Marking
I’m on a mission this year to make marking across my faculty the best in school! Want to join me? Marking I want teachers across my faculty to mark in […]
Classroom Resources thank you to all
I want to say a huge thank you to the teachers out there who are buying, using and finding my teaching resources so very useful at Primary and Secondary across […]
Teach Secondary Magazine product feature
Really short post to point teachers towards the recent feature in Teach Secondary magazine which discusses the rationale behind the design of my class room resources. Did I mention my […]
Teaching and Learning tips Magazine
I've helped put together this teaching and learning tips magazine. And in the spirit of sharing good practice a free copy can be downloaded here
New Marking Policy 2016
Rationale behind new marking policy explained and FREE downloads for you to use if you want to create a similar time saving marking and feedback policy.
GREEN, BLUE, YELLOW, PINK = More Visual Feedback
This post is about easing the marking workload by using an idea that’s well known among Primary teachers but (seemingly) less so amongst Secondary.
More than words
Use these words in your objectives and see the ‘wow’ effect!
Good practice – AFL in books and folders
In trying to define expectations across the new department this is one of the ‘snap shot’ reminders posters I created, and have since shared whole school. Regardless of anyone preparing […]
AFL Stamp crazy – Updated 2014! –
I mentioned in a previous post that I attended an ‘Outstanding Teaching’ course before the summer break, it was a fab course, really inspired me to re-examine how I go […]
Tracking – visually
Tracking made visual As a busy (amazingly so) Head of Department I want a way to track every single pupil in my departments care. I want to know what ‘group’ […]
September is coming
A brief post of thoughts… Things you can do now before September to get organised and healthy. Enjoy…
Vocational Courses
Worst ‘teaching’ I’ve ever seen Easily the worst lessons I’ve observed in the last 7 years were vocational in nature. NOT because vocational is bad! I’m a fan of vocational […]
Coursework – keep on top!
Staying organised… We all start out with the best of intentions about how organised we’re going to be each year; planning our courses, mapping out use of resources etc. etc., […]
My Takeaway Homework template(s)
Having struggled with really low responses to homework as a school, the most effective homework actions seem to be in departments at our school who have tried the #takeawayhomework approach […]
Objectives
Why do people leave them till last? Objectives are a starting point. You start projects with objectives, you start a journey with a destination (objective!) in mind! So why why […]
Supporting the distracted…
Downloadable resource to use when discussing this topic with staff.
A closer look at resources (coming soon)
“It really is exciting to see something you designed on a sheet of paper be created as a ‘real’ product!” Making ‘Outstanding’ quick and easy I’m a fan of taking […]
Flooding Resources for A-level Geography
Morpeth Floods 2008 More images can be accessed by clicking HERE In 2008 I lived and worked in Northumberland, living in the town of Morpeth when it flooded. Being an […]
Resources to support Outstanding teaching
Resources to support outstanding learning Good resources in the hands of a good, well trained teacher can lead to outstanding learning! I’ve been mentoring and coaching a lot of staff […]
The Art of Observing
Seeing is believing Being able to observe good teaching and learning is an art! It’s something that comes with practice. There are a number of obstacles in the way of […]
Stars
Post-it notes in class I love sticky notes, they come in such interesting shapes and colours, they can so easily be utilised in lessons, in so many ways to support […]
How AFL makes progress happen
“Marking is the least favorite part of teaching” Most teachers would seem to say that! But effective marking is the not so secret tool in the battle towards outstanding learning! […]
Fun resource
ifaketext.com Saw a screenshot of this web resource tweeted ages ago and only just got back to looking at it this week! Simple idea Type in both sides of a […]
A Gamer take on praise and reward
Innovative approach to praise & Reward Games, be they being played at home on a console, or in school on a phone students love games. A colleague was very keen […]
Share ideas to improve
Share ideas and improve learning and teaching Site readership in 2013 It’s quite exciting as a teacher sharing ideas online to see a visual presentation of where in the world […]
Creative revision
Revision time! Make it a status update! I saw these sticky notes online and was just itching to buy them and use them! Set out like a Facebook status update […]
Lollipop Questions
Don’t forget the Questioning sticks! I’m a big believer in keeping good resources to hand so that you’ll remember to use them more often! So a resource I made some […]
If you don’t grade lessons
Yesterday I asked ‘should ofsted grade individual lessons during whole school inspections?’ Thanks (in no small part) to a ReTweet by @GuardianTeach & then the passionate participation of my own […]
TeachMeet – Sharing best practice
I think CPD needs an overhaul. It takes some really special CPD these days to remove the look of boredom from teachers faces as they sit in their school hall […]
I’m writing home, again
Everyone needs a little praise. I’ve always been an advocate of taking the positive praise route with learners 1st! Which makes it somewhat ironic that the 1st post on here […]
Grade or don’t grade?
