In the classroom, what we’re aiming for is that students’ mental health and wellbeing are cared for, so that they feel good about being there and want to do their best. This in turn should positively affect our own wellbeing and mental health as teachers. To do this, we want to look for good rather […]
The Guardian hates schools with high behaviour standards, apparently, if you believe some of the furious response to this article which appeared in the paper yesterday, linking back to recent pieces on isolation booths, high rates of exclusion and the so-called “flattening the grass”. The furore whipped up by this interests me for a number […]
A number of simple changes have transformed the nation’s education system into one of the world’s most successful. http://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/10-reasons-why-finlands-education-system-is-the-best-in-the-world
Rule #1: Be vigilant for positives 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. There is a temptation in the teaching profession […]
It is a requirement in UK, in common with many other nations of the world, that teachers “set homework and plan other out-of-class activities to consolidate and extend the knowledge and understanding pupils have acquired”. This is a tricky concept for me, as it accepts as fact that homework will, by its very nature, ‘consolidate […]
My mother was a teacher, and met my father when he, too, was briefly teaching. When they were both teaching they wore gowns as daily uniform, and had to shake chalk dust off them when they left their schools. They were about as calm, tolerant, middle-class and focused on education as it was possible for […]
If you want a depressing read as an antidote to all the festive consumerism this holiday season, and a really, REALLY good reason to draw a line under the list of gifts you’re collecting for little Johnny or Gina, you could do worse than to pick up a copy of ‘Born to Buy’, by Juliet […]
I have concluded that there is almost no activity which doesn’t teach me something about teaching. Freed from some of the rigorous constraints on my time by leaving a school environment, I’ve taken to a daily gym session to force me out of bed, refresh my mind and body and ready me for the challenges […]
To make a seating plan or not to make a seating plan? I’ve been in schools where it was the teacher’s choice and where it was mandatory for every class. I now firmly believe that a seating plan is a vital tool in the teacher’s armoury. The paramount reason for this is the basic, essential […]
If you have to share a classroom with 30 young people, it’s an awful lot easier to get things done if there is an understanding between you, a tacit contract that you will treat one another with respect, that the students will let the teacher teach, and the teacher will help the students learn. […]
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