Here are my posts by category:
Teaching English
- Evidence to Essence: Quotations that encapsulate themes and characters
- Written in the Tsars: Context in Animal Farm
- Shakespeare and the perception of incomprehensibility
- The Characteristics of Artistic Statistics
- x=y: a threshold concept in English
- Persuasive techniques: studying not spotting
- An English teacher’s library
- Style over substance
- Trying to be a better English teacher
- Filling subject knowledge gaps
- Navigating the Islands of Poetry
- Old texts, new perspectives
Writing
- Paragraph pairs
- Structuring persuasive paragraphs
- Routines for excellent writing
- Working with mentor texts
- Revision before redrafting
- Mentor mats
- Writing endings
- Developing the art of the sentence
- Revision Decisions: Proposition Composition
- Developing the art of the sentence
Practice and Rehearsal
- A culture of practice
- Practising classroom routines
- Subject specific practice
- Developing the art of the sentence
- Talking to myself
Feedback
- Teaching is Better than Marking
- TLT15 Part 1: Closing real gaps with data days
- TLT15 Part 2: In-class interventions
- Solving the problems of feedback
- Getting on top of marking
- Written feedback using mailmerge
- The Sharepocalypse: Written Feedback
- Evaluating the impact of written feedback
- Feedback on my feedback
- The books that fall through the cracks
- More Effective Written Feedback
- Mini-whiteboards: the essential classroom tool
CPD
- Personalised CPD
- Team teaching
- Why we should all lead training
- Developing teachers in the age of ‘no prescribed methodology
- The same but different
- Collaboration
- I coach therefore I learn
- Driving your own CPD
- 5 Questions to ask about your CPD
- Improve behaviour to improve teachers
Vocabulary development
- The vocabulary gap
- Unfamiliar words part 1: Context
- Unfamiliar words Part 2: Dictionaries and word parts
- Choosing which words to teach
- Getting on top of homework
Cognition and Memory
Reflecting on practice
- Disagreeing with myself
- How and why we reflect
- The mid-year review
- Student voice
- Work life balance
- Old year’s resolutions
Teaching
- Why I’m in favour of ready made resources
- Teacher workload: Can it be sustained?
- Teacher Workload Reports: Initial Thoughts
- Better teachers of our subjects
- Building classroom routines
- The Space Between the Question and the Answer
- Launching new ideas
- Authentic audiences
- Remixing Texts
- Making connections
- Ofsted lesson observations
- Mind reading (lesson observations)
- Without apology
- Progress investigators
- Restriction and creativity
- Technology that makes my life a little easier
- Doing things so you don’t have to do them
Reading
Leading in Learning Issue 1
Leading in Learning Issue 2
I am studying a number of Norman MacCaig’s poems in class and found that your interpretation of “to make stylish triangles with their ballet dancers legs.” really helped my gain a new understanding for those lines. Thank-you.
Thank you Meg. It’s a while since I wrote that blog – glad to see it is still useful!