Grading debate. There’s a lot of talk online at the moment about Ofsted grading individual lessons during inspections, you can read more on this HERE and HERE. What’s your opinion? […]
Literacy Matters
Experience, inexperience and ‘unexperience’ Vocabulary, literacy, key terms, what ever you call it in your class you can’t forget it’s importance! It’s easy to think that when you’re teaching an […]
Hey, Mr Tambourine Man!
Guest post by PGCE trainee Trial and Error I’m a trainee teacher, two thirds of the way through my PGCE year. I am engaging in a trial and error process […]
Cross Curricular Planning
Follow a Primary example! Now this post isn’t likely to be earth-shattering to many teaching in Primary schools, but it’s something that Secondary teachers often lament the lack of in […]
Reflecting on your lessons
Here comes the 1/2 term break Ready for the break? Time to take stock, relax, regroup and then think back through past teaching and formulate some future plans? Working with […]
Engagement – Getting boys learning
How do we engage boys in learning? Teachers often debate this question and when my AS Sociology girls outperformed the boys by 11% in the summer of 2012, we realised […]
Questioning – Improving students ability to question
My Starting Point I wanted my students to take a greater responsibility for their learning and I believed that trying to encourage more questions from my students would support me […]
Questioning – what to look for
Questioning This is my topic this year, I’m reading up on it and practicing it as much as I can, so I’m sharing this weeks thoughts on questioning with […]
10 things I changed in my class (and me) this year
Numbers seem to be big in Education ‘100 ideas for’ ‘101 ways to…’ etc etc, everywhere you look there are books or posters with a defined number of ideas on […]
Making the best of Vocabulary
Literacy Across the Curriculum An easy way to support Literacy Across the Curriculum A Vocabulary mid-lesson mini-plenary You started the lesson with a key vocabulary activity? But if you want […]
Starter Activities.
“It’s a coursework lesson, I want them to come in and get on with their coursework, they have no time to be doing anything else.” I’ve said it, back when […]
TeachMeet Bedford (Fee CPD)
TeachMeet I’m a huge fan of teachers sharing ideas, the best career development always seems to happen when just see something or hear something that sparks an idea off. That’s […]
Seating plans…Classroom Management
Do you create seating plans for your students? If not, why not? I’ll admit I haven’t always used seating plans, but this year I’m already finding them useful! Why use […]
Stamp crazy! (AFL)
I mentioned in a previous post that I attended an ‘Outstanding Teaching’ course before the summer break, it was a fab course, really inspired me to re-examine how I go […]
Better questioning
Questioning; my question to empower students I really want my students to have stronger questioning skills, I think that by giving them practice at answering better questions and generating better […]
Improving Questioning
Bloom’s Taxonomy A standard in educational training and continued classroom practice. Everyone should know it and be aware of the impact good questioning technique can have with a class. But […]
Raising Achievement
I read this somewhere, an Academy school showcasing one of its initiatives which it felt had greatly contributed to the rise in achievement at GCSE. I’ve created the idea in […]
Planning for all…
Earlier is week I tweeted this (above) picture, which seemed to get a few RTs and favourites, It was the opening of a weeks worth of thinking (in those quiet […]
Outstanding teaching and learning INSET training
Training day refresh of ideas to help you be Outstanding!! Fantastic! 1st day of a new half term, for many of us the most tiring half term in the run […]
AFL with Google Docs
Through my relationship with the Cambridge University SUPER project I had some lovely visitors in my lesson today. The class I had are my Google Docs test subjects (they do […]
Lesson planning as a team
Lesson planning, divides opinion, is it an out of date activity to write out pages of plans for one lesson? Are sound resources and detailed schemes of work more workable […]
Collaboration
Collaboration has always been key to teaching and learning, we want learner to have collaborative skills, and we need good teacher to work collaboratively to improve teaching and learning practices. […]
Progress, the key to outstanding?
It’s the start of a new academic year, and the key word at the start is ‘Progress’. Defining it Highlighting it Measuring it Reflecting on it It’s something many teacher […]
