/ September 28, 2019 at 7:56 AM
127 views
How much freedom should teachers be given to do their own thing? Few things are more irritating to educators than knowing what needs to be done, and being stopped from doing it by those in charge of you. Whether that’s…
/ September 21, 2019 at 8:49 AM
164 views
Earlier this week, Siobhan Benita, the Liberal Democrat candidate for London mayor made a speech where she declared that: My “feel safe, be safe” plan for Londoners will give every young person a voice, activities and the security of good…
/ June 22, 2019 at 6:37 PM
347 views
I trained to teach in 2001-2002 and this blog began in October 2006. The mid-noughties were a time when progressives were consolidating their control of the education system. Although they were losing ground on preventing phonics teaching, and the policy…
/ March 11, 2019 at 7:28 PM
284 views
When I trained as a teacher (I did a PGCE from 2001 to 2002 and my NQT year from 2002 to 2003) the government had a policy of “inclusion”. As was universally understood at the time, this meant reducing the…
/ October 24, 2018 at 6:00 PM
543 views
Earlier this week there was a school shaming focused on the rules one school was introducing for managing behaviour in corridors during transitions. A large number of people, many of whom have never worked in a secondary school, used an…
/ July 15, 2018 at 6:34 AM
403 views
Just a quick post here, but something on Twitter reminded me of another problem I’d talked about when the College of Teaching was proposed. Back when discussions were underway about the Chartered College Of Teaching, one thing I argued for…
/ May 19, 2018 at 7:36 AM
477 views
This is a follow up to this post, and is the second of three posts about attempts to silence educational traditionalists online. In the last year or two, I have seen an apparent rise in the use of legal threats…
/ May 5, 2018 at 6:45 AM
585 views
Teacher Tapp is an app that surveys teachers every day. While those who answer are self-selecting so it is probably not completely reflective of all teachers, it’s probably going to be biased towards the more informed teacher, rather than the…
/ February 4, 2018 at 7:47 AM
453 views
Yesterday I blogged about the background to the issue of teacher autonomy and the dilemma facing traditionalists who, when progressives were in control, argued for autonomy, but now see it used to justify bad practice. Although I still tend to…
/ February 3, 2018 at 7:53 AM
469 views
When I first started blogging, and for several years afterwards, teachers were being forced to teach in a way that, if you were familiar with the history of educational thought, could only be described as “progressive”. Skills were more important…
/ January 5, 2018 at 8:26 AM
578 views
Three weeks ago a couple of people (who I would call “trolls”, but who would no doubt see themselves as perfectly justified in all the abuse they’ve posted over the years) started sharing my blogposts from 8 or 9 years…
/ November 19, 2017 at 7:13 PM
516 views
Yesterday I wrote about what I think makes some subjects “academic” and other subjects, while still worthwhile, not academic. The discussion on Twitter immediately afterwards was particularly helpful in helping me reconsider some points and defend others (although by now…
/ December 4, 2016 at 8:23 AM
1,014 views
Back in July 2015 I wrote this post and this post about arguments that were being used more and more by progressives, as their traditional arguments of “it’s what the government/OFSTED tell us to do” and “it’s what the research…
/ September 16, 2016 at 8:59 AM
872 views
Last week there were stories in the press about a school that enforced its uniform policy (yes, that really was considered newsworthy). Much of the response resembled “school shaming” which I wrote about in this series of posts in the…
/ August 26, 2016 at 8:38 PM
770 views
The College of Teaching popped up again today on social media. I have blogged about this very many times. There has been a prolonged attempt by the education establishment to create a new professional body for teachers, following Michael Gove’s…
/ August 18, 2016 at 10:18 AM
834 views
Apologies for getting a bit behind with these. In May, Schools Week published my review of the best blogs of the week. Purple praise: a spoon full of sugar helps the marking go down By @Xris32 We all know that praise in…
/ August 10, 2016 at 7:53 PM
699 views
I have been writing a series of posts about schools being publicly ‘shamed’ in the press and on social media. The Daily Mail is still shaming schools Don’t Twitter shame a school and call it a debate What’s it like for a…
/ August 10, 2016 at 7:53 PM
625 views
I have been writing a series of posts about schools being publicly ‘shamed’ in the press and on social media. The Daily Mail is still shaming schools Don’t Twitter shame a school and call it a debate What’s it like for a…
/ August 7, 2016 at 7:47 PM
815 views
I’ve written a couple of posts recently about how schools can be “shamed” in the press (usually the Daily Mail) and on social media. Here, I’m going to show what that is like. I’m not going to name the school…
/ July 31, 2016 at 8:30 AM
774 views
Yesterday I wrote about the Daily Mail’s shaming of schools. The stories generally consist of a parent’s complaint about a school, in which the parent describes what the school did, with insufficient attempts to confirm whether it is accurate or…
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