All articles on this site

  • 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

  • Should climate change be dropped from the national curriculum?

    was shocked to read today that climate change may be dropped from the national curriculum. As a teacher in various state schools for 20 years, I’ve seen how much the education on this issue has really improved in the past decade and how everyone has benefited from it being a prescribed part of the curriculum. […]

  • An introduction to A2 Media Studies OCR, Collective Identity

      Task: Devise your own Prezi which explores all the groups you feel a part of and which ones you feel define you, and which definitely do NOT. My collective identities on Prezi

  • Gove’s free schools policy is already in trouble

    From the outset, the coalition’s support of free schools was heralded as its defining education policy. Groups of parents, teachers or community members would be given the power and resources to set up their own schools, particularly in areas of high social deprivation. These groups would sweep aside the concerns of the bureaucratic local authorities […]

  • A presentation on the problems with Free Schools

    The problems with free schools on Prezi

  • The unions’ cause is just, but I’m ambivalent about striking – and I shudder at the legacy of the ’80s disputes

    Recently we have had localised strikes over pay, badly behaved pupils, redundancies and cuts to school services, but the biggest ones in a generation are on the way over pensions. While the majority of us were not surprised that the most left-wing of the unions, the NUT, voted to strike over pensions last week, you […]

  • How did Edinburgh influence the writing of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?

    I think I’m getting a bit better at making these videos now. I produced this video for my GCSE pupils who have not been to Edinburgh but really need to know how the city influenced the writing of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for their English Literature exam. Robert Louis Stevenson had a love-hate relationship with […]

  • The unfair representation of a collective group in two media platforms

    Ryan Linham has written interesting answer to an A Level OCR Media Studies question here. What are the strengths and weaknesses of his answer?

  • Media Studies: John Dunford, Head of Media Studies, and student blog links.

    The Head of Media Studies at my school has his blog here. It is full of useful links and information. A2 students: http://linhamr3m4.wordpress.com/ http://danielbmedia.wordpress.com/ http://alexoconnor2.wordpress.com/ http://missemilystevens.wordpress.com/ http://joannebones.wordpress.com/ http://www.lukedarlingslifeblog.blogspot.com/ http://mollycliftona2.wordpress.com/ http://rachelhelsby2.wordpress.com/

  • Collective Identity — Media Studies, Youth Demonisation

    There’s a useful blog on Collective Identity connected with Youth Demonisation here, devised by a chief examiner at OCR.

  • The classroom should be a place of learning – but not for teachers

    Michael Gove’s plans to move teacher training out of universities will provoke protest at teachers’ conferences No article on matters educational is complete without a disquisition on standards. So here’s one, right at the top. The coalition’s plans to replace teacher-training at university with on-the-job learning will mean that standards – standards in teaching, that […]

  • How to understand Shakespearean language: modernise it and make it fun.

  • How to analyse a poem: a Gilbert vodcast on “The Sick Rose”

    Motivated by the £10K offered to my school for winning The Dream Teacher competition, I’ve decided to start videoing little sections of my “teacherly” explanations and uploading them to YouTube. My videos are not of great quality, but I think my enthusiasm comes through! Like thousands of teachers up and down the country, I do this […]

  • Yoga for all pupils, and other alternative schools

    Schools with a difference are enjoying a renaissance — but what sort of education do they offer? Yoga, meditation, gardening and learning through play — not your traditional school fare. But “alternative” education has never been a hotter topic for many parents in Britain. Tired of a diet of uniforms and exams that many schools […]

  • My joy that my son is going to the local, much-improved comprehensive

    My wife and I learnt today, on National Offer Day, that our son, in Year 6, is going to the local comprehensive in Tower Hamlets, our first choice school. We are both delighted that he’s going to the school for several reasons. Firstly, the school really is “on the up”. My son will certainly get […]

  • The omens don’t look good for Gove’s Troops To Teachers programme

    Guess how many military personnel have applied to become teachers as part of the Teach First Leadership Development Programme this year? Five. And guess how many have been hired? Zero. The Teach First figures for last year are similarly dismal with eleven military personnel applying, and two being hired. To put these figures in context, […]

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