If this week’s statistics are to be believed I should be feeling pretty unhappy. As a male approaching 52.9 years of age in full time employment the happiness scales tends towards the negative. Sometimes you’ve got to count life’s blessings; unhappy in full time work? Try being unemployed; it is much worse. Continue reading
“Homework for infants should be done entirely at their parents’ discretion” wrote Justine Roberts the founder of Mumsnet in a TES article this week. Primary schools are great at setting homework that engages parents or on occasion is actually done by the over eager or guilt ridden parent. Hit secondary school and the mixed fayre continues between the profoundly challenging and the profound waste of time, for both pupils and teachers, homework. Continue reading
I was just about to start our latest CPD session on Teach Like a Champion and with a few minutes to spare I tweeted out a link to a related post. You can imagine my surprise and delight when Doug Lemov tweeted straight back. For the past fifteen years my experience of leading in Blackpool is secondary schools, in particular, had taken a good kicking with very few offers of support. Doug Lemov’s approach and interest in Blackpool was a welcome change. It was the second time in a week that Blackpool had been given positive preferential treatment; the other was from TeachFirst. Continue reading