Ideas, Practices & Personal Insights

Image credit: Unsplash // Keenan Constance.

5 ways to get pupils interested in current affairs

In the age of social media and ‘alternative facts’, sparking your pupils’ interest in the world around them and ensuring they know how to navigate current affairs is essential. Understandably however, in the face of tricky questions and misinformation, many education practitioners can find it difficult to know where to start. To help kick off your conversations, in this article I have outlined my top tips on getting pupils interested ...

Language learning through edtech immersion

‘Immersion’ – chances are that anyone who has ever taught or studied languages will have heard this word a lot! In the realms of language education, ‘immersion’ refers to being in an environment in which only the language being learned is spoken. ‘Immersion’ in technology, meanwhile, refers to blurring reality and the digital. Through immersive technologies, it is possible to simulate the real world, and real-world situations, without the need to ...

A guide to part-time staff and timetables

Part-time staff may be seen as an obstacle, difficult and time-consuming to accommodate effectively within the timetable. This is largely a falsehood. By rethinking the problem and identifying innovative solutions, part-time staff can be seen as an asset, not an obstacle. This year, open up exciting new opportunities for part-time staff with smarter timetabling.

The Stephen Perse Foundation in Cambridge. // Image credit: Daniel Shearing.

This year, perfect your learning spaces

A couple of years ago I led a study which provided the evidence, for the first time, that the physical characteristics of the classroom not only affect the learning progress of Primary school pupils, but impact very significantly. Taking everything together, the measured impact of the classroom design factors explained 16% of the variation in learning of the 3766 pupils - in the 153 classrooms - assessed.

A SMART approach to the world ahead

Q: What’s going to enable students to make smart choices as they prepare for their journeys after school - and aspire to become leaders of tomorrow? A: Great, creative schools that cultivate a culture of leadership and smart, outward-looking teachers who instil passion in all their students.

Championing 21st century skills

Over the first half of 2018, 21st century skills have come to the fore of the education sector debates. Identified as a series of learning dispositions that are crucial to the future success of our children, these skills include communication, collaboration, problem-solving, critical thinking, but also digital literacy and adaptability and flexibility.

Images credit: Vivacious Mel Photography.

Why your school needs Young Enterprise

Recent research from the Prince’s Trust has revealed some alarming statistics about the young people in Britain. Nearly a fifth of young people “think they will amount to nothing”, and 43% of young people don’t feel prepared to enter the workforce when they leave Secondary education. When the research moves to industries, it is evident that 67% of employers don’t feel like school-leavers have the necessary soft skills (communication, ...

Don’t fail your students’ future

At the end of 2017, apprenticeship and skills minister Anne Milton released the Careers Strategy, outlining practical solutions in order to create a thriving careers system that is accessible to “everyone, whatever their age, to go as far as their talents will take them to have a rewarding career”.

5 reasons why you need to be teaching social media know-how

Let’s go back a decade. If you found yourself in the midst of a job search after finishing school in the mid-2000s, CVs were sent by post, trips to nearest job boards and job centres were a weekly tradition, and newspaper cuttings of possible jobs were kept on the sideboard as a reminder.

Images courtesy of interviewee. // Originally published on 5th March 2018.

Changing the future through careers education [interview]

Stephen Logan is both a school leader and an expert on careers education (as director of National Careers Week), so we absolutely had to rendezvous with the Yorkshire-based educator to pick his brain...

The virtues vital for student futures

Whether driven by personal belief, a sense of social justice, or by a maniacal headteacher who espouses innovation and novelty at every turn, we are all, as educators, bound by one immutable fact: children will learn something from us which will last through their lives.

Images courtesy of author // Pupils at Highfield School enjoy the numerous benefits of group singing.

The problem with “soft skills”

We are poised on the brink of a new industrial revolution. In December 2017, McKinsey Global Institute produced a detailed report entitled ‘Jobs lost, jobs gained: workforce transitions in a time of automation’, in which they presented a proposition that by 2030 robots could have replaced 800 million jobs. They look at the impact of this on the labour market - what jobs will be likely to be automated, by AI or robots, ...