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Teaching Philosophy Statements: What are they and how do I write one?

Lewis A Baker, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, UK Introduction The purpose of this article is to justify the engagement in developing a teaching philosophy statement and to scaffold the writing process. For those already familiar with such documents, this article will argue for the value of revisiting a teaching philosophy […]

Student agency and sustainability

Introduction Agency, defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as ‘the ability to take action or to choose what action to take’ (n.d.) refers in an educational context to the ability to determine one’s own learning goal and the process of pursuing that goal (Vaughn, 2018). Agency may be used in a moral, social, economic, or creative […]

Conducting inclusive research

In order for educational research to understand and represent a diverse range of experiences from different groups, it is important that educational research practices are inclusionary. Inclusion is an important consideration at every stage of the research process (research design, data collection, analysis and reporting) to ensure that the voices of underrepresented groups in particular […]

The challenge of teaching and learning angles: A pedagogic intervention

Introduction Promoting pupils’ conceptual learning is one overarching goal that teachers might have in order to help pupils understand mathematics in a way that goes beyond just following a technique to reach an answer. The objective to support pupils’ conceptual mathematics learning can be accomplished through evidence-based practice where teachers learn with and from each […]

Everybody is talking about ChatGPT: Should educators be excited or apprehensive?

Introduction ChatGPT, or Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, is a natural language processing (NLP) artificial intelligence (AI) system, a machine-learning system that has been trained on a massive dataset of text from the internet, including books, articles, and websites (Bessette, 2023). As a large language model (LLM), ChatGPT uses machine learning algorithms to analyse this data […]

The evaluation of information by sixth-formers: A study in decision-making processes

Introduction The evaluation of information is a key skill associated with modern independent learning. Indeed, it is fundamental to Callison’s (2014, p. 23) principle, distilled from the literature, that ‘analysis skills must dominate student use of the internet’, in particular. Even in the age when most information materials took paper form, source appraisal was invariably […]

Teachers: The forgotten health workforce

Original article by: Lowry C, Leonard-Kane R, Gibbs B et al. (2022) Teachers: the forgotten health workforce. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 115(4): 133–137.    Introduction Amidst rising rates of mental illness among children, this commentary highlights the role of teachers as the forgotten health workforce. According to the Mental Health of Children and […]

Saving lives in schools

Joanna Johnson, Associate Trainer (Grassroots Suicide Prevention), ASIST Trainer (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills), Papyrus Volunteer (Prevention of Suicide in Young People), and  Head of Department and Psychology Teacher, Monmouth School for Girls, UK If you were asked what the leading cause of death was in young people, what would you say? Drugs or Alcohol? Car […]

Encouraging positive behaviour online

Frankie Bisset, Emily Giubertoni, Jodie Jethwa Our setting is a voluntary-aided non-selective secondary school for ages 11-18 in Birmingham. We are a Catholic school, catering to around 1200 students with approximately 26 per cent on free school meals (FSM). As Ofsted (2022) recently described, ‘the way in which pupils relate to each other online can […]

Alphabetic writing systems: The importance, and limits, of phonics

John Bald (FCCT) Independent educational consultant. Former tutor in charge, Reading and Language Centres, Essex Education Department. Introduction Controversy over methods of teaching reading and spelling began with the spread of state primary education in the nineteenth century, and soon occupied similar ground to that of today (Parker, 2021). Should children be taught to recognise […]