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Key word bingo – my favourite revision lesson
I have been blessed/cursed (delete as appropriate) to have double lessons with my KS4 classes for a couple of years. These have been at varying times of day but this year we are on P4/5 on Fridays (a real joy). Now before lunch, they are relatively amenable but by the lesson after lunch, there is… Read more
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The Power of Professional Development OR What I Learned on my NPQ.
The idea of undertaking an NPQ filled me with a giddy thrill, geek that I am, but what I was hoping for more than anything else was to build connections and have even more of an opportunity to talk all things teaching and learning (something I have greatly missed since it ended). For me, there… Read more
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Retrieval Practice in the History Classroom
Retrieval practice is something which has transformed my teaching since I first read about it in Kate Jones’ excellent book Love to Teach. It’s fair to say that now every lesson I have includes some element of retrieval and even fairer to say that my skill at using such strategies has greatly improved with understanding… Read more
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My Top Five Teaching Tips and Techniques
My teaching has changed radically because of the following ideas. I trained in 2010-11 when learning styles were still advocated alongside not too much teacher talk and getting the students to discover their own learning. This is not a blog which is intended to dictate to anyone what they should or shouldn’t be doing but… Read more
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Thinking about . . . choral response
Call and Response is a pretty simple and humble tool—great for building energy and engagement and useful in reinforcing key points in a fast and energetic way. And also clearly needing other tools to follow up and build knowledge. DOUG LEMOV’S FIELD NOTES Choral response is something I have been playing with in my classroom for… Read more
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Thinking about . . . learning objectives or is it intentions? 🤔
Before we can find out what our learners are learning, before we can give feedback, before we can engage our learners as resources for one another and as owners of their own learning, we have to be clear about where we are going. Wiliam & Leahy, 2015 Over the last couple of weeks I have… Read more
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A Life of Learning 
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