EdBlogs

What is it?  ​It depends who you speak to. For some, homework is a way to develop students' independent learning skills and ensure they have understood – and then consolidate – work from the classroom. Others, meanwhile, contend that it's a largely pointless tradition that brings stress to young people and their families, robbing them of much-...

One of the challenges faced by school research leads is the need to engage with colleagues who have different views about the role of evidence in bringing about improvement. In fact, it's not just the role of evidence that's likely to be debated – you might even face differing views about the evidence itself. In 2010, two researchers – Brendan Nyha...

A few weeks ago I wrote about the need for school leaders to be appropriately critical of educational and management gurus. One such guru is John Kotter, whose name is often found on lists of the world's leading management thinkers. But Kotter's influence is not just limited to business – last month, leading educationalist Andy ...

We've all heard that it's the most important meal of the day, but research has made it official: breakfast is linked to better performance in the classroom. According to a study from Cardiff University in 2015, the odds of an 11-year-old student achieving above average in a test were twice as high for those who ate breakfast compared with those who...

If there's one thing that schools have plenty of, it's people. There aren't many jobs that require you to interact with so many people every day; in addition your pupils, there are parents, members of staff in your department, those in other subject areas and the wider school community. It can be tempting to stay in your classroom and soldier on wh...