Number 3 in the Great Lessons series: Great Lessons 1: Probing Great Lessons 2: Rigour These posts focus on the habits of great teaching; not one-off strategies but the things we do every day. 3. Challenge: Subtitle 1: The thrill of the chase. Subtitle 2: No struggle; no learning Subtitle 3: Beware the Buzz that … Continue reading
This series of posts is about the habits of teaching; the things we do every day; the strategies and attitudes that define our default mode. These are the characteristics of lessons that feel outstanding as soon as you walk in… no tricks, no gizmos, just embedded routine practice. The first was about Probing Questions. This … Continue reading
The Universal Panacea: The number one shift in UK education I wish to see in my lifetime · A New Currency of Educational Discourse The opening theme for the Blog sync project is a real challenge. In thinking of a concept that could be considered universal I started writing a list of all the faults … Continue reading
Over the last few years I’ve learned a great deal as an observer of the complex process of teaching students to write essays so that they gain maximum credit in examinations. Working with the English Department through a series of exam marking scandals and supporting our History Department, which I line-manage, I’ve picked up a … Continue reading
Introduction In all the talk of improving teaching and learning, sometimes – no often – there is too much talk about the model OfSTED lesson. Too often this leads teachers into thinking of idealised lessons than can only be turned out in special circumstances or that Outstanding lessons require us to devise an elaborate box … Continue reading
After millennia of battle the surviving G’Gugvuntt and Vl’hurg realised what had actually happened, and joined forces to attack the Milky Way in retaliation. They crossed vast reaches of space in a journey lasting thousands of years before reaching their target where they attacked the first planet they encountered, Earth. Due to a terrible miscalculation … Continue reading
Last week, my Y13s were about to go into a week of exams, so we were going to miss some lessons. Time is precious, so we looked ahead to the material to come (Newton’s law of gravitation and circular motion) and I suggested the students used Khan Academy videos and the text book to get … Continue reading
Modern Languages is one of the great strengths of my school. You can read about our intensive KS3 curriculum in this issue of Learning Lessons by AST and Director of Leading Edge, Jane Breen. It describes how we give students four hours a week in one language in Year 7 and 8, leading to GCSE … Continue reading
British Museum Family Learning Project We have just collected in the final pieces of work from our Year 7 British Museum project and the results are stunning. This is the third year we have run the project. In the first year, we tried it with just one Year 7 class; this is the second year … Continue reading
Behaviour Management Strategies from Bill Rogers Without doubt the greatest personal challenge I’ve faced as a teacher was moving from the Sixth Form college in Wigan where I started teaching, to Holland Park School in London in my mid-20s. Having established the idea in my mind that I was a pretty good teacher, it was … Continue reading
