When is student choice a good idea? Here’s an extract from a document from the Scottish Curriculum, on best practice in maths teaching. Children were asked about ways the school could improve learning in mathematics. Most children felt that they wanted more time to talk about what they were learning and spend less time completing […]

In 2011, Scott Young set himself the challenge of learning MIT’s entire 4-year computer science degree, despite not being a student at the university. He succeeded. His new book Ultralearning is all about how you can take on similarly tough challenges, and master really hard skills in relatively short periods of time. The book is […]

In my last blog, I showed how the PISA tests have been updated to take account of the fact we do more reading online. Not only are the tests computer-based, but they also feature tasks that mimic the type of reading we do online: for example, finding the right link to click on a page […]

Every three years, the OECD’s PISA tests report on student performance in maths, reading and science in dozens of countries. They also choose one subject in particular to focus on in more detail. This year it was the turn of reading, the first time it had had this extra attention since 2009. As the PISA […]

Imagine a class of 20 students, ten boys, ten girls. They all sit a maths exam which is graded from 0 – 9. On average, the boys and girls do equally well. The average grade of all the pupils is 4.5, and that is also the average of the sub group of boys, and of […]

Over the last couple of years the idea of a ‘mastery curriculum’ has become ever more popular – and ever more nebulous. I’ve heard the word ‘mastery’ applied to very different approaches to the curriculum, and as a result of that, I’ve seen plenty of people dismiss the entire concept of mastery as just another […]

In my book Making Good Progress I developed an analogy between education and marathon running. Put simply, you wouldn’t train for a marathon by trying to run 26.2 miles in every training session. And in the same way, you shouldn’t prepare for an exam by doing exam-style activities in every lesson. I’d never run a […]

My experience of English Mastery In 2013 I started working at Ark Schools, a network of academy schools based in London, Birmingham, Portsmouth and Hastings. Part of my job was to develop Ark’s new English Mastery curriculum. I was part of a team with Amy McJennett, who joined at the same time as me, and […]

In no particular order… Learning How to Learn by Barbara Oakley, Terrence Sejnowski and Alistair McConville This book is a fun, witty and very, very practical summary of how we learn, and how we can learn better. Oakley and Sejnewoski are the creators of the world’s most successful online learning course, and in the book you can […]

Last weekend I spoke at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai. I spoke for the motion in the following debate: ‘”I can just Google it” is making us stupid.’ You can see the video here. I’ve put a transcript of my speech below, together with references. In a letter to a friend, the […]

This was the fifth national Research Ed conference, and in my mind they’ve started becoming a bit like FA Cup Finals or Christmas – recurring events that start to blur into one. “Oh, South Hampstead – was that the one where Ben Riley from Deans for Impact visited and it all kicked off about grammars?” […]

You can also read this post on the No More Marking blog. In the previous few posts, I’ve looked at the workload generated by traditional English mock marking, and at the low reliability, and I’ve suggested that comparative judgement can produce more reliable results and take less time. However, one question I frequently get about […]