Author Archives: tobypfrench

Coherent curriculum

Originally posted on MrHistoire.com:
Creating a coherent curriculum is all the rage now. I mean, everyone’s doing it: youngsters are jiving coherently in the music halls, German monks are writing coherently in the vernacular, and I hear in Rome…

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Correspondence between a panda and a textbook author

Originally posted on MrHistoire.com:
Dear Humanity, I am a 225lb panda living in Gansu, China. I’d like to draw your attention to the rapidly decreasing habitat in which I and my fellow black-and-whities reside. My main concern is the…

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Behaviour is shit: classrooms

Originally posted on MrHistoire.com:
At this year’s Education Festival at Wellington, I spoke to rather hot and sweaty room about why behaviour is so difficult to talk about, why we overcomplicate matters, and what we can do about it.…

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Behaviour is shit: policies

Originally posted on MrHistoire.com:
At this year’s Education Festival at Wellington, I spoke to rather hot and sweaty room about why behaviour is so difficult to talk about, why we overcomplicate matters, and what we can do about it.…

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Behaviour is shit: ideology

Originally posted on MrHistoire.com:
At this year’s Education Festival at Wellington, I spoke to rather hot and sweaty room about why behaviour is so difficult to talk about, why we overcomplicate matters, and what we can do about it.…

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You’re wrong!

Originally posted on MrHistoire.com:
You and I may agree about one thing yet disagree about another. That, in itself, should be uncontroversial enough. That, for some, it isn’t demonstrates to me the weakness of their arguments. My frustration at…

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Teachers: don’t write for the T*S

Originally posted on MrHistoire.com:
You write a blog. It’s maybe controversial, perhaps funny, certainly topical. It attracts a few more hits than normal, probably because you’ve put ‘marking’, ‘Ofsted’, ‘learning styles’ or ‘Tory’ in the title. It’s deliberate clickbait,…

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Can you guess what’s in my head?

Originally posted on MrHistoire.com:
An English lesson.  An extract from a novel sits in front of the pupils. Words, perhaps unfamiliar, are highlighted. The teacher asks, ‘What other words can you think of that mean the same thing?’ The…

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£2 for your integrity

Originally posted on MrHistoire.com:
https://twitter.com/26mxw/status/864863889779036161 Wow. Only £2 for a Final Solution word search. Could it be true? Yes. After a quick, soul-destroying word search search I found these bad boys. At last, a Bin Laden word search! Who…

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Stand still

Originally posted on MrHistoire.com:
Being light on my feet has its advantages: tigers, trucks and tyrannosauruses alike tend to trip awkwardly when trying to trap me in their teeth, tyres and tiny talons. I simply skip away. Being light on…

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