Archive by Author

New Website

These blogs are from our archive, for new blogs, resources, planning, and news please visit our new website – www.mantleoftheexpert.com

Dorothy Heathcote’s Mantle of the Expert

Dorothy Heathcote died in October 2011 at the age of 85. Although an academic for most of her life, first at Durham and then at Newcastle, Heathcote continued to teach in classrooms almost up until the year she died. For her, teaching was an art, practised in the “service of a process of change” where […]

Teaching Using The Circle of Progression

Ever since I first opened Dorothy Heathcote and Gavin Bolton’s 1995 book “Drama for Learning” I have been intrigued by the diagram on page 61 entitled, ‘The Circle of Progression’… Almost religious in design this icon reminds me of a compass or the astrolabe from the title sequence of Game of Thrones. There is something […]

Play as a medium for learning

Earlier this week Tom Bennett published an article in Guardian Education, called ‘Play is essential, but it takes work for children to succeed in the real world‘. In this article, Tom made the case that ‘learning through play’ is a “powerful vehicle for “folk” learning – the basic components of understanding reality. But is not so great […]

Imaginative Inquiry in New York

Imaginative inquiry has crossed the sea and been taken up by a group of “four progressive educators from New York City and Los Angeles.” Read more here on their website and, if you happen to be in New York in July, find out how to attend an exciting looking training event.

Working collaboratively in the classroom

There is a great deal of discussion about classroom management and how relationships should operate between the teacher and the students in the classroom. In Dorothy Heathcote’s view the classroom should be a ‘laboratory for learning’ where the students and the teacher work together on tasks that are important and urgent in the ‘now’ of […]

Preparing the Ground for Planting Knowledge

Before planting the seeds in her garden, a gardener will turn over the soil, pick out the stones and weeds, water the ground, and do whatever she can to ensure that, once they are planted, her seeds will flourish and grow. As everyone knows, seeds thrown on hard stony ground are unlike to prosper. Some […]

The Three Modes of Teaching

Following a recent discussion after reading Lee Donaghy’s blog, ‘Building ‘abstract generalisations’ to help yr 8 write like historians’, I started to wonder if some of the disagreements we have on teaching methods are to do with a ‘misalignment’ of terms. By which I mean that we seem to have different meanings for the names we […]

Thoughts on a TES ad

While reading the fervent exchanges on EdTwitter surrounding the advert in the TES for a ‘Director of Detention’, I am reminded of the argument made by Jonathon Haidt in his book, ‘The Righteous Mind’. Haidt proposes good people are divided by politics and religion. We all have moral ‘taste buds’ which go a long way […]

The Paradox of Mantle of the Expert: “How can children be experts?”

This extract is from, “A Beginner’s Guide to Mantle of the Expert”    On the face of it Mantle of the Expert seems to involve a paradox: how can we expect children to be experts when they know so little? Doesn’t being an expert require long years of dedicated study, experience, and reflective practice? Won’t […]

Using a painting to start an inquiry

  Over the weekend I read an excellent blog by Harry Fletcher-Wood called, ‘Starting a Lesson With Initial Stimulus Material’. Harry’s blog got me thinking about how I use images with students as a way to generate thinking, grab their interest, and communicate knowledge. This blog is my response. Harry uses three examples of images […]

Some background on Mantle of the Expert

This article was originally published in the BERA blog, ‘Research Matters‘. Dorothy Heathcote died in October 2011 at the age of 85. Although an academic for most of her life, first at Durham and then at Newcastle, Heathcote continued to teach in classrooms almost up until the year she died. For her, teaching was an […]

‘Ways to use Pokemon Go in the Classroom’ – The wrong answer to the right question

This weekend an EdTwitter discussion (some might call it a spat) broke out along the usual Trad v Prog lines after Carl Hendrick drew everyone’s attention to a website called ‘Ways to use Pokemon Go in the Classroom’. During the conversation I found myself falling out with nearly everyone, which was a bit uncomfortable, so […]

Vikings

Author: Tim Taylor Theme: Vikings Age Range: KS2 Main curriculum focus: History – the Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England to the time of Edward the Confessor Inquiry Questions: What was distinct about Viking culture? What were their beliefs and how did these affect their view of the world? Expert Team: Scriptwriters Client: BBC Commission: To […]

