Many teachers struggle with the idea of connecting their own practice to the latest educational research. How many consciously set aside time to discover and digest research, browse the latest education publications and research oriented blogs or discuss research with their peers? This answer is probably - not many. Even given the many time pressur...

Professor Simon Burgess of the University of Bristol says: "Having a good teacher as opposed to a mediocre or poor teacher makes a big difference. Teacher effectiveness matters enormously. A pupil being taught for eight GCSEs by all effective teachers (those at the 75th percentile of the teacher effectiveness distribution) will achieve an overall G...

Progress in neuroscience is rapidly influencing the way we think about teaching and learning. Cognitive scientists and behavioural psychologists now claim to have a better understanding – based on new empirical evidence – of how our minds and memories work, how and why we make decisions and how we learn. Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary fi...

If there is a holy grail in education, then it is probably to improve the education outcomes of our most disadvantaged pupils and narrow the performance gap between them and their peers. It has certainly been a key objective of successive governments. To tackle the long tail of under-achievement, the Coalition government introduced the Pupil Premiu...

It's the joke answer to that difficult job interview question: "My biggest weakness is that I'm a perfectionist." But the reality of perfectionism isn't funny, with massive stress caused by unrealistic expectations. When you start any new job – but particularly one as all-encompassing as teaching – it is natural to want to hold yourself to a high s...