St John Fisher (SJF) Catholic High School is a non-selective, voluntary-aided secondary school educating boys and girls from ages 11-18. We are in the Catholic Diocese of Leeds and the North Yorkshire local authority. At 16+ we are an associated sixth form with St Aidan’s C of E High School, meaning we share students and […]
The seed of an idea In 2013, our school had been judged by Ofsted to ‘require improvement’ and we were operating out of a building site. Pupils were taught in portacabins separated by a much reduced playground, and our staff was facing a rather uncertain and challenging future. We needed a strategy that would inspire, […]
Arts and Creativity as a Family of Schools and as a Cultural Education Partnership The City of London Family of Schools is comprised of 14 schools for which the City of London Corporation is the sponsor, proprietor or local education authority. The 14 schools include academies with above average levels of pupil premium, independent schools, […]
Aims The University of Cambridge Primary School (UCPS) is committed to developing a broad and balanced curriculum with the arts (dance, music, drama) playing a central part in its vision. To inspire children to learn through creative activities (Craft et al., 2012) and to encourage them to release their imaginations (Greene, 1995), the school organises […]
Bowen DH and Kisida B (2019) Investigating Causal Effects of Arts Education Experiences: Experimental Evidence from Houston’s Arts Access Initiative. Rice Kinder Institute for Urban Research. Introduction Advocates for arts education sometimes claim that apart from its intrinsic benefits, it can also have a positive influence on students’ academic and social development. There is, however, […]
Siddal Moor Sports College is a comprehensive secondary school with 900 pupils on roll and 50 per cent pupil premium. The expressive arts department has six teachers: two drama teachers, three art teachers and one music teacher. Some of them teach across subjects and the drama staff also deliver creative media and dance. The number […]
Nichol J and Andrews K (2018) Oracy-Dialogics through the lens of the Cambridge Primary Review. Education 3-13 46(6): 620–635. Introduction This paper explores the principles of Oracy-Dialogics through a case study in a Cambridge Primary Review flagship school. It focuses on the importance of a whole-school philosophy and describes the implementation of Oracy-Dialogics in a […]
Our working memory, which we use to temporarily store and manage information, has a small capacity and is really put to the test when we are taught new information. It’s worth bearing this in mind when creating and using PowerPoint presentations in your teaching. What does it mean? Some researchers suggest that there are three […]
Homework works best when it is a targeted, well-designed strategy to support learning and understanding. Digital technology offers the opportunity to re-design homework tasks to take advantage of multimedia recording and editing tools. What does it mean? New digital tools and resources can be very enticing and many certainly have the ‘wow factor’. We need […]
Metacognition and self-regulation strategies have been shown to boost attainment and achievement (EEF, 2018). Yet, somewhat paradoxically, securing optimal levels of independent learning works best when it’s a teacher-led process – and this is where making your resources available online can be really helpful. What does it mean? There are no simple strategies to achieve […]
Quizzes and tests are not just good for assessing how much a student knows and what they still need to learn to inform future planning. Online quizzing tools also support teachers to check pupil understanding and help students take advantage of the ‘testing effect’. What does it mean? Research into the ‘testing effect’ shows that […]
Visualisers help you feedback to the whole class at once by projecting specific samples of student work while you model answers, defuse common misconceptions and provide scaffolding to better performance. What does it mean? Feedback can take many forms, but marking is one of the most common – and the workload associated with traditional marking […]
Simon Balle All-through School has a primary phase from reception to Year 4 and a full secondary phase. We have 1420 on role and our music team consists of two full-time staff for curriculum, as well as 16 instrumental teachers; each of varying hours, who are employed by the school and the local music service […]
In 2016, I was teaching in an international school in Paris. We had more than 60 nationalities and a high turnover, with students usually only staying for two or three years on average. The effect of home and geographical cultures, as well as the ‘third culture kid’ phenomenon experienced by students, cannot be underestimated. My […]
In recent years, there has been much interest in the potential benefits of both group work and of mixed attainment grouping, but also recognition that these are hard to get right and that they may also have negative consequences. In this article, the author reflects on a piece of action research she undertook to understand […]
We had teachers from different stages and phases of their career ready to answer all your questions, from how to cope with an increased timetable to their top behaviour management strategies.
It’s important to develop well-formulated and answerable questions when you start to look at research so that you use your time efficiently. What does it mean? The right question helps you to: develop effective search strategies focus on evidence that directly addresses your needs communicate more clearly with colleagues when requesting support and guidance. PICOT […]
You will not be short of challenges to which you will want to turn your attention, so once you have developed your challenges into well-formulated questions, you then need to identify the most important question on which to focus. What does it mean? There are a couple of models you can use to prioritise where […]
With so much research evidence available, it can be helpful to use a hierarchy of evidence to help you make a judgement on how much weight to give different types of research. What does it mean? The hierarchy of evidence is an attempt to rank different types of studies based on the rigour of the […]
