When a measure becomes a target
5A*-C or Progress 8? Just a remind to myself, When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. – Goodhart’s law Though Progress 8 may be a broader measure of achievement, it is still a measure. As …
Teaching
Applying teaching strategied, techniques and ideas.
Learning beyond the curriculum
A clash of ideas – a prefabbed badging Diploma recognising the wider / extra curricular learning experiences of pupils at The Wellington Academy. A leadership request to developed the RESPECT values agenda. A student leadership created values construct that we needed …
Questions or statements
You can be wrong answering a question. You can not be wrong answering a statement. As I was preparing my AOB at the SLT meeting I called up a sticky note. On one of the “used” notes was the above …
Raising the profile anti-bullying
Sharing an hour commute with my two Vice Principal colleagues has arguable been the best professional development I have experienced. The week / term ahead is always discussed and most return journeys focus on the decisions of the day, “washed-up,” challenged and …
Education Magpies
We are all educational magpies aren’t we? Last year the Teaching and Learning team encouraged our Executive Principal to turnover the Wednesday briefing to a Teaching and Learning briefing. There has been a range of applications; our VP sharing positive feedback …
Fractions, decimals and percentages
The unit practice paper certainly presented the pupils with a serious challenge. Many of the pupils found understanding / decoding the actual question more difficult then maths required to solve it. As their teacher, I learnt that “decoding questions” is a skill …
FFTaspire Conference 2015
I would like to thank Marc Davies for the invitation to attend this years FFTaspire Conference. I have today, put on record my appreciation to the FFTaspire team. I noted their teams openness and receptiveness to our feedback (occasionally frank …
Viral homework
Back in the summer I read an article that made its way over from America and onto Twitter – “The summer homework assignment that went viral.” I bookmarked the article and added a note to my diary for next May. …