Firstly, may I say that this post is directly inspired by Ron Berger’s book, ‘An Ethic of Excellence: Building A Craftsmanship with Students’ and ideas related to the concept of #marginalgains. My starting point is my current work with my Year 11 GCSE English group. We are undertaking mock exam preparation, but not in the …
Crafting and Drafting – Creating a Culture of Excellence Read More »
It is over a month in, the start of term vigour and optimism has waned for almost all involved, and everything begins to feel more like hard work. The ‘October blues’ phenomenon is something I have noted in my last few years teaching. As a subject leader, I have witnessed the spike in behaviour issues …
Today I got to properly embed the concept of #marginalgains into my practice as an effective self-assessment tool. After the fantastic spectacle of the London Olympics I was determined to utilise the powerful narrative of effort and commitment with my students. I began using Olympic anecdotes almost straight away to try to foster a growth …
Using ‘Marginal Gains’ for Self-Assessment (with useful resources) Read More »
After watching ‘Road to Glory’, about the inexorable progress of the Sky Pro Cycling team, it foregrounded the mantra of “The Aggregation of Marginal Gains” that is at the core of David Brailsford’s philosophy. In essence, it is the drive to perfect every controllable detail in the process of performance – the ‘marginal gains’ – …
Student Learning Using ‘The Aggregation of Marginal Gains’ Model Read More »
Any teacher worth their salt should always ask ‘why’ and know what impact their teaching has upon the learning of their students. Why then do we continue to revere the sacred cow that is homework? Is it parental pressure, force of habit, the notion that all that extra work must do something positive? All the …
Firstly I need to lift the mountain of guilt from my shoulders before I give my views on the potential evils of PowerPoint. I have two guilty confessions about this week: 1. I made three PowerPoints this week! I was making new schemes of learning for the department. Knowing most of the dept like using …
Death by PowerPoint – A view from a guilty lapsed Catholic! Read More »
The inspiration for this blog post came from a running joke in our English faculty, about how bleak our literature offerings were to our young key stage three students. We joked about how we couldn’t select a new Year 9 class text without checking first whether a distraught-filled collection of war short stories, or some …
