In my career, I have had just two original ideas. One is the concept of Janus-faced sentences which are incredibly useful when answering, amongst other things, the writing question on the AQA English Language GCSE Paper 2. The other is to name the series of books on the curriculum I…
Yesterday, The Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a report entitled, “Destitution in the UK 2023”. I, on the other hand, spent most of the afternoon trying to find a parcel return centre. Dodgy QR codes and broken scanners meant walking six miles through York’s streets before my parcel could begin…
If I'm honest, this is the most perceptive Amazon review of my first book, Love Over Fear: When I was 17 years old, I was pretty good at golf. As Sussex U18 champion two years in a row, I was, arguably, in the top 50 golfers in England…
I watch a lot of people teach. Without protesting too much, it is a genuine privilege to be allowed into colleagues' classrooms. I am ever grateful. Since I have been observing colleagues grapple with the complexities of helping pupils learn, I have learnt a great deal about how teaching…
I am not sure if I have ever had an original thought in my life. When it comes to curriculum, this much I have come to know from other people’s wisdom and research. Beyond a handful accrued through experience in the classroom, here are some of the aphorisms, principles,…
Since retiring from headship 16 months ago I have been working with numerous schools across the country. It has been both a privilege and a delight to support colleagues as they strive to improve the quality of teaching & learning in our schools. I have learnt huge amounts on my…
I led Huntington School from 2007 to 2021. During that time, school budgets were cut by 9% in real terms, the biggest reduction in 40 years. I wrote at length about how I managed the impact of the drop in funding in a way that minimised the impact upon both…
Dave Williams always makes me laugh. He is a very funny man. And I thought of him last weekend when I listened to Barbara Oakley’s keynote speech at researchED Dublin. With utter clarity, Barbara explained how our brains learn. What she described was ostensibly familiar, but such was the…