Benjamin Franklin may be one of the most interesting people in modern history. Born into poverty, leaving school aged 10, he then became a famed president, inventor, thinker, and writer. His story of teaching himself to write may be a little famous too. Franklin, without a teacher, and with very little formal schooling, was determined …
[I have cross-posted this blog on my Substack. You can follow my newsletter and Substack publications HERE] The Internet is omnipresent in our lives. The magic of near-infinite knowledge in the palm of our hand would be scarcely believable for most humans since the dawn of history. Access to such knowledge is a boon, but …
There are trillions of choices teachers make when they teach. This dizzying complexity makes teaching rewarding, tiring, stressful, and sometimes even thrilling. Understandably, faced with the complexity of the classroom, teachers are necessarily creative, but they also seek out stability and tranquillity. For many teachers, hearing calls for ‘disrupting education’, or the mention of radical reform …
This week saw the publication of the Education Endowment Foundation RISE (Research-leads Improving Students’ Education) Project. It was one of the first projects in England that attempted to mobilise the emerging role of ‘Research-lead’ into a more specific school improvement process, with related training and support. With the rise in interest for research evidence over the past …
As the year comes to the end, my envy at the legion of best book lists of the year drove home to me how little time I’ve devoted to reading books. My next best attempt is to list and share my favourite educational articles from 2017 that I squeezed into the corners of evening and …
The run up to a general election often trots out the good, the bad, and the ugly, of education policy. We know that what sells to the voter on the doorstep often doesn’t translate well into the reality of a well-functioning school system; evidence & experience are often trumped by the demands of party ideology …
General Election ’17: An Education Policy Overview Read More »
“Memoria praeteritorum bonorum” [‘The past is always well remembered’] Roman saying The general election is a matter of a few short weeks ago. For those of us in education, we will pay close attention to edu-policies that have been hastily inserted into party political manifestos! The problem with education is that everyone is a seeming …
