: the ‘and/or debate’

I get quite cross when I hear people who really should know better dismissing the knowledge/skills debate as a “mindless dichotomy". It’s not. The ideological opposition between proponents of these views is real, pervasive and powerful. The attempt by some educators to pretend that these differences don’t really exist is unhelpful. For the record, here is what I believe: Knowledge is transformational. You can’t think about something you don’t know. Once you know a thing it becomes possible to think about it. The thinking, in whatever form it takes, is a 'skill'. Not all knowledge is equal. Some propositional knowledge has [...]

2018-09-24T23:29:26+01:00December 6th, 2013|Featured|

What 3 things would you do to help a teacher improve?

If there was no OfSTED, no league tables, no SLT... just you and your class. What would you choose to do to make it GREAT? Do that anyway... Tom Sherrington Every teacher needs to improve. Not because they're not good enough but because they can be even better. Dylan Wiliam It's been said before but, I think, bears repeating: Ofsted have a lot to answer for. No one wants failing schools going unchecked but the medicine is often worse than the cure. I spent the morning at a lovely primary school who have just been 'done'. And they really do feel [...]

2013-12-04T22:54:12+00:00December 3rd, 2013|training|

Has lesson observation become the new Brain Gym?

I've thought a lot about lesson observation over the past couple of years and have come to the conclusion that it is broken. What is most worrying is that it is almost universally accepted as the best way to bother hold teachers accountable and to drive improvements in the quality of teaching and learning in a school. My contention is that these beliefs are, at least in the way the observations are currently enacted, wrong. Lesson observation distorts teaching, makes teachers focus on performance instead of learning and creates a system which is more interested in short term fluff than real [...]

2013-11-17T11:30:15+00:00November 16th, 2013|training|
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