All articles on this site

  • What my footballing father taught me: get a good education #lessonswecanlearnfromteachers

    This article is an extract from a forthcoming book, The Long Game: The Lessons We Can Learn From Long-Serving Teachers. The aim was to interview long-serving teachers, listen to their stories and see if I could draw out any lessons from their experiences. Constructive comments are welcome; they will help me make it a better book. […]

  • An important lesson from a war-time childhood: It’s your friends who make you #lessonswecanlearnfromteachers

    This article is an extract from a forthcoming book, The Long Game: The Lessons We Can Learn From Long-Serving Teachers. Constructive comments are welcome; they will help me make it a better book. Doris Peate was not doing badly for an 87-year-old when I interviewed her in June 2015: she was remarkably alert and energetic, […]

  • The Turn of the Screw: The Study Guide Edition

    This edition of Henry James’s haunting narrative contains a comprehensive study guide as well as activities that stimulate and engage. Aimed specifically at pupils reading the book as an exam text, there are detailed instructions about how to understand the challenging language, to appreciate the novel’s contexts and to write effective essays.

  • Brontë’s Wuthering Heights: The Study Guide Edition

    Aimed specifically at pupils reading the book for exams. The complete text is punctuated by analysis and questions on every chapter with answers provided at the back. Essential reading for all students and teachers!

  • Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: The Study Guide Edition

    This edition of Shelley’s classic horror novel contains a comprehensive study guide, as well as extensive questions for students to help their understanding. Buy the paperback, and you get the e-book for free, so you can use the embedded web links.

  • Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: The Study Guide Edition

    Aimed specifically at students and teachers reading the book as an exam text, with a detailed introduction that outlines the historical context of the novel, the ways in which it was influenced by the other genres/writers and how it is structured.

  • Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre: The Study Guide Edition

    This edition of Brontë ‘s classic novel contains a comprehensive study guide as well as activities that stimulate and engage. Aimed specifically at students and teachers reading the book as an exam text, there are detailed instructions about how to understand the challenging language, to appreciate the novel’s context and to write effective essays.

  • Corbyn? Blimey, yes!

    We need him to move the Labour Party forward. Why is Jeremy Corbyn so popular? Here’s a backbench Labour MP, a serial rebel during the Blair/Brown era proclaiming the same ideas he’s spouted for decades and no one has listened to. Now he’s the favorite to win the Labour Party leadership. Even people, like me, […]

  • ‘St. Cupid’s’ by Kevin Oldham

    Young teacher Paul Flynn arrives at a secondary school in the heart of London’s east end, and encounters a daunting and alien world: poverty-stricken children, incompetent managers and teachers who are wilder than their students.

  • ‘Learning Matters’ by Roger Titcombe

    This book argues that there is an urgent need for a fundamental change in the direction, governance and public accountability of the English education system. It is written by a teacher but it is not exclusively for teachers.

  • Free schools policy fuels social segregation

    The prime minister’s announcement that, if re-elected, he will open 500 new free schools in the next five years, has catapulted this dismal policy initiative back into the headlines. Most commentators had assumed that David Cameron would keep quiet about free schools because it is generally acknowledged that they’ve been a bit of a disaster […]

  • Academies are an expensive red herring. Here’s how you really improve school standards

    How many times must academies be discredited before policymakers look at the proven but less headline-grabbing solutionn but less headline-grabbing solution? The prime minister’s announcement today that, if elected, the Tories will force “mediocre” schools to convert to academies was important for a couple of reasons. First, it indicated that the government wants to make […]

  • The tweeting headteacher who took over the world

    GILBERT: Are there any sane headteachers out there? The longer I teach, the more I ask this question because I think, possibly like becoming Prime Minister, it’s a role which is both stressful, lonely and can create a massively over-inflated ego. I really liked Tom Sherrington because he appeared to be both sane, reasonable and […]

  • #ResearchED 2014: therapy for a nervous wishy-washy teacher

    Last weekend, I cycled from my home in Bethnal Green to the 2014 ResearchED conference at Raine’s Foundation School and was amazed to see so many teachers paying out of their own pockets to attend a conference about educational research on a Saturday. The impressive attendance, possibly over 600 delegates, was a real testament to […]

  • Romeo and Juliet: The Study Guide Edition

    Written by a teacher who has taught the text for more than twenty years in various secondary schools, this version is aimed at students who must analyse the text in depth or teachers wanting to deliver outstanding lessons on it. The book contains the complete text together with a parallel modern translation, which most students will be able to read independently or in small groups: the language is entirely appropriate for ages 11-18 years.

  • What really matters

    Why do 95% of teachers not know about what really works in the classroom? Why are the media and politicians even more clueless? According to Mike Bell, who runs the Evidence-Based Teachers’ Network (EBTN), very few people are actually aware of the teaching techniques that are proven to work across all the age ranges and subjects. […]

  • It’s the Blob Wot Won It

    Did the Blob get Michael Gove the sack? The mainstream media seems to think so. The Sun’s editorial said: “The Left-wing hate campaign against Michael Gove was hysterical, absurd and undeserved. Sadly, it worked. The teachers’ unions established the Tory Education Secretary as a wicked pantomime villain hell-bent on the destruction of a system which […]

  • What makes good teaching and how can we encourage it?

    I appeared on Newsnight last night discussing the teaching profession with presenter Kirsty Wark and Sean Worth, who is a Fellow of the think-tank, Policy Exchange, which was set up by a few people, including Michael Gove. We were talking about Michael Gove’s comment on Newsnight the previous night that outstanding teachers supported his reforms […]

  • Teacher Toolkit: the Profession’s Great Freedom Fighter!

      Teacher Toolkit, a.k.a. Ross McGill, is one of the most successful teacher-bloggers in the world. He has nearly 60K followers on Twitter, his blog is the number 1. educational blog in the UK, and his book, 100 Ideas for Secondary School Teachers, is one of the most successful books about school published in the […]

  • Why self-publish? My talk to Goldsmiths’ MA in Creative Writing students

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