Ideas, Practices & Personal Insights

21st century learning through courageous leadership

We live in age where there is unprecedented pressure on schools and school leaders. The pressure of a challenging and ever-changing Ofsted framework, budgets which are paper-thin, progress measures which force us to compare our pupils with other children nationally, and some of the most academically-stretching testing expectations ever. It’s enough to make the most experienced of school leaders crumble. Set against this context, it is easy to see ...

Get disruptive with this playful teaching method

“Teachers warn learning through play can lead to pupil disruption” was the title of an article printed by a Scottish newspaper in January this year. The article cited a recent report which had shown that some teachers in Scotland were worried about increasingly poor behaviour within classrooms when engaging in active learning.

Eric Sheninger (left), with superintendent Robert R. Zywicki (centre) and Trish Rubin (right) // @E_Sheninger.

Award-winning edu-author shares his top leadership insights [interview]

To discuss how school leaders can make the most of their roles, we sat down with Eric Sheninger; best-selling author, international keynote speaker and International Center for Leadership in Education senior fellow. Eric is based in Cypress, Texas, and was the award-winning principal at New Milford High School in New Jersey.

Image credit: Flickr // Global Panorama.

6 ways UK schools can evolve by looking abroad

‘Powerful professional learning helps children succeed and teachers thrive’ is the first message on the front page of the Teacher Development Trust website. Yet when we look at other countries that are seen as successful at education, commentators often focus on issues such as their culture (Finland or Estonia), teaching methods (‘Chinese Maths’ in Shanghai) or use of external tutoring (Japan or South Korea).

Image credit: Flickr // NEA Public Relations.

Shaking up a stale subject

Remember when you were in school and you were given weekly lists of words, with little or no relevance to your lessons or your life, and made to commit them to memory? How about those little primers that focus on mundane activities with a set of vocabulary words artificially embedded into the storyline? Well, chances are those same wordlists and primers are still being handed out today. Nothing has changed ...

Content-based vs concept-based curricula

Society as a whole now understands the importance of a more rounded approach to education, focusing on a child’s personal development rather than just academic achievements. Therefore, developing and fostering a more child-centric culture is an integral part of early childhood education.

The leaders disrupting by being 10% braver!

When there's a push to disrupt the status quo, those that feel most comfortable within it become defensive; questioning the change and downplaying it, or perhaps even claiming there is no problem. They may go one step further and warn of dire consequences, claiming the privileged will become the disenfranchised, which they’ll argue is no better than the current system. People are resistant to change, especially if they benefit ...

6 reasons every teacher needs an accountability partner

Around this time of year, my commitment to my professional resolutions begin to wane. Deadlines, demands and life in general clouds my path to the professional improvement I seek. While my desire and intent are strong, my actions (or behaviors) often fall short or don’t even get off the ground. I find this is most often the case when try to do it all by ourselves, which is the ...

Hannah Wilson at the WomenEd West Midlands careers event (Image credit: @TheHopefulHT).

Battling the sector's lack of character

Perhaps this has now become a cliché, but it’s worth reiterating that the jobs that today’s children will be doing when they’re adults haven’t even been invented yet. Meanwhile, successive governments making decisions about the direction and priorities in education seem to obstinately bury their heads in the sand and pretend that we can keep educating children like we did in the 19th century. As we ...

Images via HundrED. Pictured: School 21.

Want to dismantle restrictions? Think global

Pulling apart education and trying to fix it can be a totally overwhelming thought. Teachers are already notoriously thinly-stretched, and getting students the results they need to succeed later in life at university and in the workplace can seem like the only thing to focus on. However, if we take a moment to breathe and think if there are better ways of doing things, we might just come across ideas ...

Paul Dix (right) with Ross Morrison McGill of Teacher Toolkit (left) // @pivotalpaul.

4 essential disruptor insights

Don’t let your school get stuck in a developmental rut. In the latest IMS Guide - available here - these four disruptive educators share their top tips for doing things a little differently.

Images courtesy of Paul McGuire // @mcguirp.

Disrupt a space. Makerspace

When you think of a classroom, what springs to mind? More than likely, a room filled with rows or clusters of tables and chairs facing a desk at the front with a whiteboard. Little has changed since the early 1900s, despite the evolution in technology and amount of resources. So why, then, are we so surprised when children become disengaged or demotivated to learn? It has been proven time and ...