We’re busy doin’ nothin’ Workin’ the whole day through Tryin’ to find lots of things not to do We’re busy goin’ nowhere Isn’t it just a crime We’d like to be unhappy, but We never do have the time Bing Crosby There have been a lot of recent discussions around workload, and these have morphed,…
spend a lot of time thinking and writing about what effective professional development is. You might even say it has become something of an obsession after many frustrating years of struggling to make sense of the opportunities presented to me in INSET and Twilight sessions.
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw Schools are places that depend on communication. We are constantly communicating complex information to the young people. Not only are we transmitting, but we are continually seeing what they are communicating back to us, to assess what they…
Our new book, The CPD Curriculum, explores a knotty problem in education. Why, despite countless hours of what is called CPD, do teachers not continue to improve in many schools? The research that we explore in our book points to the same conclusion – that teachers make rapid progress in the first few years of…
This is a guest post from a school leader who wishes to remain anonymous She sits on the edge of her chair, fists clenched. “What’s he done now?” Wearily I go through the latest string of offences. We’ve been here many times before this young mother and I. We know the steps of this dance…
I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else Winston Churchill (possibly) Both me and my wife are very lucky that we get to spend a lot of time talking to a lot of teachers. She is a local authority advisor working across schools in Kent and I, in between…
One of the few good things to have come out of a year of lockdowns for me personally has been becoming reacquainted with a favorite game from my teenage years, Dungeons and Dragons. Playing this game whilst teaching, and whilst reading and writing about teaching, has led to me seeing the classroom in a new…
(TM Mark Enser) This week I am doing something scary. It was something I had agreed to do, something I am excited about, something I have knowledge of in my workplace, but suddenly, just before I had to do it I became filled with doubt and indecision. I felt like an imposter. In my typical…
In a recent interview with TES, the new Shadow Education Secretary, Kate Green, made a number of very good points. For example she suggested that schools should focus on teaching “a wider understanding of the world they’re growing up in rather than just teaching skills for future employment” “I want an education system that’s inclusive.…
This is a guest post from a teacher in a school in England. How should schools reintegrate pupils who are removed from lessons? A consequence for pupils who don’t behave well is they are removed from lessons more than other pupils are. In of itself there is nothing wrong with this. If pupils are disruptive…
Teaching it Real 