As part of our whole staff training at Huntington School we have been sharing ideas and collating ‘Top Ten Strategies’. This list is the fruits of our labour: 1. Differentiated questioning. Given the time we take doing it daily, effective questioning may well be the highest impact strategy we can employ. There is no ‘one size […]
Questioning and Feedback: Top Ten Strategies Read More »
I was brought up by my family to believe that you got your just rewards for working hard. It is a belief that has stayed with me and nourished me throughout my life. Well, with some important qualifications. You see, we weren’t very good at mathematics in my family. In fact, nor were we naturally any
The Problem with Growth Mindset Read More »
I recently had the great pleasure to read a paper called, provocatively and insightfully, ‘Professional Development: A Great Way to Avoid Change’. It was published in 2004, by an Australian educator, Peter Cole. Though over a decade old, the messages about the deep rooted flaws in much of the professional development undertaken by teachers still
The Problem With Professional Development Read More »
It is exam results week and teachers all over England will be picking through the remnants of their students’ results – their successes and failures. My thoughts come to one of the mainstay strategies that correlate with exam success. That dull and nagging pain: revision. We know that a world of knowledge is now within reach
‘Revision – What Revision?’ Read More »
If you clicked on this post for some suggestions for teaching perfection I am sorry I misled you. This post has the sole purpose of disabusing people of the damaging notion that teaching perfection exists, or that you may become a perfect teacher. Rest assured, you won’t. And you shouldn’t really want to. The very
The Perfect Teacher Read More »
Alternatively titled: ‘How do we get the best teachers to Prestatyn and Great Yarmouth?’ “Come To Sunny Prestatyn Laughed the girl on the poster, Kneeling up on the sand In tautened white satin. Behind her, a hunk of coast, a Hotel with palms…” So starts ‘Sunny Prestatyn‘, by Phillip Larkin. It was a bleak but accurate
The Teach by the Beach Challenge Read More »
Wayne Rooney, aged 16, scoring an iconic goal against Arsenal. Genius derived from genes? Or does practice make perfect? Most young boys grow up in Liverpool playing football and little else. I fulfilled the stereotype with aplomb. I’d play football in shop doorways, braving passing buses, or, more safely, in local parks with the proverbial
The Key to Success: Deliberate Practice or our Genes? Read More »
