Unlock the power of research evidence in education to improve teaching and learning. Discover evidence-based strategies, innovative approaches, and actionable insights that can elevate teaching. These blogs explore new evidence, whilst exploring a range of research methods and practical approaches. Reflecting on research evidence use can help drive school and college improvement, so these blogs offer handy insights for that vital work.
(Comic via http://xkcd.com/552/) I have had an interesting fortnight in my role as a school leader and Research-lead. In this job, you get to share a lot of teacher training materials and the like, coupled, or most often, decoupled from the evidence. In just the last couple
You can’t read or hear about an Education Secretary (see here) or Shadow Secretary (see here) lately without chewing on a bit of GRIT and being told about how we should all be teaching ‘character’ for the betterment of…well, everybody. It surely proves good politics on the doorstep.
Alternatively titled: ‘How do we get the best teachers to Prestatyn and Great Yarmouth?’ “Come To Sunny Prestatyn Laughed the girl on the poster, Kneeling up on the sand In tautened white satin. Behind her, a hunk of coast, a Hotel with palms…” So starts ‘Sunny Prestatyn‘, by Phillip Larkin.
Are you looking to change the behaviour of your students, or tweak the habits of your fellow teachers – then go EAST… Make the desired behaviour Easy. Make the desired behaviour Attractive. Make the desired behaviour Social. Make the desired behaviour Timely. The ‘Behavioural Insights Team‘ is a government organisation (now
The drive for research evidence being used in education has achieved something quite radical in our time: it has been met with near universal political consensus. You won’t hear Gove or Hunt bickering over this debate. A diverse spread of organisations are also in support – from teaching unions like
A quick question: “How many animals of each kind did Moses bring onto the Ark?” Did you get it right? Two. Of course. Er, not quite. If you didn’t notice already, there is a fundamental error evident in the question. The answer is zero. Noah was at the helm
When you become a father you get used to being asked endless questions about the intricacies of our complex world. The road is paved with unending questions. Why does this…? How does that…? Questions become connections. Connections flower into understanding and grow into knowledge. Without being trite, such curiosity is
Do teachers and school leaders need to down tools to survive and succeed? Schools are incredibly complex places. We often use analogies that compare schools, and indeed the classroom, to emergency scenarios. Such language captures the sense of stress and struggle; many times have I felt as though I was
The summer holidays provides one of the few periods in the year when you can deeply reflect on the complexities of the job of being a teacher. After the desperate need for much needed rest is satisfied, there is time to reflect upon the high and lows of the school
I started the school year talking with my faculty about our success in the summer and throughout the previous year and of course the areas we needed to improve. Upon reflection we could identify some clear reasoning why the successes occurred, hard earned as they were. The reasons primarily centred