It is the best of times, it is the worst of times, but your NQT year is never dull. Last Sunday, we held an NQT surgery on Twitter to look at some of the issues facing new teachers in that high-pressure period. Here are the highlights: What are your top tips for surviving and thriving the NQT year? John Socha, primary school educator and the creato...

The thing about being a school teacher – be it primary, secondary, early years or whatever – is that you see an awful lot of interesting behaviour in the course of your daily grind. There is always someone doing something unusual, and, a large amount of these behaviours have at their heart a desire to get something that they really want: not time o...

One of our NQT surgeries looked at how new teachers can spend the holidays wisely – with the overwhelming advice being to relax, recuperate and not think about work. We know that's easier said than done, however. But rather than taking on mountains of planning or crafting intricately annotated seating plans (which you'll almost definitely have...

Where does he work? Goldacre is currently a senior clinical research fellow at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine in the Department of Primary Care in the University of Oxford. He is also a bestselling author, broadcaster, campaigner and medical doctor who specialises in unpicking the misuse of science and statistics by journalists, politicians...

Like most teachers, I did well at school. I messed about a bit – nothing massive, just chatting and doing that FLAMES thing where you worked out your "love percentage" with someone. Of course there were subjects that I was less keen on (I'm looking at you, geography), but I liked learning and it generally came pretty easily to me. Fast forward thro...