EdBlogs

What is it?  The belief that smaller class sizes mean better results for pupils. It's an idea that has huge support among parents, who (understandably) follow the logic that if there are fewer pupils in class, their child will get more attention and be more likely to succeed. The public are quick to jump on the bandwagon too. In his book, Davi...

Best known for: Since its launch The Learning Spy has had over a million visitors and won a number of awards. Didau writes about ordinary teachers' constraints and irritations, exploring his own successes and failures from his years of teaching, as well as the latest education research and cognitive psychology. He has also written four books explor...

It's well-known that there's a timebomb in teaching right now – the sector is struggling with both recruitment and retention, while the population of pupils keeps increasing. And yet, many experienced older teachers, particularly women , feel that they are being performance managed out of their jobs, to be replaced by younger, cheaper staff. Those ...

​ He was a kid I'd barely noticed. I'd been teaching the class for just a few weeks and, as is always the case, certain heads had raised themselves above the parapet: the defaulters, the jokers, the forgetful and the attention-seekers. But this lad had been quietly going about his own business. He always gets the work done; he rarely forgets t...

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...