The Professional Teacher
Support for teaching professionals in the classroom and beyond
Will this be on the exam?
I've lost count of the number of times students have asked me mid-lesson "will this be on the exam?". Even in the last decade, I think students (and their parents!) have become increasingly...
Hoax Call Disrupts Exams: What should Schools do?
After a significant number of UK wide hoax calls caused disruption to exams, it raised questions about what should schools do in such circumstances.
The Pupil Attainment Gap in the North
This BBC article, looking at the IPPR's report into attainment at GCSE level across England, provides good food for thought.
A great present for NQTs
Tom Fay and I had a super day last week presenting at tutor2u's Outstanding Classroom Learning CPD event in London - we always come away with some great new ideas from delegates! Here's one of...
Teaching girls to be brave not perfect
I'm not quite sure yet what I think of this TED talk, but it's worth a watch - Reshma Saujani argues that we are teaching girls to be perfect when we need to teach them to be brave and take more...
The habits of original thinkers
Yet another super TED talk - this time on the surprising habits of original thinkers, and why failure is actually a key ingredient for success.
What is a pecha-kucha presentation?
I've just been reminder about the pecha-kucha (Japanese for chatter) PowerPoint presentation, which is a method of putting together presentations consisting of 20 slides that appear for no more...
Advice on procrastination
I love this TED talk on procrastination (particularly useful perhaps at this time of year with students trying to revise and teachers with lots of past papers to mark!) - and it's a great way of...
Nicky Morgan's education reforms - a summary
Yesterday, Nicky Morgan and the Department for Education published a White Paper (alluded to by George Osborne in Wednesday's budget) called Education Excellence Everywhere. The title suggests many...
The world as 100 people
I love this infographic about how we could consider the "make up" of the world if there were just 100 people.
The impact of longer school days
In many countries, and even in the UK’s independent sector, the school day is longer than that experienced by many of the UK’s children. One of the plans announced in Mr Osborne’s budget, in...
What’s the point of school uniform?
I’ve been presenting at some tutor2u revision workshops across the country for the last few weeks, and have been really struck by the different approaches to school uniforms in schools that have...
Play the Countdown maths game
I really like the nrich website for great ideas for maths and numeracy lessons. Regardless of the subject that you teach, it's a great idea to build in the odd bit of numeracy and really embed...
Every UK school to become an academy
In this week's Budget, George Osborne is expected to announce that all schools in England will become academies - free of local authority control - by 2022. In practice, this means allowing schools...
The 15 minute revision book
I came across this great resource on revision earlier today by headteacher John Tomsett. You can adapt it to suit your own revision in all manner of subjects.
Are ADHD children just immature?
Researchers in Taiwan have concluded that often those children diagnosed with ADHD may simply be the youngest in the class - August born children were twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD as...
How much sleep do teenagers need?
The TeenSleep study will be the largest study ever carried out into the nature and importance of sleep for teenagers. In particular, this Oxford University study will be exploring the impact of...
The changing education paradigm
This animated 15 minute video from the RSA is based on a talk by creative education guru Sir Ken Robinson, and it outlines the changing nature of education.
Every kid needs a champion
I think this short, 8 minute TED talk by Rita Pierson is well worth a watch. In her words, it provides a rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a...
Building writing skills
One of the skills my own children are learning in their English lessons at primary school at the moment is the use of "connectives" in their writing, rather than simply writing a string of short...