Debra Kidd | Schools Week

Debra Kidd’s top blogs of the week 1 April 2019

The strand curriculum in Year 7 biology Christian Moore – @Biogogy I stumbled across this when I was trawling curriculum-related blogs as research for my book on the subject. As an IB teacher, Christian Moore will be used to thinking about how big ideas and narratives connect across subjects and into broader concepts such as […]

Debra Kidd’s top blogs of the week 11 Feb 2019

Questions to help you review your key stage 3 curriculum – one big history department @Histassoc Although this post focuses on key stage 3 curriculum design around history, there are some really useful pointers for anyone planning their ks3 curriculum in terms of the decision-making around what matters and what you’re prepared to drop. Although […]

Debra Kidd’s top blogs of the week 10 Dec 2018

My Top 10 Picturebooks 2018 (actually 13) @smithsmm Anyone teaching children to love and appreciate books should follow Simon Smith, whether they are primary or secondary practitioners. His blog posts and tweets are an encyclopedia of children’s literature for reading in and out of class and in this one he shares his favourite picturebooks. Don’t […]

Debra Kidd’s top blogs of the week 29 Oct 2018

School Shaming and the Reactionary Politics of NeoTrads @doxtdatorb Ben Doxtdator’s blog posts are always thought provoking, well informed and carefully referenced, and this one is no exception. In this incisive blog post, he explains how the notion of “school shaming” consists of a “category error” that detracts from the real and very damaging impacts […]

Debra Kidd’s top blogs of the week 15 May 2017

Our blog reviewer this week is Debra Kidd, an author and former teacher. Here are her top picks from the education blogging world this week Working collaboratively in the classroom By @imagineinquiry Group work has come in for a bit of a bashing in recent years and it’s easy to see why. We’ve all […]

Multiple-choice exams plus portfolios – proposal for a new assessment system

Marking can never be 100 per cent reliable. So perhaps it is time, says one-time examiner Debra Kidd, to remove open-ended tasks from the exam system altogether I was once an examiner. It was a mind numbing, cheerless experience that was paid at a pittance, but I did it, year on year, because it gave me […]

The Old Boys: The Decline and Rise of the Public School

Boys rebelling because there is too little beer; teachers drowning in failed attempts to cut willow whips: in this rich and engaging book, David Turner paints an affectionately critical picture of the history of the public school system. He recounts how, until the 1980s, the common entrance exam was a formality for those with the […]

‘If I were education secretary…’

I would ask to stay in my job for the rest of the government’s term and in that time seek to make myself largely redundant. I would start off with a big conversation about the purpose of education, with a view to recognising that it should make the world a better place. I would consider […]