The (Passionately) Boring Teacher

One of the best pieces of advice I was given when I started my PGCE was this: “You are not their friend.” Unfortunately, like many student teachers, I briefly fell into the “favourite teacher” trap. I like to think that I have climbed out of it. However, an article I read in the TES appears to be trying to direct teachers straight into the pit. ( https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/being-a-nice-teacher-works-my-pupils-me-and-i-them-all-them ) I have three main issues with this article: I am not a miracle worker. This blog seems to perpetuate the damaging notion that if you are good enough at managing behaviour in your classroom, the children will behave. Apparently, if your seating plan is good enough, you can achieve silence and an entire classroom of pupils who are on task. If you don’t have silence, that’s the fault of your poor seating plan, isn’t it? I like to think that I have quite a formidable reputation at my school; I have reached the point wher...

In true history teacher form, I often think about the factors which contribute to changes in my practice. Over the last few weeks, this factor has been luck, bad luck specifically; the car of a good friend of mine broke down a few weeks ago and, while she’s been waiting for it to be repaired, I’ve been driving her to work every morning. While this is unexceptionally unlucky for her (both having to deal with her car and deal with me at 6:50 every morning), it has been good luck for me; this particular friend is a very conscientious English teacher with a particular interest in meeting the needs of SEN students. As a result, the drive to work every morning has provided me with an excellent opportunity to pick her brain about her subject and how it links with history. I have always firmly believed that, in order for pupils to be successful in history, they need to be taught how to read for meaning, how to construct an argument and how to write that argument in a sophisticated and log...

The ethos behind my department's use of knowledge organisers: In my previous blogs, I have discussed the elements of a good knowledge organiser and I have explained the process I use to write knowledge organisers. My school creates knowledge organisers on the principle that they should contain the foundational knowledge needed to be successful in a topic . However, unless knowledge organisers are effectively woven into a unit of work, they serve as add-ons which very few pupils will independently take advantage of. The humanities department in my school has developed a system which ensures that knowledge organisers can be used to their maximum benefit and that their use is underpinned by methods advocated by contemporary research into cognitive science, specifically self-testing , interleaved practice and  spaced practice. The process which we use to give feedback is also designed to minimise teacher workload  while ensuring pupil accountability . The general uses of kn...

In my last post, “Knowledge Organisers: the good, the bad and ugly”, I argued that while knowledge organisers can be a powerful tool of inclusion, they only work if they are focused, sequential and accessible . When I first started writing knowledge organisers two years ago, my attempts did not even come close to meeting these criteria. As a result, they were cluttered, unfocused and ultimately an exercise in fashion over function. Since then, I have devised a standard method to ensure that any knowledge organisers I make have an impact and can be used in the long term: Identify key knowledge. Group your facts into sections. Write your sections. Number or code your sections. Quality assure your sections. 1.        Identify key knowledge It’s easy to fall into the trap of including too much in a knowledge organiser, particularly when writing about topics we’re interested or about which we know a lot. We want to share our passion and subject...