Protected: A Beginner’s Guide to Mantle of the Expert

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

A Brief Introduction to Mantle of the Expert

Mantle of the Expert is an education approach that uses imaginary contexts to generate purposeful and engaging activities for learning. Within the fiction the students are cast as a team of experts working for a client on a commission. The commission is designed by the teacher to generate tasks and activities that fulfil the requirements […]

Indiana Jones and the Pragmatic Teacher

There is a scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark[1] where Indiana Jones runs into a bazaar in pursuit of the Nazis who have kidnapped his ‘girlfriend’. Looking this way and that, he jumps up onto a cart full of straw to get a better view, but there is no sign of them and with […]

A way out of the Traditionalist v Progressivist dichotomy

After the execution of Louis XVI a vacuum opened up at the heart of French revolution. Parties who had once been united in opposition to the monarchy and the Ancien Régime splintered into different factions all competing to have their version of the revolution realised. Terror ensued, thousands were killed (estimates range from 16,000 to […]

Earl of Shaftesbury and the Pit Investigation Team

If you spend any time driving around rural Norfolk you are bound to come across a number of Victorian school buildings. Some will have been converted into pretty homes, with roses growing up their redbrick walls, while others still serve their original purpose. They were built in the last quarter of the nineteenth century in […]

Pit Inspection Team

Author: Tim Taylor Theme: Child Labour in Victorian Mines Age Range: KS2 – KS3 Main curriculum focus: History Inquiry Questions: What were working conditions like for children working in Victorian mines? How did the situation change? Expert Team: Pit Inspection Client: Earl of Shaftesbury Commission: To carry out a full inspection of the mines, discover the working […]

Drama for Learning and Mantle of the Expert

Mantle of the Expert doesn’t use drama to perform for others, to ‘act out’ stories or to role-play scenarios. Rather, it uses drama as a means of creating imaginary contexts for learning (dinosaur islands, medieval castles, fairy-tale worlds, Victorian mines), making the curriculum accessible, meaningful and engaging for students. Drama media — theatre, film and […]

Student Engagement: not worth the trouble or critical to learning?

As a teacher, this question really bothers me. It’s the one that gets me most animated on EdTwitter, the one I can’t pass up, the one I find myself gnawing on long after the conversation has finished. Genuinely I can’t understand why people think it’s not important; how can it not be? Bored people don’t […]

Is research-based classroom practice realistic and is it desirable?

On Thursday myself and several other twitter folk were invited to Optimus HQ to discuss the role of research in education. In preparation for the meeting I wrote a short blog trying to capture some of my current thinking on the subject…   Is research-based classroom practice realistic? For me there has always been a […]

Introducing #paintingstalk

Things can happen fast on EdTwitter. Last night at 22:19 I tweeted…     …and by 23:16 #paintingstalk was a thing. Here’s how it works. – Sunday night a volunteer chooses a painting for discussion on the following Tuesday at 20:00 GMT. – They post it on Twitter using the #paintingstalk hashtag. – They post a blog within […]

Important information regarding Ofsted & Assessment

I’ve recently read two important documents regarding changes to Ofsted and the new arrangements for school assessment. These changes will significant affect primary practice and the way schools monitor teaching and learning, as a consequence they are essential reading for everyone in primary eduction.   The first was published by Ofsted in May 2015: Ofsted inspections […]

Visit to Ofsted – May 18th 2015

Sean Harford is a nice man. Which considering the job he does, and the way most of us in education feel about Ofsted, is quite a shock. A bit like fighting your way to the top most tower of Barad Dur only to discover the Mouth of Sauron is… Simon Mayo. Which, of course, is […]

Review: Teach Like a Champion

I see teaching like walking a tightrope. Each step requires a thousand tiny imperceptible adjustments – some consciously made, others automatic – each one edging you and the students along, inch by inch. Tip too far one way towards controlling everything and you’ll lose the interest of the students, tip too far the other, by […]

Would Ofsted disapprove of this lesson?

