teacher training | Schools Week

Restraint in school – what the law says

You hope you will never have to use restraint, but if your duty of care leaves you with little choice: know your school procedure and record everything The latest school shooting in the US and stories of children being locked in classrooms in the UK have once again highlighted the issue of restraint and how […]

Proactive approach to retention

As leaders we need to be creative in our approach to recruitment, but we also need to look carefully at retention. With compulsory EBacc and Progress 8 at secondary, the demand for specialist teachers is soaring. Similarly at primary, we’re all looking for teachers of reading, writing and mathematics who are excited by the ambition […]

National teaching service should deliver dedicated teachers, not ‘superheroes’

Things have turned upside down. Too often, teachers and school leaders roll their eyes as ministers announce their latest idea. ‘Patronising’ is often the adjective of choice. But not this week. This week it’s some of the teachers (none of whom work in a rural or coastal schools – how would one get their soy […]

How to boost flagging teacher recruitment

School leaders and policymakers can do simple, practical things to ensure schools have the quality workforces they need Why Teach?, our recent report published with Pearson, uncovered the top job attractions for teachers across the country. Forty per cent of those we spoke to told us that they first considered the commute from their home […]

Education without heart (and human rights) is no education at all

Children are taught numeracy and literacy at the expense of an all-important holistic education. As Aristotle said centuries ago: “Education of the head without education of the heart, is no education at all” In 2013, I embarked on a journey that took me right into the heart of darkness. I was impelled by the impassioned […]

‘It’s cushy to be a male primary school teacher’

A Y-chromosome makes male teachers instantly visible in a primary schools. It also benefits them enormously; they are over-represented as school leaders while women are over-represented as cleaners, midday assistants, teaching assistants and dinner ladies. I could produce for you a salacious moan-rant about how hard it is being a man in a female-dominated profession […]

Critical thinking to critical learning: Generation Y as a case study

Since the 1980s the importance of critical thinking and its taxonomy have been the focus of vigorous debate. The ability to progress in any realm using cognition necessitates questioning and analysing, making subtle distinctions between conclusions and hypotheses. Lipman defines this as “thinking that is conducive to good judgment because it is sensitive to context, […]

‘In teaching there’s rarely a flower growing in a field of weeds’

A wonderful teacher made a true difference in my life. My maths lecturer, Dr Peter Neumann at Oxford University, was so intelligent, but could make what he was teaching accessible to those in his classes, taking pleasure in explaining complicated things in simple ways. There is an art to explanation – he really had it […]

Edition 43 editor’s comment

Imagine if there were a quarter of a million people working with the most vulnerable children in our school system and yet receiving some of the lowest pay, working on insecure contracts that don’t include holiday pay and facing incredibly low pensions. We don’t have to imagine. This is the situation for many teaching assistants […]