Education articles - Teaching Expertise

Working as a Teaching and Learning Fellowship as part of the University of the First Age. read more

Speed-reading is not going to change your life, but it will help to ease the conflicts of time in your day-to-day school life, writes Clare Forrest read more

In the dark days of winter, some teachers find it more of a challenge to get through the day. But suggest counselling to a teacher and what’s their immediate reaction? Surprised – perhaps. Defensive – maybe. ‘I don’t need counselling!’ read more

In recent months, parents have been much in the educational news. The Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Ruth Kelly, wants them to be more involved in schools, possibly even helping to run them in some way. But many headteachers and their professional associations fear that this means interference rather than involvement. read more

Is your voice in control? What sound does your voice make? What kind of impression does your voice make? Lesley Hendy explains how the way you move can affect the quality of your voice. You will also discover more about how to use the acoustics of a room to your advantage and how to vary the tone and pitch of your voice to increase your vocal ‘tool box’. read more

What values underpin your teaching? What about the values of your teacher colleagues? To what extent are these values used to judge the effectiveness of your teaching? read more

Team teaching is an approach in which two or more teachers are jointly responsible for course content, lesson activities and assessment. Could it work for you? read more

Do schools need to give more opportunities for teachers to realise their potential? Do teachers need to grasp the chance of becoming passionate lifelong learners in their workplaces as well as in their personal lives? Bill Lucas considers the options. read more

On the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, Garry Burnett used the composer as a model to question whether creative skills such as problem-solving and interpretation can be taught read more

Philippa Bogel explores the transformational practices surrounding The Certificate of Facilitation Skills in Education, and looks at what facilitators gain from their experiences

In this article, Alistair Smith explains how two schools, Stamford High School and Melcombe Primary School, have introduced whole-school learning models based on Accelerated Learning. The impact of planning, delivering and evaluating learning has led to a significant cultural shift at both schools. read more

Julie Bennett suggests three different techniques that you can use to motivate learners and add further dimensions to your teaching

A consultation document from the DCSF seeks views on proposals for regulations to ensure that SENCOs are qualified teachers with a defined role in the leadership and management of the school

Most schools are not making the teaching of literacy and numeracy a high enough priority, according to Ofsted inspectors. read more

Curriculum managers need to do more to secure more effective observation of teaching staff to bring about improvements in learning. read more

Mounting dissent about Government plans to restructure the school system has threatened to prevent the latest education White Paper from going ahead unchanged. read more

Being able to secure effective and imaginative use of information and communications technology (ICT) in classrooms throughout your school is not just a matter of having a good ICT policy in place.

School culture is a term that curriculum managers are having to pay more attention to in nearly all areas of their job. But how do you identify what culture prevails in your school, understand the implications this has for your curriculum leadership, and from there make changes for the better? Jon Prosser, Director of International Education Management at the University of Leeds, shows how. read more

This case study follows the change process in a school that, under the effective leadership of a new headteacher, was able to transform its culture from one of a once cruising school to a highly successful moving school with an enviable local and national reputation

Too many schools are not providing bilingual students with enough of the right support to help them succeed in their learning, according to the findings of a new report from Ofsted. read more

As the dust started to settle on the new White Paper ‘Higher standards, better schools for all’, discontentment with the content began to mount. read more

Too many schools are dragging their heels on widening the vocational options available in their Key Stage 4 curriculum. read more

As curriculum managers are well aware, bullying can have sustained and insidious effects on the whole school — contributing to poor attendance, lower achievement, a less conducive learning environment for all and a generally less pleasant school experience for students and teachers alike. read more

Inclusion has become one of the must hotly-debated topics in education — there are almost as many different takes on it as there are schools. Brahm Norwich, Professor of Educational Psychology and Special Educational Needs at the University of Exeter, helps you to unpick what inclusion means to your school and shows you how to develop strategies that will allow you to achieve this approach in practice. read more

Achieving inclusion — becoming an inclusive pyramid. read more

Identifying students who are underachieving is easy. The challenge is doing something about it. read more

