Hi there everyone – I’m settling in nicely at http://www.strictlypositiveteaching.com. Come on over and have a look-see! Maybe you’d like to follow me for all things educational, positive and kind. I know my readership! Oh, and get news about my book, finally published and available on Amazon. I’m very proud of it, and of the […]
I have decided to re-create my website and blog. With the launch of my book approaching I wanted to create a more streamlined image which pulls everything together and will enable a better overall experience for you when visiting the site. I hope to see you there! Thanks. Find us here: https://www.strictlypositiveteaching.com/ Here’s a preview […]
The Strictly Positive Teacher has in mind the mental health and wellbeing of their students, and wants to ensure that they are acting in a way which works with students’ natures. They know that in order to maintain a good positive atmosphere within the classroom and thereby be in a position to be able to […]
Concentrating on something intently enough to learn is hard work, meaning that learning something requires someone to pay attention. Most teachers and psychologists would therefore agree that the ability to focus and sustain attention is crucial to student success. I remember being told years ago that the maximum attention span of an adult was 45 […]
One of the tricky but unspoken things about being a teacher is that often you’re the only adult in a room full of children. And children are not adults. Because adult members of school communities are charged with preparing the children in our care for adulthood, there is a temptation for schools to require students […]
As if more proof were needed that mental health issues in schools are a serious problem for young people in education, it seems that their teachers’ poor mental health adversely affects how well students do in school. A 2018 Dutch report describes a world where one in five teachers experiences burnout symptoms, where teacher’s workload […]
The advice to ‘catch them getting it right’ is hardly a novel idea. But I would argue that, like the smiley face and the sad face, it is not often put into practice with enough consistency and therefore with enough impact. In fact, I think in practice it often deteriorates into an exercise of stabbing […]
It may seem sometimes that there is nothing we can do to help address the epidemic of mental health issues which exist in our schools. We ourselves are under so much pressure from above to deliver progress and grades that it is difficult to raise our eyes over the educational parapet and see the bigger […]
I’m working to update my blog with a bright new look in keeping with the design of my book cover, designed by Naomi Wilkinson. Here’s hoping that soon I will be able to redirect you to the fab new site!
Why Strictly Positive Teaching? The positive reasons The Oxford Dictionary defines positivity as “the practice of being or tendency to be positive or optimistic in attitude”. Interestingly, the illustration of the word is ‘pupils draw power from the positivity of their teachers’. The difference between positivity and optimism, however, is that to be optimistic you […]