I taught a lesson today as part of a project I’m doing with three High Schools funded by the Hamlyn Foundation. The session was one of a long sequence looking at the events of the Norwich riots in 1272. After having spent my whole career working in primary education I’m still struggling to come to terms with the […]

KS3 MoE History Project: The Mystery of the Young Monk

From January until July 2015 I am working on a project funded by the Hamlyn Foundation called, “Becoming, Belonging and Participating in School Communities”. The project involves using imaginative-inquiry with students who are struggling with the transition from primary to secondary school.   The schools involved in the project are: 1. Benjamin Britten High School 2. Framingham Earl High School 3. Hellesdon […]

On Dorothy Heathcote by Cecily O’Neill

This is the Introduction to The Collected Writings of Dorothy Heathcote, ed. Liz Jonson & Cecily O’Neill, (Hutchinson, 1984). Published on GoogleBooks. It’s available on Amazon for £14.95. I’ve posted it here as screen grapes from the GooleBooks page, consequently the quality is not great. If you prefer you can download it as a pdf […]

Student Questionnaire

This student questionnaire is designed to be used with students in Year 7 who are currently struggling with issues around transition. It is part of a research project called Becoming, Belonging and Participating in School Communities, funded by the Hamlyn Foundation, which is being conducted between January and July 2015 in three High Schools in Norfolk […]

A Meeting With Tristram Hunt

For years, we’ve been asking politicians to stop meddling in education and give us the time and space to do our jobs, as well as the opportunity to draw-breath and have a proper in-depth review of the whole system. Not a behind closed doors vanity project, driven by one man’s ideological dogma, but a proper […]

Stephen Ball: The Education Debate

Have you ever wondered how government ministers can keep a straight face while making extravagant speeches about giving freedoms to schools and trusting teachers? If we judge them on their record it seems almost impossible they actually believe what they are saying. In 2010, for example, Michael Gove proclaimed during an interview with Andrew Marr, […]

Biesta: The Beautiful Risk of Education

We seem to be in the process of creating an education system that strives to reduce all risks whilst making ever-greater demands. The new system tells our students they have to work harder, be more productive, and aim ever higher, but is not prepared to allow them simple freedoms or opportunities to make choices and […]

Some principles for debating on edTwitter

One of the main reasons I enjoy being on Twitter is the chance to discuss education with teachers all over the world. It is a great forum for bringing people together. However, occasionally things go wrong and people fall out. You may have noticed a large schism has opened up in the last few months […]

The End of Levels: An opportunity or another fine mess?

The DfE has published a 44 page document listing the proposed Performance Descriptors for KS 1&2. Please take a look if you haven’t seen it yet. It is potentially the most explosive hand-grenade thrown into primary education for twenty years. I’ve read it twice now and I’m still struggling to understand how it is supposed to work. […]

Dorothy Heathcote had her critics too

I’ve been digging around in the Heathcote archive for the last few days researching the origins of mantle of the expert for a Chapter in a book. Finding a definitive date for when Dorothy first used the term has been frustrating. The earliest dated document mentioning ‘mantle of the expert’ is an article written by Heathcote […]

KIPP: The difference between teaching, training, and indoctrination

A Teacher who is prepared to have their practice recorded and posted online deserves respect. I’ve done it myself and it’s a risk. I would, therefore, like to make it clear from the beginning this blog is not an attack on the teacher in the film. I’m not going to comment on her style or […]

There is no right way to teach everything

When I was learning to drive I had an instructor. He sat next to me in the car and told me what to do until I knew enough to take the test and go out on my own. This method worked, but it took me two years. I was a very lazy student. I don’t […]

L.S. Vygotsky and Education – Luis C. Moll, 2014

If you have qualified as a teacher in the last ten years there is every chance Lev Vygotsky’s ideas on education played a significant part in your training. Born in Belarus in 1896, Vygotsky’s life was cut short in 1934 when he died from TB. Yet in the few years he worked as an educational […]

Why telling the truth is better for learning

A little while ago the Daily Mail published a story entitled: Teacher apologises to parents after ‘alien egg’ project leaves children ‘in tears and too scared to go to school’ The by-line ran: Problem solving project centred on a 3ft-high egg found in school grounds Children were told the egg was safe, and asked to help […]

