Teaching, be careful what you recommend

Would you recommend teaching to a friend? A family member? Your partner?   I read a post from someone looking to get into teaching on Twitter last week. They wanted to know if it was worth all the financial and time commitments of training. The fifteen or so replies sounded like a resounding yes, they …

Five things being a teacher has taught me

As teachers, we always talk about the progress of our students. We watch them arrive (if you're a secondary school teacher like me) bright-eyed in year 7, and grow almost unrecognizably through to year 11 and sometimes even on to the sixth form. It's one of my favourite parts of the job, which I always …

Five reasons not to work during the holidays

During any holiday season, there always seems to be a big split amongst the teaching community on social media. There are those who are using the time to get ahead with their marking, planning or even going into the classroom to get things organized for the first day back. Then there are those who believe …

Six ways to make time to read when you’re busy

As an English teacher and a writer, I'm obviously all for reading. It won't surprise you to know that when parents of my students ask me what they can be doing to help their children, 90% of the time reading is the answer. That's because of the transformative effect it has... but I think you …

Creative writing mini scheme of work

I love teaching creative writing and young people can be so good at it. They have such great ideas which, when harnessed, creates some great pieces of work. I've already shared the Creative Writing Structure Strips which are incorporated into this short scheme of work.   I've used this a number of times, often when …

The cost of focus

  At the start of the year (now nearly three months ago) I made a pledge that 2019 was going to be the year of focus. Read 2019 THE YEAR OF FOCUS here. In 2018 I felt I was starting a lot of new projects, and enjoying working on a lot of different things, but …

“I haven’t got time for that” re-thinking time scarcity

  "I haven't got time for that." "There just aren't enough hours in the day?" How often have you used one of the above phrases? I would guess, knowing the pressures of modern life, especially those for us involved in education, it's fairly frequent. It seems to be a symptom of our modern age that we're …

How to keep your school e-mail under control

I wasn't a teacher before there was e-mail, but I can imagine that it was a different world. Not commenting on that e-mail chain about a particular student's deteriorating behaviour, checking meeting minutes at the weekend or reading back over a conversation you had six months ago. For all the good things e-mail as brought …

The Recovering Creative

  My name is Luke and I'm a recovering creative. We meet every Thursday night, me and the other recovering creatives, down at the local church hall. Together we share stories of past week's temptations. Some overcome with applause, some succumbed to with derision. This week a lady talked of an inventive filing system she thought …

How to cut your mock exam marking time with feedback appointments

Marking mock exams as a teacher can be the most awful and amazing experience all in one. When a student has it right, when they've done everything you've asked and are flying through the paper, it's beautiful. But when you're trying to decode spider-like waffle which is failing to hit the grade criteria at every …