The school classroom is an amazing place. It is simultaneously filled with dazzling complexity and profound simplicity. It is at once driven by reassuring routines and constant surprises. As all pupils return …
What makes research evidence useful for teachers?
(This blog first appeared on the Huntington Research School blog – take a look HERE for more. You can also sign up to the monthly newsletter HERE.) January is a time …
Five Teacher Fears
Teachers share many of the same hopes and fears. As much as we all yearn for the long summer holiday, we all loath the inevitable onset of September. The nightmare of our …
How to Train a GCSE Essay Writer
I have written a countless number of essays. At school, university, and back at school again, showing my students how to do it. In my fourteen years teaching I must have modelled …
Duvet Days & the Teacher Workload Problem
You can almost smell the burning indignation of Daily Mail readers as they read the following story on ‘Duvet Days’ for teachers. “Lessons in Laziness from lie-in teachers” is the war-cry. If you …
The Teacher Workload ‘Collection’
This last month, the Department for Education, the teaching unions and OFSTED united. Yes, you heard me right. The topic that saw this unique collaboration: teacher workload. The recruitment and retention issue …
One Word at a Time – Teaching Vocabulary
This blog is a copy of my recent Teach Secondary article (click on the link HERE to subscribe) on the importance of vocabulary, with some handy teaching and learning strategies. Ask a …
The Problem with Teacher Retention
So, 30% of teachers quit within five years. This news has been emblazoned across the BBC website and has been recycled across the news cycle this week. Sadly, alas, this ‘story’ is …
Memory for Learning: 10 Top Tips
We can all imagine our own personal hell of terminal exams, stacked on top of one another, with acres of knowledge to remember. It is the stuff of sleepless nights, for teachers and …
What is your teacher voice?
(Image via Pixabay.com) Can you remember your favourite teacher? I will make a confident bet and guess that you can, and that you can even still recall the unique traces of …