Some planning tips for new teachers in Key Stage 1

1. Don’t panic! The curriculum for KS1 is fundamentally about reading, writing, maths, and lots of speaking and listening. There is a small amount of content in the foundation subjects – science, history, geography etc. – but not too much: so breath easy on coverage. For KS1 the curriculum is all about practicing the basic […]

Silence is golden (sometimes)

If we need any more proof that ideology should play no part in directing pedagogy, it is in the matter of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ learning. What even is ‘passive’ learning anyway? If it means doing nothing, then it’s not learning. If it means not speaking or moving around, then it’s not passive. Listening is active […]

Teaching as Story Telling, Kieran Egan

Visit any primary classroom and you will find a corner of the room dedicated to books and reading These are often lovely comfy spaces, scattered with soft cushions to sit on and displays to capture the children’s imagination. They reflect, despite the growing importance of technology in schools, how books still play a central role […]

Play as a medium for learning

Some of the most astonishing photographs taken during the latest Israeli bombardment of Gaza were those of young children playing among the rubble and carnage left by the bombs. It is almost as though the games they were playing were a shield against the horror and bloodshed that surrounded them. They had no power to […]

Review of Expansive Education by Bill Lucas, Guy Claxton & Ellen Spencer

This review was first published in Teach Primary Magazine and is re-published here with their kind permission. It is tempting to think of the education debate as a battlefield. Two sides locked in mortal combat, fighting a never-ending war of ideas. Both convinced beyond doubt they are on the side of the angels, while their enemies […]

NRocks2014 Presentation: Introducing mantle of the expert

These slides and notes are form my presentation at the Northern Rocks conference: PDF (5MB) – moe Introduction Keynote moe intro web                    

A Review of Mindset – Carol Dweck

This article was first published in Teach Primary Magazine and is republished here with their kind permission.   First published in 2006, Mindset has become one of the most influential books in modern day education. Drawing on her research from Stanford University and including many stories of high-achievers from the fields of art, sport, and education, […]

Using Play as a Medium for Learning

This article was written for the Guardian Teacher Network and will appear there soon in a shorter version. The use of play for developing children’s learning is a well-established feature of most early years settings. Visit a nursery, a reception, or many Year One classrooms and you will find ample opportunities for children to play, either […]

A Nagging Problem with Robert Peal’s Progressively Worse

This blog is not intended as a review of Robert Peal’s book, Progressively Worse:The Burden of Bad Ideas in British Schools, it is merely an observation – a sort of inquiry if you like – of something I noticed while I was reading it last week. I’ve had a number of conversations since, one of […]

A short blog on behaviour, challenge, and expectations

I’ve been working in a classroom recently. A classroom where: the children come in without having to line up… choose who they sit next to and who they work with… decide when they have completed a task… and which one to do next… don’t ask to go to the toilet… or to have a drink […]

A Glossary of Questions

Knowing the right question to ask at the right time, one that generates thinking, compels dialogue, and promotes understanding, is a significant part of the art of great teaching. For this reason there are many books on the subject and many teachers have written excellent blogs sharing their thoughts. My favourite book is ‘Asking Better […]

My Top Ten Books on Education (this week)

After a brief Twitter conversation, Phil Stock @joeybagstock suggested we name our Top Ten favourite books on education. Here are mine. They are not, let me stress, a list I expect everyone to agree with. Neither do they represent a definitive Top Ten, the best books on education ever written, or the most influential, seminal […]

The Divisions of Culture

The ‘Divisions of Culture’ is a planning tool that can help teachers and students to think in divergent ways about a subject or context. It is quite easy to use but can be extremely generative: opening up new paths for exploring and studying a subject, as well as suggesting new activities and opportunities for study. […]

DfE Meeting on the new primary curriculum – 8 April, 2014

This blog is about the meeting at the DfE on April 8th, 2014 to discuss the primary national curriculum and assessment changes for implementation in September. The first part contains my notes from the meeting. The second contains a list of my thoughts on how the curriculum should be represented by the DfE as it […]

