At the end of this week I’m signing off from work for the next six or seven months. My wife is taking a sabbatical from her job as Deputy Head and I’m doing the same so we can go travelling. We’re going to France, then Australia and Indonesia before heading back to the UK at the end of February next year. I’ve got 5 or 6 days’ work during that time – some conference events in Australia and a job in Brunei- but otherwise, I’m going to take a full break – deleting Twitter from my phone and pausing my blogging. I’ve managed to sustain my blogging output reasonably well for 12 years, passing the 1 ..read more

This follows on my previous post about effective CPD Over the last year or so I’ve seen some fabulous teaching. From Reception to Year 13 and FE settings of many kinds; there’s so much superb teaching to celebrate. This post is an attempt to capture some of details of that. Of course you often find teachers with superb class relationships and great charisma and subject knowledge – but it’s mostly solid everyday practice that interests and impresses me; teachers crafting and blending techniques that systematically involve all students and support every single child to experience success. Check ..read more

This post is a short round-up of some of the best practice I’ve encountered on my travels this year. Here I’m focusing on the elements of teacher development processes and the leadership of CPD. Obviously this isn’t any more scientific than me reporting my view of things, but having been to a large number of schools in multiple contexts, the elements I see that I think are having a positive impact are summarised here: Clarity of Roles; integrated processes. Team roles are clear.  Coaching roles are clear Coaching processes dovetail with team processes In the most productive models, I f ..read more

In the last two weeks I’ve met a couple of times with Melbourne-based educator, consultant and teacher trainer, Bron Ryrie Jones to share our interest in responsive teaching. Here are our discussions on YouTube – I hope you enjoy this geek-out on the details as much as we did. Part 1: Part 2: Find out more about Bron’s brilliant work here: https://bronwynryriejones.com ..read more

Every time I visit a school or college -or hear about one – where a dominant system is ‘three formal observations a year’, I feel sad.  Sad for the teachers and their students. Sad for the state of our professional culture that allows this to continue.  Sad that the leaders and the unions – or whoever else is responsible – can’t see a way around it or haven’t yet realised that tons of schools have ditched this pretty absurd process years ago.   Nothing about three observations a year is inherently good.  It’s a symptom of a culture of mistrust and defens ..read more

Given all the research that’s widely disseminated about feedback in general and the nature of teacher expertise, I’m surprised by how resistant and antagonistic some folk can be to the idea that feedback to teachers should be co-constructed. There are plenty of people who are quite confident in their sense that giving feedback in a straightforward direct manner is a meaningful, legitimate and productive process. Meanwhile, co-construction can be characterised as a rather soft and woolly time-consuming process akin to the folly of discovery learning. I have to take a deep breath. There are alwa ..read more

The theme of so much of my recent blogging and discussions in schools has been the very real challenge of teaching everyone in a class effectively – simultaneously.  I still don’t think the details of this issue get enough attention.  Responsive teaching suggests a simple sequence:  First, Teacher explains and models some new material.  Then, Students engage in a process that involves using that new material, helping them make sense of it and practise it. Then, Teacher gathers some form of information (data?) to check to see how well that has gone, gauging the degree ..read more

I’ve written several blogs about Think Pair Share in the past, because I think it’s such an important teaching routine for teachers to master: However, doing this well isn’t massively challenging but it does require some thought. During my many lesson observations, I frequently listen in to hear what students are actually saying after they’ve been set off to talk to their partners and, to be honest, I often feel that with a few tweaks to the routine, they’d have done a lot better. Quite often an excellent question with rich discussion is there for the taking but the teacher then uses the all-t ..read more

A lot is written and said about behaviour. For good reason. The recent survey and analysis by TeacherTapp for the BBC highlighted how important it is to get right – with way too many teachers reporting significant challenges and bad experiences. As well as classroom behaviour, the @TeacherTapp data for @bbc also revealed: 1 in 5 teachers had experienced verbal abuse from parents. 1 in 5 teachers had experienced abuse online (emails etc) from parents.https://t.co/SXK1jqObz9 — Gráinne Hallahan (@heymrshallahan) March 29, 2024 My perspective on this is informed by time (decades) in the classr ..read more

As my road-trip work comes to an end for the term, I’m reflecting on the qualities of all the great people I meet visiting schools.  Without exception, people everywhere are working hard, often in tough circumstances, and I have huge respect for everything they’re seeking to do. However, there are some schools I visit where it’s clear that the quality of teaching and learning is high, sometimes within a particular phase or subject team, sometimes across the whole school.  Without exception, when the teaching is evidently strong, you also meet the leaders who make it so.&nbs ..read more