Monthly Archives: February 2023

Each year, the parents and carers of around half a million pupils submit applications to attend their preferred secondary schools. This decision usually determines the quality of the education that their child receives between age 11 and 16, when they … Continue reading →

Since January 2020 I’ve been working for Omiston Academies Trust as their Senior Lead for English. Over that time I and the amazing team of lead practitioners I lead have created what we think is a fantastic English curriculum. Not … Continue reading →

Benjamin Franklin may be one of the most interesting people in modern history. Born into poverty, leaving school aged 10, he then became a famed president, inventor, thinker, and writer. His story of teaching himself to write may be a … Continue reading →

At the end of last term we saw high levels of illness-related absence. In fact, the weeks leading up to Christmas had some of the highest rates of any week this academic year or last. In today’s post, we’ll look … Continue reading →

Perhaps the most popular of all cognitive science topics is retrieval practice. It is popular, practical for teachers, familiar enough compared to lots of common teaching habits (quizzes and similar) and it has lots of research to explore its impact. … Continue reading →

Can you explain what skills are and how to develop them? Did you feel confident naming some of the key skills? Maybe you cited the more popular skills cited – literacy, numeracy, or perhaps ‘problem solving’, ‘critical thinking’ or ‘teamwork’. … Continue reading →

A new inquiry by the Education Select Committee promises to investigate the causes of, and possible solutions to, the current levels of absence in schools. These remain far higher than pre-pandemic. Covid-19 is still with us, of course. Add to … Continue reading →

Many primary schools use termly tests to track the attainment of pupils. Often these are created by commercial test providers. Results tend to be reported as standardised (or age-standardised) scores. But how much do results in these tests vary from … Continue reading →

Last Wednesday saw strikes across a number of areas of the public sector, among them: schools. By the end of the week, the DfE had published (pdf) an initial analysis of the impact of the strikes in England, showing that … Continue reading →

Teaching can be tremendously rewarding, but we also know the classroom can be crammed full of complexity, surprises, and problems to solve. ‘Adapting teaching’ is a recently popular – though long-standing – phrase. It captures the subtle and challenging art … Continue reading →