Trying to apply educational research to students of all abilities and backgrounds
The work of a teacher can sometimes feel like an endless cycle of writing To-Do lists and trying your best to get as much done before you give in to the need for sleep/wine. It's easy to see why time management and productivity are key concerns when it comes to wellbeing in education. Lots of... Continue Reading →
OnePlus Nord. Our phone of choice Why film lessons? Recording videos is great, but also its totally cringe. I can vividly recall watching back my 10 minute explanation of the Bernoulli principle during my PGCE 20 years ago. The overuse of ‘yeah’ and my nervous rocking side to side. Aside from the embarrassment, filming yourself... Continue Reading →
Can't help a Star Trek reference, soz. Coaching is a common form of teacher development used in schools. The more open-ended coaching models like the rise model are often used to work with leaders while more directive instructional coaching models are preferred for working with teachers. Jack Tavassoly-Marsh identified two types of instructional coaching in... Continue Reading →
In this new series of blogs I aim to look at common aspects of classroom practice and describe the different ways they are done. I then want to suggest why some methods are better than others and make a case for my preferred method. This blog is not about why you must do retrieval practice.... Continue Reading →
I started my career in 2003 as a Biology teacher. While nowadays I spend more of my time teaching chemistry, I still love to get stuck into some biology. One of the unusual benefits of covid related staff absences last term was the chance to get back to teaching some biology when I covered the... Continue Reading →
**I had to move this post due to a glitch please find it here
I’m prepping a training session on effective explanations for Jan inset and I thought I would share the example I’m going to give of what I think is a pretty decent explanation. A lot of my thinking around explanations has been framed by the brilliant work carried out by Adam Boxer over the years. While... Continue Reading →
Someone contacted me to ask for a copy of our KS3 KOs. They are due to be replaced by trust wide resources next year so I thought it best to share them in case people want to use or adapt them. These we written by my team and me a few years back. They don't... Continue Reading →
I think I’ve taught my students well but they really need to improve their exam technique, so I’m going to solve this by regularly giving them exam questions at the end of every lesson. I’m pretty sure we have all done this at some point in our teaching careers. Today’s blog is all about unpicking... Continue Reading →
In her first foray into the world of blogging Megan Johns, a humanities teacher, gives us a great insight into how she has made whole class feedback work for her in GCSE History. Marking. The ghoul that haunts the evenings, weekends, and holidays of teachers in every corner of the country. From all the surveys,... Continue Reading →
Reflections on Education 