EdBlogs

"Let down your buckets!" Mr Wilkes shouts at window-shaking volume. It's 1993 or 1994 and I am in my earth science class, a subject I think would be called geography today. Mr Wilkes paces the front of the room, red-faced and miming semaphore. "The becalmed ship flagged back its reply. We need fresh water! We need to drink!" We all lean forward, th...

In an ideal world, the final stretch before the summer holidays would be a gradual, relaxing wind down. In reality, it can feel more like a panicked sprint – or an agonising crawl – to the finish line. The days of sticking on a DVD and being done with it are (largely) over, but there are still ways to lighten the load as the final day approaches. W...

Every professional who is new to leadership – or takes up a new leadership role – needs to consider how they develop relationships with those they lead. The same is true if you are promoted internally. There are many benefits and potential drawbacks to being promoted to a leadership position within a school where you are already employed. What is i...

A specialist in the economics of education, Eric Hanushek is a Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an American public policy think tank at Stanford University. He gained his PhD in economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1968 and now regularly writes for the Wall Street Journal. Quick facts: Nationalit...

A new guide from US-based Mathematica Policy Research's Center for Improving Research Evidence, explains to educators how to tell which type of research evidence supports claims about effectiveness, ordering them from the weakest (anecdotal) to the strongest (causal). The guide gives examples of common sources for each type of evidence, such as mar...