There are memories and moments that form who we are and what we become. I cannot recall exactly when reading for pleasure became a part of me, and what I would become – a teacher, dear reader – but it happened before I’d ever realised. Perhaps it was my father perched
Like any self-respecting English teacher, I like to tell stories to my students. One such story is the embodiment of a flourishing, confident learner. It is the story of a little girl from North Carolina, USA. A real-life story that shines a light on the amazing capacity of young people
There is no more important act in education than helping children to learn to read. I am sure we can agree that developing our students as confident readers, writers and speakers is the core business of every teacher, regardless of age, phase or subject specialism. Too often though we take
Thinking about better assessment is not always at the forefront of the mind of a busy English teacher. We are so hassled by marking, planning and well, teaching lots, that we keep our nose to the marking grindstone and, well…just keep on going. More recently, I have been trying
I have written a countless number of essays. At school, university, and back at school again, showing my students how to do it. In my fourteen years teaching I must have modelled hundreds of essays. I have likely set and assessed thousands of the blighters. My go-to strategy has always
The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous rocks in all of history, providing one of the keys to the history of language as we know it. When it was found in 1799, the inscrutable script foxed the world – but by 1822 it provided the key to the mysteries
Since 2012, I have written numerous posts about feedback and marking. This is no surprise given our school system has been seemingly addicted to making ‘progress’ visible, with feedback becoming a quick fix for all our ills. Of course, feedback is richly complex, like most things in the classroom, so
Since I have been writing this blog in 2012, no subject has interested me more than the nuanced, complicated staple of teaching: questioning. As a teacher of nearly 15 years, I have attempted annual to crack the code for asking great questions. I am working on it. Happily, I have
“A man with conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him your facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and facts and he fails to see your point.” Leon Festinger Dorothy Martin was a charismatic leader with
Each year we are all faced with the nerve-shredding, tolerance-stretching spell that is revision. It never seems to get any easier. Each group of students proves a unique, gnarly challenge as we go about training, convincing, supporting, and more. It has proven a consistent topic for me to write about,
It is that time of year again. Nerves fray, students and teachers (probably parents too) as we arm our students with the obligatory revision strategies, resources, wall plans, flashcards, apps, highlighters, revision guides, and whatever else we can get our hands on, in the flimsy hope that some of it
Carol Dweck’s research on the dichotomy of the growth and fixed mindset has proven near ubiquitous in schools over the past couple of years. It has proven the topic of a thousand inspirational assemblies, many a wall display, and has offered interesting debates about motivation and psychology in relation