On Tuesday 16th April I uploaded a new blog post about the timing of the big revision push. You can read that post here There are two pieces of work that you might want to access that are linked to this The video I produced for students and parents called ‘Revision Techniques’ and The supporting booklet called ‘Making revision work’. New Revision Guide 2024 TMDownload You should also check out some of my other resources under the How to revise tab above ..read more

All teachers appreciate the importance of revision.  We sometimes struggle with working out how we integrate the good habits of revision into lessons and learning.   We want to use and model good revision and retrieval practice as a support to the learned material.   However, we every year we end up with the same conundrum.   When do we really hit the button that signals the BIG push for full on revision?   It’s a delicate thing.  If you start the final revision push too early – the students will burn out before th ..read more

The language of Christmas  Sometimes I reflect on how far I have come as a teacher.  Or, perhaps it is more correct to say that I reflect on how far I have come as a person.   I am far from perfect and am mightily glad that my successes usually outweigh my failures . . .  but it is a close-run thing!  An example of this can maybe be seen in how I used to interact with students in the run up to Christmas.  I have never really been the sort of teacher who particularly enjoys the ‘fun’ stuff before Christmas.   It’s not that I ..read more

Over the last 2 years I have probably said the words ‘revision’ and ‘retrieval’ a couple of thousand times.   I am constantly talking to students about revision best practice and giving a series of little tips about why? How? What? Where? When? Revision should be taking place.   Motivating the students to see this as a necessity and something that they need to take responsibility for themselves.    There are a multitude of different methods and techniques that students will use to help them to remember knowledge.   Some of these will be more effecti ..read more

The Principles of Booklet Design In Feb 2020 (just before a global pandemic closed schools down and shifted learning onto online platforms) I led some staff training in my school about how we can use booklets more effectively as teachers. I have always loved booklets throughout my career as a teacher.   I find them a really useful way of structuring learning and it forces me to plan and prepare my lessons carefully – ensuring that I don’t miss anything out!   Many of the teachers in my school use booklets to guide learning – but the variety (and quality) of these booklets w ..read more

by Tim Manson Activity within a Lesson Plan (Explore the Learning and Questioning) The third stage in creating a interesting, engaging and memorable lesson is all about how we help the student to embed the key concepts from the learning into their long term memory.  We have thought already about the importance of the Introduction and the how new knowledge can be delivered to the learners.   Now, we need to start to think about how teachers can create a series of activities within a lesson that will help the learners to embed these new concepts into their schema – maki ..read more

A few years ago I had a bit of a revelation and I am sure that most of the people that I work with are fed up hearing.   When teachers work with exams we often call them, ‘question papers’ – but the reality is than in most modern day exam papers there is not one question in sight! Questions are things that usually begin with the words How/What/Where/When/Who and are then ended with a question mark.  For example ‘What is a volcano?’ is a perfectly adequate question.   However, in most modern GCSE and A level exams it is not questions but statements or commands that are ..read more

A few weeks ago I was asked what I thought the 3 most important things were when looking to fill roles within a school.   There are loads of different things that I could have talked about – I could have talked about the pastoral element and how every teacher was a pastoral teacher; the importance of preparation or I could have talked about the value that teachers involved in extra-curricular activities added to a school.   Instead, the 3 things I identified as being important were: Relationships Passion for their subject Experimentation When working with student teachers ..read more

A few years ago I came across a quote from Simon Sinek that resonated with me.    He said, “The responsibility of leadership is not to come up with all the ideas, but to create an environment in which great ideas can thrive.” David Didau in his recent book – Intelligent Accountability, takes this further.  He notes that it is role of school leaders to create the conditions for teachers to thrive.  It is up to us to allow for some element of autonomy which in turn will lead to teachers working to their best to create the best possible learning experiences for their stu ..read more

I recently realised something.  My youngest child – who is a lad currently completing his Y14 A Level courses is at a distinct statistical disadvantage compared to his sister (who completed the same A Level subjects three years previously). I know what you are thinking – it has NOTHING to do with COVID, Centre Determined Grades, Teacher Assessed grades or anything to do with the grading process at all really.     Statistically speaking he is less likely to be able to achieve an A* in his final exam grades – because he is a boy. Table 1 Comparison of CCEA Subjects in ..read more