EdBlogs

Welcome to EdBlogs, where you'll find education insights, analysis and stories from the frontline. If you've got a story to tell, send it over to ed@edcentral.uk and if we think it's relevant to our network we'll publish it :-)

How to get the most out of lesson observations

There are certain things that you will be doing a lot of as a teacher: planning, marking, telling pupils to tuck their shirts in. Then there are the things you will want to do a lot more of: sleeping, extracurricular adventures, sleeping. Observations, however, absolutely need to be in the first group – they may not be scheduled into your timetable...
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Can't convince your colleagues about the value of evidence? You may be a victim of the backfire effect

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...
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How to stop research interventions that don't seem to work: 10 key steps

In early December, there was a strange alignment between the real-world and Twitter when the issue of evidence-based practice in education was discussed in three conversations: The Coalition for Evidence-Based Education talked about the notion of strategic abandonment (thank you @DrCarolineCreaby)Later in the evening, #DebatED discussed "wheth...
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If teachers could learn from each other more, maybe teaching could be a lifelong profession – not a four-year sacrifice

When I started in teaching, I wanted to copy everything I loved about the teachers who had made a difference to me. By the time I started in the classroom I was very much in favour of being tough on kids and demanding superb output from them. I was anti-liberal and, looking back, too much so. Teaching English was a huge amount of fun, but in my ear...
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Get it right, and teaching is life-transforming and exciting. Get it wrong, and stress takes over

 Teaching is a highly nuanced, complex art, where the most effective teachers build up a range of strategies over years and years of practice. I opted out of the classroom too early to do that, and moved into what in many ways is a less complex, but equally demanding, role of senior administrator, or leader, in schools. I taught for about 15 y...
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