The Learning Spy
1,047 FOLLOWERS
The Learning Spy is an brain food for the thinking teacher. David Didau runs this blog which is widely recognised as one of the most influential education blogs in the UK.
The Learning Spy
3d ago
A reminder that I'm shifting my output over to Substack, so it would be wonderful if you could subscribe over there. I've been reworking some older posts on this blog and publishing them there so you may recognise a few old favourites. In Attention, Meaning & Mastery I wrote that all teachers need to answer four questions ..read more
The Learning Spy
1w ago
After a loooong hiatus from blogging I've decided to give substack a try. You can subscribe here. For the next few blogs I'll also post here on the Learning Spy site but, depending on how things go, I'm intending to eventually port everything over. I hope you'll come with me. *** Training teachers how to ..read more
The Learning Spy
1w ago
Over the last few years I've made a habit of teaching demonstration lessons in the schools I work with in order to make it clearer how to teach effectively. One of the things that makes this useful is that I'm always teaching students I don't know and so, instead of watching a slick performance ..read more
The Learning Spy
4M ago
This post is an extract from Bringing the English Curriculum to Life. In order to teach responsively, teachers need to be able to quickly identify misconceptions and check students’ understanding. A hinge question is a diagnostic tool deployed at a point in a lesson – the hinge – where teachers need to know whether ..read more
The Learning Spy
8M ago
In spite of our best efforts, the academic performance of our most and least advantaged students stubbornly refuses to close. In fact, as a recent report from the Education Policy Institute shows, the gap seems to be getting wider. Nationally, disadvantaged students at the end of primary school were 10.3 months behind their peers ..read more
The Learning Spy
9M ago
Following a recommendation from Sam Freedman, I've recently devoured Dan Davies's The Unaccountability Machine. It's an attempt to analyse 'what's gone wrong' in what we might call The West over the past decade or so through the lens of cybernetics. I know, right? If your first thought is to assume that this must have ..read more
The Learning Spy
10M ago
Beyond the notion that it's nice for students to chat, or 'do oracy,' is there any real merit in getting them to talk to each other during lessons? Recently on Twitter, Barry Smith got in touch to go over all the things he sees that regularly go wrong with 'turn & talk': Kids don’t ..read more
The Learning Spy
1y ago
Since taking the plunge with mini-whiteboards (see this post) over the past few years my ability to know whether students are paying attention, thinking and practising has dramatically increased. Because I'm usually teaching groups of children I've not met before, I always draw out a seating plan and make sure I have everyone's names ..read more
The Learning Spy
1y ago
It's become increasingly clear to me that training teachers on how to use pedagogical techniques is of limited use. Over the past year or so I've lost count of the times I've watched a teacher act on feedback, improve how how they are, say, cold calling, or using a visualiser or mini-whiteboard, and yet ..read more
The Learning Spy
1y ago
Having just gotten around to reading Matthew Evans' blog, The Earned Autonomy Trap, I feel moved to break my blogging silence of the past few months. In my book, Intelligent Accountability, I present earned autonomy as one of the principles required to balance trust and accountability and help create the conditions for teachers to ..read more