Teaching & Learning

Immerse yourself in the art and science of teaching and learning with a comprehensive range of blogs. Explore dynamic topics such as effective feedback strategies, impactful explanations, the art of questioning, and more. Gain valuable insights into pedagogical techniques informed by research evidence, along with an array of practical tips. These blogs are useful for teachers, leaders and everyone interested in education.

Shared Writing: Modelling Mastery Post feature image

Shared Writing: Modelling Mastery

If the path of repeated deliberate practice makes something like perfect, then imitating good models of writing provides solid foundations for the pursuit of writing excellence. ‘Shared writing‘ is one specific strategy that models writing in a highly effective way and is one of my favourite and most effective teaching

Make your 'Marking Policy' a 'Feedback Policy' Post feature image

Make your 'Marking Policy' a 'Feedback Policy'

Marking workload getting on top of you? Many schools, and departments, have been reflecting about their marking policies ever since OFSTED declared more than a healthy interest in scrutinising books. Progress over time has rightly been identified as more important than single lesson snap shots – of course, that evidence if

Inclusive Questioning Post feature image

Inclusive Questioning

I today read an excellent blog by Tom Sherrington on differentiation, which defined it as a key aspect of great lessons – see here. I was most interested in the role of inclusive questioning in continuous differentiation. The first, and most crucial, aspect of differentiation is knowing your students. Of course,

'Love English, Hate Maths?' Post feature image

'Love English, Hate Maths?'

I love a leading and provocative title, but I have you reading so I will assuage all those Maths teachers nice and early that this is not an attack at all – indeed, it is quite the opposite – it is a robust defence of Maths and the teaching and learning of

Top 10 Group Work Strategies Post feature image

Top 10 Group Work Strategies

If I am continually vexed by any one question in education it is ‘how can we enhance student motivation?‘ Of course, I do not have the answer, and if there is one it is multi-faceted, complex and, frankly, not going to be solved in this blog post. From my position

Questioning - Top Ten Strategies Post feature image

Questioning - Top Ten Strategies

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein Questioning is the very cornerstone of philosophy and education, ever since Socrates ( in our Western tradition) decided to annoy pretty much everyone by critiquing and harrying people with questions – it has

Oral Formative Feedback - Top 10 Strategies Post feature image

Oral Formative Feedback - Top 10 Strategies

Quite simply, effective teaching hinges on oral formative feedback and questioning on a lesson by lesson basis. It appears to me that the greatest benefit of experience that I observe in excellent teachers is the recognition of how and when to elicit feedback, with the nuanced understanding of what questions