All articles on this site

  • The special needs system is open to abuse

    Assessment of educational needs should be overhauled, as parents may be encouraging misdiagnosis to access resources (This article was first published by The Guardian) Plans to change the “special needs” system in schools will have a big impact upon teachers like me, as well as millions of pupils and their parents. That said, the system does need an […]

  • Academics and teachers, have you met?

    Reform would be smoother and more effective if you worked together, says Francis Gilbert Earlier this month, education secretary Michael Gove said that top academics should reform our A-level system, implying that only the elite Russell Group universities can stop the chronic “dumbing down” going on in our sixth forms. His announcement was on top […]

  • Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, my YouTube Videos on Stevenson’s novel

  • I blame the free market for exam board cheats

    For secondary school teachers like me, training sessions run by the exam boards are invaluable. And I’ve attended plenty of meetings where there have been strong hints about upcoming questions, similar to those exposed by the Telegraph this week. I’ve never heard an examiner being so open about the sorts of topics that the exam […]

  • My YouTube videos which explain Wilfred Owen’s Exposure and Spring Offensive

    A blog post containing various videos I made some time ago explaining Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Exposure’ to my pupils in secondary school, studying it for GCSE.

  • Wilfred Owen’s poetry — a Prezi with links to YouTube explanations of the poems

    Wilfred Owen’s poetry and life on Prezi

  • Louisa Young on her novel about the First World War.

    Louisa Young is the author of the powerful novel, My Dear, I Wanted To Tell You, which is about a soldier who is horribly disfigured during the First World War. This is the video that the publishers made about the book:   This is her explanation of how she came to write the book:

  • The ‘Yobs’ Are the Problem — Not Our Schools…

    The orgy of violent disorder that has swept like wildfire through our cities during the last few weeks has certainly shocked teachers like me, but having said that, knowing young people as we do, I’m not sure that we’re too surprised. But first, a definition: to understand where I’m coming from, it helps to understand […]

  • Are the school summer holidays just too long?

    Observer columnist Barbara Ellen and teacher Francis Gilbert debate whether children and parents would benefit from a shorter summer break Barbara Ellen: Francis, I would always have argued that school holidays are too long. For parents, that is. A case of: “My child, I would fight a lion for you, but if you ask me to […]

  • The government is wrong to devalue vocational qualifications

    Vocational courses help students develop key skills employers are crying out for. League tables should reflect this The government’s decision to drastically downgrade the value of vocational qualificationsis deeply troubling for teachers like me, and must be sending many schools and colleges into a tailspin of despair. At the moment over half a million teenagers are […]

  • Sometimes strict teachers can be the worst at actually helping children learn…

    The news today that assaults on teachers have risen to a five-year-high and that nearly 1,000 children are excluded from school every day got me thinking about behaviour in our schools. I find headlines like this depressing because they actually tell us very little about what is really going on in schools. I suspect, though I […]

  • Only Connect — Teach First award winners reveal their secrets…

    I attended the Teach First Awards this Thursday and interviewed some of the award winners afterwards. The ceremony was your average award winning affair: lots of praise for sponsors and quite a bit of back-slapping. I like the Teach First programme because it has at its heart the idea of promoting good teaching — which is […]

  • Let’s support the summer reading challenge and get every child reading!

    The Summer Reading Challenge is a really cool project which aims to get schools, libraries and parents working together so our children might actually do some reading they like this summer! For an English teacher like me, this is the Holy Grail: if one of my pupils actually enjoys reading, then everything else follows; happiness […]

  • The Machine Gunners — Teaching Activities, links and videos

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaul5qhenY0 BBC Schools Radio has produced an excellent scheme of work on The Machine Gunners, which can be accessed here.

  • Dream of a lost friend by Carol Ann Duffy

    Dream of a lost friend

  • The Last Day Of Term

    Told within a single day, The Last Day of Term is a novel which interweaves the gritty realities of teenage life in an inner-city school with a touching and comic story of a man in crisis.

  • Exam boards are failing our pupils

    The faceless bureaucracy of exam boards has led to error-strewn papers. Exams should have a single, accountable author My pupils are all looking very stressed these days. Not only are they sitting their mocks, but they’ve also been sitting “modular” exams and have had to endure the nightmare of tackling exam papers sprinkled with errors. […]

  • The councillor in charge of my LA’s schools will tell parents not to send their children to my local comp if it becomes an Academy…

    Last night, I attended a meeting convened by the National Union of Teachers about my local secondary school, Bethnal Green Technology College, becoming an Academy. The school has already had a public meeting about this – as I noted in a previous post. Alex Kenny, a prominent NUT activist in east London, Alasdair Smith of […]

  • Structuring GCSE writing

    Learning how to structure writing on Prezi

  • Using personal experience to improve your writing

    Using personal experience to improve on Prezi

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