Over the weekend I had the joy of watching my little boy, Noah, play one of his football matches (there was a little pain too – just don’t mention the …
Eat, Sleep, Revise, Repeat
I wrote this article for Teach Secondary (You can sign up to subscribe HERE) on the ‘science of revision’ over a year ago, but the advice still stands up well: …
10 New School Year Resolutions
School starts again on Monday for me and so it is an appropriate time to procrastinate…sorry, I mean plan for the year ahead. Now, I know that the best laid …
Beyond National Curriculum Levels: One Year On
Let me recall a tale of two Parents’ Evenings. My colleague attended the usual fare at his son’s primary school and he learnt that his son was working at a level …
They Think It’s All Over…
The English Exam is Over! So the GCSE English Language exam has been and gone for another year. A wet and nondescript June morning welcomed the annual parade of stress, …
Whose Canon is it Anyway?
Few things in education are as spectacularly emotive and ire-inducing as the choice of books we read for English Literature in schools. This last week we have seen Gove receive …
Dropping Your Tools and Avoiding Education Gimmicks
Do teachers and school leaders need to down tools to survive and succeed? Schools are incredibly complex places. We often use analogies that compare schools, and indeed the classroom, to …
A Brave New Dawn for English GCSEs: Some Questions
So the cat is out the bag. Old school terminal exams are here to stay. There is an end to coursework and its bastard love child – controlled assessments. Speaking …
Making the Learning Leap: KS4 to KS5
(Apologies if you we’re expecting an album full of images that have students leaping holding their GCSE certificates – I think we have had enough of those this week!) In …
Authentic Assessment: Assessing Speaking and Listening
Does public speaking matter? What do the Houses of Parliament, the Oxford Union, big business board rooms, assembly halls and court chambers have in common? They are the seats of …