Author: Emma Mattinson-Hardy

Sucking the life out of learning By @jennielou75 What a week to be a primary teacher! After the writing exemplifications documents sent shockwaves through primary schools, the response I heard from a group of teachers in Darlington was echoed across the country. The sense was one of panic as teachers knew that more children would […]

Education. What’s it all for? By @EddiePlayfair Some have called this a pointless debate. I have referred to it in the past as a discussion that can only be had with a couple of bottles of red wine to take away the pain of the endless circling debate. Twitter is filled with people claiming that any […]

Teaching students to be sceptical @MissDCox We would be naïve to think that the recent shootings in Paris will not have an impact on our children and in our classrooms. Emotions are still high and there is a danger that we could step further towards intolerance. Dawn Cox reminds us why it is so important […]

Thinking aloud: recruitment @WorkEdgeChaos For those watching Lucy Powell for proof of her strong opposition and momentum in the education debate, then teacher retention is where it seems she will land some blows. To help with this, she could do well by reading this blog. Amir Arezoo identifies three issues he has with teacher recruitment […]

What is powerful knowledge? By Eddie Playfair The debate about knowledge vs skills is showing no signs of going away any time soon. Lucy Powell’s speech earlier this week on the importance of skills, made at the Schools Week fringe at the annual Labour Party conference, will only fuel the debate. Eddie Playfair writes here […]

Shut your mouth – why I cannot just say what I think By @OldPrimaryHead1 Once again OPH has hit the nail on the head. At the NUT national education conference last weekend I helped to lead a session on blogging and social media, and one of the fears many teachers had was how much freedom […]

Northern Rocks: Return Journey By @jonnywalker_edu Sitting and writing this with bleary eyes from Northern Rocks fatigue and smearings of icing and cake across my jeans following my daughter’s birthday party has maybe made me a little more emotional than usual. Reading this brought a lump to my throat but in true Northern style I […]

The 39 steps By @mikercameron There was little relief at the end of what has been one of my most exhausting and emotionally draining weeks as other educationists widely echoed my shock and pain at the election result. One of the many things that angered me was the number of left-wing “purists” despairing at the […]

Mediocre Failures By @Disidealist Language matters. Having the ability to communicate well with others is an essential skill and should never be underestimated. You would think that our government would have experts in communication working for them, “spin” specialists who know how changing one word creates an entirely different message. So I am left confused, […]