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Curriculum
Particles and Scale. Two key ideas in teaching science.
Here are two short excerpts from my first book Teach Now! Science, The Joy of Teaching Science the 2014 Routledge series edited by Geoff Barton. Particles Across the entirety of a school life, students will develop an ever more sophisticated idea about the structure of matter and how materials are made up of particles – … Continue reading
Curriculum Thinking. Blog collection all in one place.
I’ve written a lot about curriculum in the last year or so… so here’s a one-stop-shop to access them all in place: Clarification about the idea of ‘knowledge rich’ and the wider context. What is a knowledge-rich curriculum? Principle and Practice. The great gift of knowledge and the joy of passing it on. Knowledge and … Continue reading
Curriculum Review at KS3: Some common issues.
Over the last couple of years I have had the great privilege of working with several schools on the process of curriculum review. It’s such an enlightening process for all concerned – asking questions about what should be taught, why things should be taught, what absolutely must be kept in, what gets squeezed out … Continue reading
Teaching and Learning Agenda 2019/20
The summer term is often a time when people gather their thoughts for the year ahead. The work I do with schools and colleges is largely driven by a medium term improvement agenda: combining some initial support – establishing areas to improve in current practice, setting some goals for the next 12-18 months – and … Continue reading
Setting Great Homework: The Mode A:Mode B approach.
I have explored issues with homework in various different posts. In particular, the research into homework by John Hattie is covered in detail in this post: Homework: What does the Hattie research actually say? I’m a firm believer that homework has an important role to play in providing a great education and fostering independent learning, as … Continue reading
10 Steps for Reviewing Your KS3 Curriculum
Now that schools are getting into the swing of the new GCSEs and KS3 assessment continues to present various challenges, it’s natural that a lot more attention is being given to the curriculum content at KS3. Of course some will say that Ofsted’s much-trailed renewed interest in curriculum is playing a part too – but I’ve … Continue reading
Curriculum Notes #2: Big picture first: then zoom in.
#2 in a series. I’ve often found that students in lessons are wading through a foggy cloud of confusion about why they are learning what they are learning. I’ve been in that cloud plenty of times myself. If, as an expert in a subject, you make a selection of the elements of the curriculum for … Continue reading
Curriculum Notes #1: Start out real, concrete, authentic.
Here’s the first of some short blog posts about detailed aspects of curriculum thinking. I observed a science lesson recently where students were looking at cells and were asked to recall the differences between plant and animal cells. A student I spoke gave me this response: animal cells are round and plant cells are rectangles. … Continue reading
Eureka! Teaching for creativity. C = f (K, P, D)
Over the years I’ve thought a lot about the question of teaching for creativity. Back in 2012 I wrote this post where I made some reasonably sensible general statements: It is uncontroversial that for us to solve Humanity’s problems, to create the conditions for a sustainable future and also to maximise the cultural richness of … Continue reading
Vietnam, Ali, reading and the powerful knowledge gap.
In a recent lesson observation, I witnessed a classic teacher-dilemma unfold. How far do I have to go to fill in the knowledge gaps? I can’t teach them everything they don’t know so where do I begin? It was in a GCSE English resit class where students were looking at a reading comprehension question. Here’s … Continue reading
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