Knowledge or Skills? In his recent speech to the Education World Forum, Nick Gibb strongly advocated for a move away from ‘child-centred’ pedagogies towards ‘teacher-led education’. In this speech, he questions the validity of a child-centred approach, suggesting that there is a “…focus on eliciting and developing ethereal and often poorly-defined skills in pupils.” He [...]
Those of you who work with ITT providers will be interested to read the following article which offers some wonderful news for those of us who are committed to high quality school-based teacher training. Well done to all those providers who were inspected in this round – the hard work is paying off! With many [...]
A shocking statistic! Today I read a statistic which surprised me…and having spent the last 9 years working in Education, I didn’t think I could still be surprised! The headline read “one in three NQTs leaving the profession”. One in three! Just think about that for a second. Given the cost in time and resource [...]
Teacher Workload: Ofsted are sitting up and taking notice…are you? Further to my previous blogs on teacher workload, it may interest many of you to note that Ofsted has recently issued guidance to its inspectors warning them not to place high value on extensive marking for its own sake. In their most recent ‘School Inspection [...]
Further to my recent blog on teacher workload, the NCTL have sent out the following message urging schools to review their policies and practice with regards to marking. The message is clear, schools must take steps to ensure that marking is “meaningful, manageable, and motivating”. The key word here is manageable – make it your [...]
The White Paper may be on the back-burner but the government’s ambition for all schools to become academies was firmly reiterated yesterday in a statement from the DfE announcing new funding for school improvement to be released from September 2017. Justine Greening does, however, recognise the need to support all schools whilst there continues to [...]
If you weren't already aware that the Government is taking an interest in teacher workload then now is the time to sit up and take notice! As far back as October 2014, the DfE was setting up a workload review which revealed three key areas that were impacting heavily on teacher workload: Marking, Data Management and [...]
We know that everyone is incredibly busy and sometimes there's just no time to read all of the emails which hit your inboxes. The aim of this blog is to bring together the key information that you need to know in one easy to reach place. The blog will form the basis of a regular [...]