There are a huge number of wonderful blogs out there, packed full of practical advice and intriguing debates. The only issue is that they can be very ephemeral. Something wonderful is written but can be quickly forgotten. To try and combat this I thought I would try to pin down some of the blog posts…
Yesterday I wrote about an activity we had used in our department CPD session to consider the component parts of an excellent lesson – you can read about it here. The outcome was this graphic which shows the things that we, as a department, currently feel are effective ways to ensure that learning happens in…
One of the many things I love about my school is that they are giving more CPD time to departments. Before we start the term 6 frenzy of lesson planning, I wanted to spend some time exploring what we felt would make an excellent lesson and to record our ideas so that we could explore…
Last week I wrote about some of the appalling CPD I have attended and suggested that the silver lining of otherwise horrendous school budget cuts could be that these kinds of training events stop. Of course I am not suggesting that professional development should stop, so what should replace it? I have found that the…
The funding crisis hitting our schools is going to have serious negative consequences. Teachers are facing redundancies as class sizes soar. Pupils are being offered fewer choices of subjects and many A level classes will see their contact time cut. Budgets are slashed, subjects aren’t resourced and buildings are crumbling. It is hard to make…
Last week, Paul Garvey (@PaulGarvey4 – Talk for Teaching) asked me on Twitter if I thought there was a “best way to teach”. It is a question he likes to ask people and one that is hard to answer in a tweet of 140 characters. The question “Is there a best way to teach?” first…
I think one of the biggest changes I have seen in teaching over the last 14 years has been to feedback. We have moved through flick and tick to AfL, dialogue marking came (and already start to go), from commenting on effort to setting every pupil specific targets, from correcting all spelling mistakes to highlighting…