Another Blog on Not Making Obedience a Virtue

Last week I wrote a blog about obedience. I think it is fair to say it had a mixed response. However, I did have some very interesting conversations on Twitter and there were some very thoughtful comments under the line, so I’ve decided to write a follow up. I’d like to explore in more detail […]

Obedience is not a virtue

A choice I want you to make a choice. The choice is between tyranny and anarchy. If you chose tyranny the country will be run as a dictatorship, backed up by the armed forces. Laws will be made arbitrarily in the interests of those in power. There will be no checks and balances, no free […]

Using a painting to develop curriculum knowledge and understanding

The context Last Friday I spent the day working in a mobile with a wonderful class of Year 5/6. The topic they are studying is the Roman Invasions, which they are enjoying enormously. Their teacher, ‘Mr D.’ (as the children call him), asked if I would plan a day exploring with his students the events […]

Are you a Progressivist?

You may have noticed there is a narrative argument currently popular among some education commentators that lays the blame for all our educational ills at the door of the progressive movement. This argument makes the claim that the progressive movement is built on a central principle, originating from the French philosopher Rousseau, that children are […]

Getting it wrong from the beginning:
 Our progressivist inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget

This is not really a blog, just a copy and paste job from Kieran Egan’s website I hope I’m not breaking any etiquette doing this. You can read the original page here: Introduction The text comes for the Introduction to Kieran Egan’s book Getting it wrong from the beginning  I’ve decided to post it here because […]

Some Problems with Topic Planning

This weekend there developed an interesting conversation on Twitter about the merits and drawbacks of planning using Topics. Several of those involved agreed to write blogs outlining and expanding their views on the subject. List: @MissHorsfall – Creative Cross Curricular Contexts @rpd1972 – Contexts for Learning @ChrisChivers2 – Topic work; taking the long view @cherrylkd – […]

Using dramatic imagination to develop writing

I don’t know about you, but I find teaching children creative writing to be one of the most difficult, yet most rewarding, teaching tasks I do. For the first half of my teaching career I have to confess it was, on the whole, a hit and miss process. Mostly miss to begin with, then, gradually, […]

Scheherazade – Early Islamic civilisation

Author: Tim Taylor Theme: Early Islamic civilisation Age Range: KS2 Main Curriculum Focus: History Inquiry Question: How did Baghdad become the centre of Islamic Culture after AD 768? Expert Team: Story finders/researchers/creators Client: Scheherazade Commission(s): To research the Great Library of Baghdad for Scheherazade searching for new stories to tell the King every night. Context: This planning unit is aimed at […]

Planning for engaging students in the curriculum

One way to think of the curriculum is as a map of a country only partly explored. There are aspects – the coastline, a mountain range, some major rivers – that are well known to previous explorers, but there are others, too – the dark interior – that represent an unknown land waiting to be […]

We are hunters and gatherers of values

Dramatic play, early childhood pedagogy, and the formation of ethical identities. Brian Edmiston- The Ohio State University In his speech accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, Seamus Heaney (1995) recalls a dark hour in the history of sectarian violence in the North of Ireland when, in 1976, a minibus full of workers was stopped by a […]

Scheherazade: Teaching early Islamic civilisation

These resources are for use in the planning unit: Scheherazade: Teaching early Islamic civilisation Introductory film MP4 44MB Music to Scheherazade – Rimsky Korsakov Powerpoint version 20MB

Moving on the Knowledge v Skills debate

The great Knowledge v Skills debate rages on with no sign of it running out of energy: Every week there is a new blog redefining or reiterating the arguments from one side or the other. From my own standpoint, when I first started reading education blogs about a year ago, I found the heat of […]

Make-believe is not the same as lying

Why do primary school teachers lie to their students? Some clarification In answer to this question we first have to ask what we mean by a lie. In the Chambers dictionary a lie is defined as: an intentionally false statement: they hint rather than tell outright lies | the whole thing is a pack of […]

Dweck – Mindset in 60 Tweets

These are my TweetNotes for Mindset. I’m planning to write a blog about it next week: Too busy at the moment. #mindset 2.6 “people have to decide what kinds of relationships they want: ones that bolster their egos or ones that challenge them to grow?” #mindset 2.7 “I’ll never forget the first time I heard […]

