EdBlogs

Is your school full of hedgehogs or foxes? Hedgehogs are people who are committed to certain ideas, and will stick with them even when they've been shown to fail. Foxes are people know lots about everything, but not everything about anything – they are pragmatic, prone to self-doubt and willing to admit when they are wrong. In his 2005 study Expert...

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...

With the new year underway, you might find your resolutions being put to the test. You're tired and the gym is busy; the weather is awful and a huge bowl of pasta would cheer you up; you can't even think about retiring so why bother with savings? People love to set goals, but there can be such a big gap between intention and action that resolutions...

It's not often that an education policy inspires unison in the sector, but the government's proposal to re-introduce grammar schools seemed to do just that, bringing the vast majority of education professionals together to say what a terrible idea it was. "The aims are entirely honourable," says Patrick Watson, a policy analyst and communicati...

I have previously drawn attention to differences in expert opinion over the usefulness of statistical significance testing, particularly in regard to randomised controlled trials (RCTs). Now it's time to look at what can go wrong with RCTs, and the questions you need to ask when judging the trustworthiness of the associated research findings. What ...