Ask a group of teachers in the staffroom about how research evidence can help them teach and you may well receive a rather sceptical response. I can hear the complaints now: ‘more bloody work’…’box ticking’…’don’t give me ‘action research’, mate’…’another shiny new toy’, and worse. No doubt, given our fatigue with the merry-go-round of curricula change …
If you are a school teacher and you haven’t heard of Carol Dweck’s ubiquitous growth and fixed mindset concept then… quite frankly, where the hell have you been for the past few years? No doubt lots of good has emerged from this common-sense psychological framework, with a few dodgy approaches too. The growing evidence base, showing the limitations, …
A short reading list for your reflection and refinement. There is a apocryphal tale, attributed often to Abraham Lincoln, though it almost certainly predates America itself, about the value of ‘sharpening your axe‘. The simple moral of the tale is that we need to spend more time sharpening our figurative axes – that is to say …
The drive for research evidence being used in education has achieved something quite radical in our time: it has been met with near universal political consensus. You won’t hear Gove or Hunt bickering over this debate. A diverse spread of organisations are also in support – from teaching unions like ATL and the National Association …
I started the school year talking with my faculty about our success in the summer and throughout the previous year and of course the areas we needed to improve. Upon reflection we could identify some clear reasoning why the successes occurred, hard earned as they were. The reasons primarily centred on having a team of …
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 …
