This is the transcript of the Radio 3 Essay I wrote and read in May 2016. You can find the podcast here. Rousseau’s Emile and my life I’m a young English teacher, it’s my second year in an inner city school in London, and I think I’m doing well with my tutor group, a class […]

Welcome and thank you for coming. My talk is entitled ‘Silent Voices, Still Lives’ and focuses upon the importance of teaching communication skills properly in schools. It is divided into two parts: firstly, I will look at the issue of excluded children where problems of communication are most severe, and then will look more widely […]

Is stirring a pupil’s passion all that matters in edcation? Ken Robinson’s new book, The Element, suggests that this is at the heart of getting the best out of children. I appeared on Radio 3’s Nighwaves arguing a little differently. I said that if teachers just tell pupils to follow their passions then they could […]

Is stirring a pupil’s passion all that matters in edcation? Ken Robinson’s new book, The Element, suggests that this is at the heart of getting the best out of children. I appeared on Radio 3’s Nightwaves arguing a little differently. I said that if teachers just tell pupils to follow their passions then they could […]

My answer is a resounding “No!” Several things have made it a lot easier to get an A grade: The Assessment Objectives: if pupils tick the right boxes, they’ll get a good grade Re-takes Less stringent marking. The old English A Level was a difficult exam to get an A grade in. Overwhelmingly, you had to write […]

The first rule: look the part. This was my first mistake I made as a student teacher. I walked into my first ever lesson with my hair down to my waist, unwashed for three years, and expected to be taken seriously. No one listened to a word a word I said. Second rule: don’t pick […]