Role play: from the ridiculous to the sublime

I don’t like the term role-play. I’ve not liked it since I was asked, as part of a group of PGCE students, to ‘fly’ around the hall pretending to be snow-flakes to the sound of Aled Jones singing, Walking in the Air. I felt a right nob. This hatred of role-play intensified later in the […]

Hirsch and the importance of dialogue

In answer to @webofsubstance: The Pedagogy of Serfdom We must remember, in The Knowledge Deficit, Hirsch is talking about primary education. He understands explicit instruction will be of only limited benefit after a short while – he suggested 40 minutes a day – and only for the teaching, learning and practice of specific ‘skills’ – […]

A lesson on marking from Lilly, aged 7

When my daughter, Lilly, was seven, she brought home from school a pencil drawing of the two-faced god, Janus. She didn’t show me or her mum, but put the picture on a table in the front-room where I found it later that night. When I saw it, I asked her why she hadn’t shown it […]

Some principles for effective marking

In this blog, I want to look at some of the principles underpinning effective marking from the schools I’ve visited and the education blogs I’ve read. The following represents my current thinking on the subject. It is not a definitive list, neither would I call myself an expert. However, from what I understand, the principles […]

Pedagogy for People

It is now six months since @betsysalt made her impassioned plea in  “What I wish teacher bloggers would write about more…” asking for more blogging on the practice of education, in context, with examples from actual practice, with actual children. Her disappointment was that the topics covered by teacher bloggers tended to concentrate on a narrow […]

Links to blogs on marking

About six weeks ago I started work on a blog for the October Blogsync “Marking with Impact”, I thought it would be a quick piece, maybe a few hours work. My focus was on marking for Early Years, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. However, once I got started I soon realised what a […]

Dorothy Heathcote – Four models for teaching & learning

There has been some interest over the past week in the work of Dorothy Heathcote (1926 – 2011).  Heathcote left a great deal of writing stored in the Heathcote Archive at Manchester Met University some of which is available on the mantle of the expert website. Dorothy studied and wrote about drama in education for over sixty […]

Answering some questions on mantle of the expert

On 14th November the anonymous blogger ‘Andrew Old’ made some spurious accusations on Twitter about mantle of the expert being the next Brain Gym and being ‘totally insane’. I tried to answer these allegations but Andrew strategically blocked my account and ignored my repeated offers to discuss his allegations. On Saturday 16th he wrote a […]

Mantle of the expert weekend November 2013 – Notes

Mantle of the expert weekend – Friday

1. Teacher coach
2. This work is about ‘induction’ not instruction
3. About helping children to ‘become’ people
4. This is a pedagogy that is about how we are with children

Creating bridges into the past

Of all the changes in the new National Curriculum the ones made to the programmes of study for history at Key Stage 2 are going to have the most significant effect on the way primary schools organise and plan their provision.

Why learning and having fun are not inimical

Of all the arguments I’ve read, from the plethora of education bloggers over the last year or so, the one I find hardest to get my head round is the supposed dichotomy between enjoyment and learning.

Mantle of the expert weekend – October, 2013

Notes from Saturday morning: Inquiry/enquiry? http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=inquiry The new curriculum: https://curriculum2014.wordpress.com Talking about drama – Inside and outside the fiction – co-constructed, so the children can influence Into the fiction Activity: 1. make up three things about yourself, two a true & one is not. Partner has to work out which is untrue. 2. Take the […]

Mantle of the expert workshop – NATD conference 28th sept 2013

Steps into the imaginary context – Divers

The problem with praise

Two stories from home

We have some film of Finn, our son, when he was a few months old. Claire and I are on our knees on the dinning room floor, taking it in turns filming Finn as he makes his first tentative steps.

Trivium: the answer to the purpose of education?

When thinking about the purpose of education it is easy to see how the wider aspirations of the state can clash with the more human concerns of students and their families…

Ancient Greece

The remains of a young hoplite from Ancient Greece are found in a cave. It appears from the evidence that the soldier was trapped in the cave when the roof fell in. Along with the remains of his body, archaeologists discover his weapons, armour and a bag of personal possessions.

