EdBlogs

This week I did something that I probably wasn't supposed to: I looked up some of my old students on Facebook. I would never add students or chat with them on social media – despite requests popping up all over the place – but in a moment of procrastination, curiosity got the better of me. So I took a look. I left that school (my first) three years...

As far back as 1999, Professor Robert Coe, in his Manifesto for Good Education, argued that too many policies have been imposed on schools without adequate evidence about their likely effects and costs. This approach was as much a waste of public money and professionals' time then, as it is now.  While education may not be an exact science, Co...

What is it?  Performance-related pay (PRP) is the policy, introduced in September 2014, that links teachers' pay increases to their performance, rather than them automatically moving up the pay scale (as they had previously done). The criteria for awarding a pay increase lies with each school's governing body, although the government recommend...

By Bradley Busch and Alex Lucas  "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." This old African proverb – often associated with Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore after he tweeted it in reference to climate change – will ring true for any school leader trying to steer their school towards success. The senior leadership ...

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...