In his excellent 2013 paper, called ‘Improving Education: A Triumph of Hope Over Experience’, Professor Rob Coe defines the secret of learning: “Learning happens when people have to think hard.” With refreshing honesty, Professor Coe goes on to describe his wise aphorism as “over-simplistic, vague and not original”. Now, despite
(Babbage’s ‘The Difference Engine No. 1’, 1832, image via Science Museum) Charles Babbage is a name too few people remember, but in many ways his brilliant ideas have helped shape our modern world. Born in 1791, Babbage was a brilliant polymath, Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, and he is
‘The year 9 class of the future?’ A discussion around class size is never far away from educational debate. Every so often a new report is emblazoned with headlines in the press: ‘class size matters’…’class size doesn’t matter‘. What are we to believe? Well, of course class size
Some people deserve to be heard and their inspiring life story passed on. One such person is Helen Keller. Born on the 27th of June, in 1880, in Alabama, Helen fell ill, aged eighteen months and was struck blind, deaf and mute. Her story is one of tremendous courage, will
Stand tall, place your legs apart, clench your fists and place them onto your hips. There…that is your power pose. Keep it for a minute or two. Does you feel more confident? Is your body coursing with testosterone-induced power? Professor Amy Cuddy devised a hugely popular TED talk to
I’ve always held with the Beatles lyric that we get by with a little help from our friends. In classrooms, with students learning and helping one another learn, it can often help too (when done well). The evidence to support the effectiveness of ‘Peer Tutoring’ programmes in schools has
Sometimes surveying a scene from a different perspective gives you a new, fuller understanding of things. For the last few months I have been writing about confidence and becoming a confident teacher. I have researched the hell out of it and talked to many people about the notion of confidence.
If you are a school teacher and you haven’t heard of Carol Dweck’s ubiquitous growth and fixed mindset concept then… quite frankly, where the hell have you been for the past few years? No doubt lots of good has emerged from this common-sense psychological framework, with a few
What does this lovely old lady reveal positive messages about student success? Why is her story potentially so powerful? Nola Ochs is a special lady. So special she appears in the Guinness Book of Records. Back in 2007, Nola Ochs became the world’s oldest college graduate when she graduated
(Image based on the Education Endowment Foundation Toolkit findings) All the evidence tells us that great feedback works. Simple. Let’s do more of that and all of our students will gain…easy! And yet, what do we mean by feedback? What does great feedback look like in the classroom?
After over a decade of teaching English I am still finding new approaches and understanding more about how students learn to write. In the last year or so, my thinking has developed to focus upon the primacy of vocabulary knowledge and also the need for a huge amount of varied
For teachers, April can prove the cruellest month – and May is only bloody worse. Exam time is upon us and it is the final days of deadlines, exam revision, and of schooling, for many of our students. In those final lessons the tension can prove palpable. The confident and quiet