By Sam Holyman As I settle down to my morning cuppa, one of the 100 million cups of tea that are likely to be drunk in the UK today [1], I wonder about how sustainable I am being, after I sling my used teabag straight into the black bin. Many of my friends collect their […]
By Sam Holyman Are you concentrating at the end of term? At school we are getting ready for the new academic year, sorting labs, stock taking and making sure everything is labelled. And concentration has become the hot topic of debate! We use the term concentration all the time, and in everyday life this gets […]
So, dyslexia runs in families and we are one of those families. Although my dyslexia is mild and wasn’t picked up until university, my son’s dyslexia gave rise to me fearing that he would leave primary school illiterate. In the inclusive secondary science laboratory, up to 10% of the students will have some degree of […]
Red is my favourite colour – it has been as long as I can remember. So, you’d think that my departmental policy of using only red ink to mark in student’s books would come naturally to me. But, I tend to flow around the class, using whatever pen or pencil is nearby to write in […]
Science, like every subject, has its own vocabulary. Sometimes it can feel like we are learning a different language, before we can even begin to understand Science. This vocabulary gap can lead students to be disengaged and disruptive in the classroom as well as underachieving in their exams and it is not just EAL students […]
This summer saw the first sitting of the new-style GCSE Science courses. When results day rolled round, many teachers were surprised when Ofqual stepped in to ensure that higher tier students who weren’t able to achieve a 4-3, the lowest grade expected to be awarded for the tier, could be awarded a 3-3 rather than […]
The recent changes in the exam system have required students and teachers to make some significant adjustments. With the first 9-1 exams over, now is a good time to reflect on the areas that students have found particularly challenging. One of these is the need for students to apply their knowledge to unfamiliar contexts. For […]
Education is fast moving, with new ideas, recycled ideas, and changes in the political landscape which feed into curriculum change and inevitable examination changes. A rising hot topic is ‘stretch and challenge’, but what exactly is it? As part of the Teaching and Learning group in my school we have been exploring ‘Stretch and Challenge’ […]
We have all experienced students who dawdle into lessons, take a long time to get ready for learning and then only to find they don’t have their stationery! These are the students that do not engage in the classroom at all, they go through the motions and are indifferent, while they do not progress much […]
As you look at your partner, do you ever think that their brain is vacuous? Well, as I was preparing for a KS3 science lecture about Cryogenic Engineering and its applications, that is exactly what I was left thinking as I dropped in an MRI scan of my partner’s brain into the presentation! To excite […]