Students are responding positively to the RSA’s Opening Minds initiative with improvements in motivation, confidence and attitudes. Teachers are also reaping the benefits. RSA Head of Education Lesley James brings you up to date with developments and new resources. read more

Prime Minister Tony Blair has stressed the urgency for the UK to invest in ‘human capital’ if its citizens are to survive in the global economy – but as he holds the public pursestrings, schools will be looking for cash investment from him if this need is to be made a reality. read more

To help entrench lifelong learning in the common psyche, this website from ContinYou displays the programmes it is developing to build learning communities throughout the UK. The aim is to give communities, and the individuals within them, access to new learning opportunities, and by so doing to change lives. It is based on the premise that learning is about much more than just that which goes on in schools.

Walking on clouds: how could we engineer the possibility of walking on clouds in the sky? read more

Dr Carrie Winstanley explains the principle of dual exceptionality with dyslexic children

Able child coordinator Nik Lawrence spoke to G&T Update about his work. read more

G&T coordinator Jo McShane reflects on how far things have come since she did her own PGCE and provides some strategies to share with NQTs and teacher trainees. read more

This book could act as a guide to anyone entering the fray of dealing with outstandingly able children, but it fails to provide great inspiration or sufficient practical advice. read more

How can G&T coordinators ensure that differentiation for G&T pupils is taking place in every classroom? Paul Ainsworth looks at some methods based on sharing best practice read more

Staff are to be given new powers to tackle unacceptable behaviour, if the new Education Bill secures a smooth passage through Parliament. read more

As curriculum managers seek new ways to engage students as partners in learning, a new website that invites pupils to rate their teachers has received mixed reactions. read more

Access to vocational education has been found to be a key factor in reducing disaffection – but only if fully integrated into the curriculum and delivered as a mainstream option available to all. read more

From how to assess your current provision and engage employers, to how to match students with placements, prepare them and then debrief them after the event — Jenny Asher, Development Manager for the National Education Business Partnership Network, guides us through the core issues to consider to provide work placements that provide first-class learning opportunities that will have a lifelong impact. read more

Work-related learning is enhanced by work-based learning. Peter Newton, 13-19 Director, King Richard School, Portsmouth discusses partnering the curriculum with the world of work

Latest reforms have been stalled further as rebel MPs set out a suite of compromise moves in an attempt to diffuse the areas provoking greatest dissent. read more

Curriculum managers need to be aware of the safety issues relating to new technologies so that they can provide maximum safeguards across the school. read more

If you are looking for a resource portal for enhancing your gifted and talented (G&T) provision, then this site is a good starting point. It brings together materials from the key G&T organisations all under one roof, and covers the core G&T issues, including identification, enrichment, extension, acceleration and differentiation.

Federations are a well established practice now — so what has been learned so far about how to create a successful alliance that brings about sizeable improvements in teaching and learning among all the partners? We learn from DfES guidance and NCSL research about what factors contribute to success

Building a federation to support standards — working in partnership with schools in challenging circumstances. read more

The research study summarised in this article sought to develop an understanding of the issues that affect the inclusion of disabled children in play in the playgrounds of six primary schools in Yorkshire (1)

This evaluation of four approaches used in the Primary Behaviour and Attendance pilot study is relevant to the work of SENCOs involved in helping pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. It also identifies management issues pertinent to SENCOs involved in supporting similar whole-school initiatives. read more

In a new memorandum, the DfES has outlined three key principles that underpin its approach to improving SEN provision in England. The application of these principles is summarised in this article with reference to the Education and Skills Select Committee of Inquiry into SEN. read more

As with its interim report, most attention and controversy has focused on the Rose review’s support for synthetic as opposed to analytic phonics. However, for SENCOs, the review’s findings on the provision that best supports children with significant literacy difficulties are particularly relevant. read more

In this article, Cath Malin (Sandwell Local Authority’s SEN and Inclusion Adviser) describes how schools and the local authority have developed a collaborative and systematic approach to developing inclusive educational practice. The approach, which makes use of the Index for Inclusion, places a particularly high emphasis on self-evaluation and is therefore responsive to the requirements of the Ofsted inspection framework. read more