I could not do my job without my science technicians. They have my back when I have forgotten things, they trial experiments and they are always on hand to help me develop new kinaesthetic ways to teach. Four years ago, my lab technician Bev Lewell pulled me aside and asked for a favour. She had […]
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So, horror of all horrors, the dishwasher broke! And to make matters worse it was after a dinner party and we had used every plate, bowl, fork and knife in the place! So, the hunt was on for a new dishwasher and in this I learnt some new Chemistry and am now incorporating my dishwasher […]
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With the summer term well underway, you might be making plans to welcome September’s new Year 7 cohort to school on induction day. With this in mind, we asked former Leader of English (and parent) Jill Carter what advice she’d give to parents whose children are about to start secondary school for the first time. […]
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With the summer term well underway, you might be making plans to welcome September’s new Year 7 cohort to school on induction day. With this in mind, we asked former Leader of English (and parent) Jill Carter what advice she’d give to parents whose children are about to start secondary school for the first time. […]
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In a previous blog post I outlined a very basic memory technique which works by creating a story out of to-be-remembered information. This makes the information more memorable than recalling a list of unrelated words and the technique itself requires no real groundwork, after all, you are just making up a story. Whilst impressive results […]
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I am able to commit a huge amount of information to memory in a very short space of time. I can memorise the order of a shuffled deck of playing cards in less than 2 minutes, a list of 240 random words within a 15-minute time limit and, given an hour, I can memorise the […]
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There is a lot of talk about mastery in science education. It has become the new ‘buzzword’ and some might claim the panacea in teaching and learning. Having done a bit of reading and thinking about this, I am yet to be convinced about whether it is really the solution to success in science. In […]
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So, we are on the summer holidays; a time to relax and catch up with friends and do all the things that you feel you don’t have time to do during work time. Lucky for me, my birthday is in August – I am never at work, school or have exams on my birthday and […]
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So, its that time of year again, exam groups are going on study leave, the GCSEs and AS exams have started and we have a little breather for us to get on top of planning for next year. One of my favourite practicals is burning magnesium ribbon. I use it with Year 7 as an […]
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The University of York Science Education Group (UYSEG) is at the beginning of a new project to develop a course for teaching science at 11-14. The Best Evidence Science Teaching project began by asking science teachers what for them were the key issues about teaching science 11-14. We will be using the best research evidence available to address those issues. I’ll be discussing this […]
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