RAISING THE BAR From my perspective, a number of recent discussions and policy initiatives have missed the target when it comes to tackling the issue of educational under-performance in our schools. Even where I agree with the diagnosis, the prescribed medicine doesn’t seem to match. At classroom level, where it counts, there are a number … Continue reading
Introduction. I’m celebrating writing my 100th post, which may be the last for some time, by trying to link together various posts relating to teaching. I suggest in my post ‘How do I know how good my teachers are?’ that there are three key sources that contribute to my judgement of the effectiveness of my … Continue reading
I spent the first week of the Easter holiday in China taking part in the pre-departure training for 30 teachers of English due to spend a month in Essex later this summer. It was my third trip to China in recent years forming part of an ongoing link between Jiang Su Province and Essex. My … Continue reading
The recent wave of blogs and twitter exchanges that have focused on the evidence-base that underpins educational policy and practice has been fascinating. I am one of many eagerly anticipating the ResearchED Conference organised by Tom Bennett at Dulwich College in September. This has been catalysed in part by the exuberant Ben Goldacre, author of … Continue reading
I’m convinced that our existing accountability framework is preventing schools from improving at the pace that they could be or in the way that they should be. OfSTED and Performance Tables dominate the thinking of too many Heads and teachers to a degree that is unhealthy, unnecessary and counterproductive. I have written about these issues … Continue reading
I am in the fortunate position of being the line manager for Art at KEGS and over the last couple of weeks I’ve been involved in the Art Departmental Review. This a process that involves observing everyone in the department, giving individual feedback then team feedback and looking more widely at achievement issues overall. We … Continue reading
Following the my last Data Delusion post, I’ve had an interesting response in three forms: 1) Joyful but misguided approval: data is all rubbish, we don’t need it… we’re off the hook… can’t wait to tell my Head/ HoD…. I’m actually arguing for a more sophisticated contextualised understanding of educational measurement and its limits … Continue reading
Increasingly I am becoming frustrated by the lack of sophistication that is applied to the whole process of evaluating educational outcomes. As a consequence, all kinds of perverse and spurious conclusions are drawn and school, teachers and policy makers end up jumping through hoops that have no real basis. If we’re not careful, we’re going … Continue reading
An analogy I draw upon increasingly to help with my thinking about teaching, learning and school leadership, is the contrast between a plantation and a rainforest. In general terms I feel that our entire education system is deeply inhibited, shackled and spoiled by Plantation Thinking. This affects government policy, school leadership and the day-to-day of … 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
