Teaching creative writing
teaching english

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In this section I archive features and articles that have been published elsewhere. I contribute regularly to the national press, including The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and The Daily Mail.

  • What will replace abandoned SATS?

    Teaching to the SATS tests can be murder. Recently, they have become more and more fiddly – and more boring. In English, there is a complicated reading paper, which consists of lots of small questions that pupils have to answer precisely to get a good mark, a writing paper which never seems to test writing,…

  • One Long Sats test

    The decision by the Children’s Secretary, Ed Balls, to kill off the Sats exams for 14-year-olds is arguably the most momentous decision taken by a politician since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. Dramatic as it may sound, I believe the scrapping of these wretched exams will have far greater long-term repercussions than the bailing out…

  • Will the teaching council ever learn?

    The new draft of a code of conduct and practice for teachers really made me laugh. It’s a big and wordy document from the General Teaching Council for England (GTC) and full of the off-putting, sanctimonious language that makes teachers such as me want to go and strangle the nearest bureaucrat to hand. There are…

  • Competences through AfL

    When I first saw the word ‘competence’ stuck into the new English National Curriculum last summer, my heart descended into the abyss. Oh no, I thought, here we go again; yet more injunctions to give lots of boring grammar lessons which the pupils don’t understand. However, a closer examination of the rubric makes me think…

  • Turned Away At The School Gates

    The parent sobbed openly at the reception of the secondary school where I teach: "But it’s not fair! You have to let her in!" Our secretary had to ask our caretakers to escort her off the premises. But she wasn’t surprised. Every year, she gets hundreds of calls from panic-stricken parents wanting to know why…

  • My profession needs a better voice than these morons

    On Saturday the work-shy teachers at the NUT conference backed a boycott of SATs. On Sunday they moaned about too many tough guys going into teaching (if only!). On Monday they demanded an eye-popping 10 per cent pay rise and yesterday they were threatening to strike over the vagaries of sixth-form funding. What next? A…

  • Dishing out fines won’t stop the chaos in class

    As a battle-hardened teacher, I can’t help but be a little cynical about the latest government initiative to quell indiscipline in our schools. A three-year study into classroom behaviour has called for teachers to be able to slap £50 penalties on the parents of pupils who persistently misbehave. After spending 20 years working in various…

  • What will replace abandoned SATS?

    Teaching to the SATS tests can be murder. Recently, they have become more and more fiddly – and more boring. In English, there is a complicated reading paper, which consists of lots of small questions that pupils have to answer precisely to get a good mark, a writing paper which never seems to test writing,…

  • Give children rewards and they’ll soon fleece you

    As a teacher, I’ve tried every bribe in the book The news that a mother rewards her 13-year-old daughter with cigarettes when she behaves has confirmed what I’ve been thinking for a while – rewards are, at best, ineffectual and, at worst, positively damaging. A jobless single mother, Tracy Holt, 43, of Gosport, Hampshire, is…

  • One long SATS test

    In this emotional indictment of our education system, the writer and teacher Francis Gilbert explains how an obsession with testing has broken enthusiasm for learning The decision by the Children’s Secretary, Ed Balls, to kill off the Sats exams for 14-year-olds is arguably the most momentous decision taken by a politician since Gordon Brown became…

  • Will the teaching council ever learn?

    The new code of conduct for teachers is a masterwork in stating the blindingly obvious and deeply patronising The new draft of a code of conduct and practice for teachers really made me laugh. It’s a big and wordy document from the General Teaching Council for England (GTC) and full of the off-putting, sanctimonious language…

  • How to make your child succeed at GCSE

    The truth about exams So just what is the key to success at GCSE? As a teacher in various state schools for the past two decades, I still chew over the issue virtually every day! Just recently, I was talking late into the night at a Year 11 Parents’ evening. The parents of these sixteen-year-olds…

  • Competences through AfL

    It’s only when pupils put flair into their writing that they become competent When I first saw the word ‘competence’ stuck into the new English National Curriculum last summer, my heart descended into the abyss. Oh no, I thought, here we go again; yet more injunctions to give lots of boring grammar lessons which the…

  • How a good headteacher can save a school

    Without leadership and discipline, chaos rules. But this is exactly what the Government is allowing to happen, argues Francis Gilbert A few years back, I taught at a school that terrified me. Just walking down the corridor was hazardous. Frequently, children would rush up behind me and hit me on the back of the head,…

  • Turned Away at the School Gates

    This week thousands of children were denied places in their first choice secondary school. Here, a teacher argues that our education system is as crisis-ridden as our banks. The parent sobbed openly at the reception of the secondary school where I teach: “But it’s not fair! You have to let her in!” Our secretary had…

  • Why We Should Give Teachers a Pay Rise

    Teachers are demanding a 10% pay rise. To educate the country out of this recession, we should give it to them I bet there were a few teacher-hating members of the public chucking their breakfast at their television sets this morning when they saw the moaning members of the National Union of Teachers asking for…

  • My profession needs a better voice than these morons

    On Saturday the work-shy teachers at the NUT conference backed a boycott of SATs. On Sunday they moaned about too many tough guys going into teaching (if only!). On Monday they demanded an eye-popping 10 per cent pay rise and yesterday they were threatening to strike over the vagaries of sixth-form funding. What next? A…

  • A Blairite learns a lesson

    The premise of this book is intriguing for anyone who is remotely interested in politics or education. The privately educated Peter Hyman was an advisor to Tony Blair from 1994 until 2003; for the last two years of his tenure he rose to being Head of Strategic Communications at Number 10, and was one of…

  • Dishing out fines won’t stop the chaos in class

    There are riots, drugs and even death threats… and all our leaders offer are sticking-plasters As a battle-hardened teacher, I can’t help but be a little cynical about the latest government initiative to quell indiscipline in our schools. A three-year study into classroom behaviour has called for teachers to be able to slap £50 penalties…

  • Teaching as triumph

    It is impossible to read Frank McCourt’s new memoir, Teacher Man, about his life as a teacher in New York, without the incessant rain of Ireland drizzling into one’s thoughts. McCourt’s first book, Angela’s Ashes, published when he was 66, won the Pulitzer Prize, has sold millions of copies throughout the world, was turned into…