Key concept
The main theme or keyword of a particular post, maybe with reference to a teaching or national curriculum topic.
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Inspire: Exciting Ways of Teaching Creative Writing
An anthology written by creative teachers with diverse experience. The focus is on how to teach creative writing in imaginative, practical and socially just ways, helping people of all ages and backgrounds to write.
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The Time Devil
A fantastic time-travelling story in the format of a ‘teaching script’, which helps teenage readers improve their ability to skim, scan, summarise, and ask questions.
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Five Ways to Revolutionise Reading in Your School
These suggestions are based on the points raised at the Reading Revolution Conference held at Goldsmiths, University of London on Saturday 23rd September 2017. ONE: Encourage Reading for Pleasure Read for the sake of reading. Read aloud, read in groups, read in pairs, read silently. Read poems, stories, articles, blogs, relevant social media and so […]
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How can we help secondary school students read for pleasure and improve their reading skills? #GdnBLReading
Yesterday I spoke at the Guardian Education Centre for a conference on Reading for Pleasure in the secondary classroom. The Guardian’s literary editor, Claire Armistead, kicked off the day by explaining that we need our young people to enjoy reading and to read whole texts which are not part of the curriculum; she pointed out […]
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Reciprocal Teaching and the Time Devil
I’ve been working hard at helping Key Stage 3 students in Deptford Green school, a London comprehensive, to develop their reading skills. To that end, I have written a book, The Time Devil, which is set partly in Deptford Green and partly in the National Maritime Museum, whom we are also working with. I have […]
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Summer Solstice Readings for National Writing Day at the Word Bookshop, New Cross
I had a very enjoyable day at Goldsmiths on the summer solstice to celebrate National Writing Day. The summer solstice is: “the time at which the sun is at its northernmost point in the sky (southernmost point in the South hemisphere), appearing at noon at its highest altitude above the horizon.” It is midsummer; the […]
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Improving students’ reading using Reciprocal Teaching
Respected research has shown for some time that certain teaching approaches are particularly effective at improving students’ reading skills; one such strategy is called Reciprocal Teaching (Oczkus, 2010:Palincsar and Brown, 1984) which gets learners reading in groups. I’ve written about the success of this strategy in two previous issues of NATE Magazine (June 2015/June […]
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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, […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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Our dedicated teachers deserve greater respect
THE shocking, terrifying killing of Ann Maguire, an experienced, much loved teacher, has made the nation aware of how important it is not to take teachers for granted. It is tragically sad that it has taken this noble teacher’s death to make the public conscious of this because, let’s face it, there are too many […]
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A killer in the classroom
Is it possible that violent and unruly children pose a bigger problem than schools dare admit? Having taught for more than 20 years in various comprehensives, I can honestly say that there has been no more shocking news about the profession in the past couple of decades than the death of Anne Maguire, a […]
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How to use study guides in the classroom — TES Pro article
Please click on these JPEGs twice in order to see a full size version of this article and then press Ctrl+ if you wish to zoom in further.
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Academy plan to use untrained teachers is an outrage
Why is Michael Gove instituting this policy when he has praised countries like Finland where teachers are intensively trained? The news today that the education secretary is to remove the requirement for academies to employ qualified teachers sent a shudder down my spine. For a teacher like me, who has taught for more than 20 […]
We need to reform the academy system – and stop the power-hungry super-heads
Our schools have become joyless, stressful places, run by principals who behave like football managers obsessed by tables. Why do we put up with it? This week’s Newsnight investigation into greedy “superheads” of academies coupled with headline claims about other heads involved inmoney-grabbing and cronyism has thrown a spotlight on to the role of headteachers. […]