How to relax as a teacher

It's Christmas eve 2017 as I write this and we've made it to the holiday! What a long term. But, walking back to my car through the school car park on Friday I noticed colleagues loading box upon box of work into their cars - as if they're not taking time off, just working from …

Improving students’ inference skills with pictures

The third post in a series about how to improve the inference skills of your students, and why that's so important.

Why are students’ inference skills important?

Inference is a difficult skill to learn, but it is an essential one for all students sitting written exams. With that in mind, I'm going to post for the next couple of weeks with some ideas you can use to develop students' inference skills, not just in English, but across the curriculum. 

Use my PAWS structure to get more from your students’ reading

Having students sit and read is easy, and it’s great for so many reasons. It develops their reading skills, which in turn improves vocabulary, general knowledge, understanding of texts, concentration, emotional intelligence (the list goes on). But, how can you be sure they’re actually doing it? Not looking out of the window or day dreaming? …

Time for teaching, time for you

Teaching is full on - everyone knows that. From that first day back, late nights marking, parents’ evenings, to the caffeine fuelled last day of term. Sometimes we all feel overworked, and I suppose that’s normal. We’re very quick to teach our students about the techniques they need to succeed, but do we think about …

Becoming “read fit”

I think every teacher I've ever spoken to loves reading. I think it's part of the job. The fact you are reading this now is a symptom of it. But what you’re doing is the result of years of practice, dedication, mistakes and successes to make you “read fit” – you are an athlete and reading …