Imagination in History Teaching

John Fines

This essay is from the late historian and teacher, John Fines (1938 – 1999)
Published posthumously in the International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research, 2002

Some further planning for The Roman Box Unit: Boudicca & the Romans

This planning is an additional sequence of steps for the Unit: The Roman Box

Making learning urgent and important

I had been teaching for four years before I thought to ask my class what they thought was the purpose of school. The answers I got back where fairly predictable, “To get a good job when I’m older”; “To make more money”; “To learn more stuff”. These children were seven.

Kindertransport

Author: Emma Bramley Theme: World War Two Age Range: KS2 Main Curriculum Focus: History, Literacy Expert Team: Children’s Authors and Publishers Client(s): The Information Centre Commission: To create a children’s book which will tell the story of the evacuation of children from Prague to Britain in the lead up to World War Two Context: In the lead up to World War Two Nicolas […]

Planning for The Romans KS2 – Curriculum 2014

This blog is an edited version of an article that first appeared in the magazine, Creative Teaching and Learning in Spring 2013 and is reprinted here with their kind permission. It outlines the first steps into an imaginative-inquiry context that could be used as a topic for a Key Stage 2 class studying the Roman invasions and settlement.

Thirteen things I try to remember at the start of a new year

1. Learn the children’s names as quickly as you can – use mnemonics and include the students in the process. Ask for their help.

Some thoughts on the Canon

This post is in response to @debrakidd [ref] and the very interesting discussion that followed. It was originally intended as a comment, but grew too long and became a blog.

Why we should stop talking about ‘delivering’ the curriculum

For a long while now, delivery has been the accepted analogy for curriculum design and teaching. First appearing in the educational lexicon about the same time as the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit in the early years of the Labour Government, it soon became the go-to metaphor for anyone talking about the teaching and learning process in the late 90s.

ED Hirsch – Really not the bogeyman Part 2

This blog continues not unexpectedly from the previous Blog, “ED Hirsch – Really not the bogeyman Part 1”

ED Hirsch – Really not the bogeyman Part 1

Over the last two or three years E.D. Hirsch, a retired Professor of Education and Humanities from Virginia, USA, and his ideas on why American education doesn’t work, have become a cause célèbre. He is considered, depending on your point of view, either an inspirational guru of great insight or a pantomime villain with dangerously reactionary views.

Why Lev Vygotsky keeps me awake at night

I was up late last night arguing with my arch-enemy Harry Webb aka @webofsubstance. I think it fair to say Harry and I have divergent views on education, nevertheless, we are always careful to be polite and try hard to end our disagreements on a friendly note. The topic of last night’s discussion was a sentence in Harry’s latest blog: [Ref] where he stated, “Social Constructivism is a type of discovery learning.”

Cognitive Psychology – Apply with Extreme Caution

I’ve always thought it interesting how as a profession we find the ideas of cognitive psychologists so beguiling and persuasive.

All it is cracked up to be? Some notes on Daniel Willingham’s ‘Why Don’t Students Like School?’

Finally I got round to reading Daniel Willingham’s ‘Why Don’t Students Like School?’ It’s been on my desk for quite a while after being recommended to me by a number of friends. It is probably the most frequently referenced book on the education blogosphere and certainly amongst the most contentious.

The following blog represents my notes and thoughts, which I started on Twitter and some people have said they found useful. I have tried as much as possible to write using Willingham’s own words. It is not an interpretation of his argument, rather an outline of the main subjects and some thoughts and opinions of my own. Most, but not all, are complementary.

The road less travelled

This article first appeared in Teach Primary and is re-printed here with their kind permission.

I like to imagine the curriculum as a map of a country only partly explored. There are aspects – the coastline, a mountain range, some major rivers – that are well known to previous explorers, but there are others, too – the dark interior – that represent an unknown land waiting to be discovered. Of course, some parts of the new world we are told we have to visit, these are the mandatory places every traveller goes to, but there are others only we will find; places for us to explore and put on the map.

Art and Design – Less content, same objectives

The art and design programmes of study have been noticeably reduced in the new curriculum. However, the aims and purposes remain very much the same.

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