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Education, cycling and marginal gains
To raise educational achievement you should identify all the contributing factors and continually seek to improve each one little by little
The most important building learning power muscle
One of the most important things that teachers can do in lessons to consolidate learning is to constantly encourage students to make links. Link to as much as possible of what they have learnt in that subject and also to what they are learning in other subjects. An analysis of how we learn seems to suggest that this is the most important building learning power muscle.
It’s all in the question
Teachers should ask a lot of questions. Questions allow us to ascertain current understanding and to push students to the next level. As such they are most effective when they involve as many students as possible.
Is your learning falling off the edges?
A spiral model of learning will stop new learning from dropping off the edges as it will continually develop and reinforce the links between current and new understanding
The WHY of learning environments
What supermarkets, London 2012, Obama, The Great British Bake Off, routine and the colour yellow tell us about learning environments.
Raising Attainment
The biggest impact upon student attainment is the teacher that stands in front of them. There are numerous systems that can be put in place to raise attainment but what are most successful are those that improve that which has the biggest impact, the teacher. As such school leaders wishing to raise attainment should primarily concern themselves with improving the quality of these teachers.
Why our brains need flipped classrooms
Providing content before the lesson increases student creativity and allows new ideas to be brought and used within the lesson
What motivates school staff? A lesson from Google
Empowering and encouraging staff to formulate their own ideas and to actually implement them will serve as the highest form of motivation
An Indian Education
My recent visit to Indian schools highlighted the transformational power that effective school leadership can have, how education can change lives, how a ‘different’ style of examination system can foster high level thinking skills, why teachers should act as a ‘distanced friend’, the power of Skype, how children can make their parents ‘live better’ and why we should focus on nature and heritage