Aprender a dudar es aprender a pensar (‘Learning to doubt is learning to think’). -Octavio Paz In March this year, school life as we know it shuddered to a halt, and as we write, when and under what guise it will fully return remains unclear. Over the past few months, teachers and students will have […]
Teaching the very earliest stages of reading using phonics in the last term of nursery will give children a head start in Reception. However, at this stage, it’s really important to keep phonics teaching simple. Read our top tips for teaching phonics at nursery.
How many of our students rely mainly on reading through notes or revision guides, thinking this is how to revise? Unfortunately they are practising recognition, not free recall, and it can be very misleading. They feel they know the material because they have learnt it a few months ago and recognise it, but this is […]
The History community – in fact, the teaching world in general – seems to have gone ‘knowledge-rich’ mad over the past year or so. Social media platforms and discussion groups seem to be awash with knowledge organisers and knowledge workbooks, and lots of techniques and strategies to recall, retain, retrieve and then write about knowledge. […]
Reading through the Ofsted Education Inspection Framework (EIF) [1] it’s clear that there are some implications for Science departments and teachers that need to be considered. In this blog I’ll identify three key issues and discuss them. The three issues are: The 3 Is: Intent, Implementation, Impact Key Stage 3: Two Years vs Three Years Science or Biology, Chemistry & […]
If you have been roaming through the education blogosphere or edutwitter you will have started to notice an increase in the reference of SLOP. What is SLOP? SLOP stands for ‘Shed Loads of Practice’. The term SLOP was coined by Adam Boxer and Ruth Walker in the early stages in the formation of CogSciSci , a group of teachers and […]
I was surprised to hear that in the pre-2013 Key Stage 3 national curriculum there was only one statement about ratio, whereas in the current version there are ten statements. I was surprised because I did not remember, from my work on the development of the current curriculum, that there were so many, so I […]
SHARED PRACTICE Don’t let lack of funds stop you! One librarian who knows all about building a society of readers is Nicki Cleveland, celebrated on the Honour List for the 2018 SLA School Librarian of the Year. Joy Court talks to Nicki below. Her citation tells us: ‘Despite having only 3.5 dedicated hours in the […]
What to expect during the GCSE years and how to support your child If you have a child about to embark on their ‘GCSE journey’, there are probably any number of questions spinning around your mind. Aside from the obvious one (which is “where has all the time gone? It only seems like yesterday they […]
Summer exams are almost here. It is a time for cautious optimism, but also a little teacher anxiety, as we will our pupils on to succeed. Worried questions race through our minds: what if they don’t understand the question? What if a word in the question trips them up? What if they give up? Each […]