BOOK REVIEW, CPD, LEARNING, RESEARCH, TEACHING

Embracing Cognitive Psychology in Education

I recently attended a presentation, at the ResearchEd conference in Dubai, listening to teacher, leader and author Robin Macpherson discuss cognitive psychology. In his presentation, which you can read more about here, Robin posed some very interesting questions that I have been thinking about and reflecting on. Robin made the point that there has been an increased interest in cognitive psychology amongst educators in recent years and this is certainly true. However, some of the psychology linked to memory that we are now discussing, sharing, reading and writing about is not actually new at all. Read more

BOOK REVIEW, HISTORY, TRAVEL

A discussion of The tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

I regularly review educational books on my site and whilst this post was originally intended to be another review I have decided to go beyond the story in The tattooist of Auschwitz to discuss the historical context of the novel in addition to the central story. The tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris is based on the true story of Holocaust survivors Lale and Gita Sokolov. The story is about how they met and fell in love in a concentration camp. It has become one of the bestselling and most talked about novels of 2018. Read more

BOOK REVIEW, CPD, EDUCATORS, TEACHING

My Top Ten Favourite Edu Books

I’ve recently just completed writing my first book! It has been a long and at times challenging process but also very enjoyable and exciting. Love To Teach: Research and Resources for Every Classroom is due to be published next month with John Catt Education – you can pre-order it on Amazon here. Anyway, this blog post is about reading not writing but a large part of the process of writing my book involved reading and engaging with educational research. Even before I decided to write a book I was reading a lot of books about education, linked to my subject specialism, pedagogy, leadership, literacy and much more. I read a very interesting article in The Guardian by teacher and author Carl Hendrick suggesting ten educational books that he believes all teachers should read. I started to make my way through the list suggested by Carl Hendrick (I have yet to read Daisy Christodoulou 7 Myths and Trivium 21C despite their popularity!). Inspired by this list I have created my own list with my favourite books linked to education. I am very aware there is a lack of diversity amongst the books I have selected. There are many wonderful female authors that I can highly recommend such as Mary Myatt, Jill Berry, Debra Kidd, Sarah Findlater and Nina Jackson. This list was based purely on my favourite books linked to education but I am aware the majority of the books below are written by men. This is the list of my favourite books and I believe every book deserves its place in my top spot list. Read more

BOOK REVIEW, LEARNING, TEACHING

Book review – Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath

Over the holidays I always enjoy spending time reading – from a John Grisham thriller to a historical or educational book. I love to read in different locations too – from my own home, the pool, beach, coffee shops – anywhere nice, quiet and relaxing. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Made to Stick by the Heath brothers – perhaps more so because I read it during the holidays where time becomes a luxury and it’s easier to switch off from the to-do list usually on my mind! Read more

BOOK REVIEW

Book review – Educating Drew: The real story of Harrop Fold School by Drew Povey

Channel 4 have created a series of documentaries that follow schools across the UK with their staff, pupils and parents over an entire academic year. Previous series include Educating Essex, Educating Cardiff and Yorkshire. The latest series has returned focusing on a secondary school in Salford – Harrop Fold School. Similar to previous  series this series has been very popular and widely watched across the country. If you are in the UK and haven’t watched this series you can do so here. Read more

BOOK REVIEW, TEACHING

The Secret Teacher! Who is it?!

I was in WH Smiths London Heathrow waiting for my flight to Abu Dhabi when I discovered a book entitled The Secret Teacher. It really is a secret because the author is unknown, despite people online trying to solve who the mystery author is! You might be familiar with The Guardian – Secret Teacher articles where teachers use anonymity to write about something connected to education that is bothering or frustrating them or something they simply could not express and publish for fear of losing their job! The Secret Teacher book isn’t a collection of secret teacher articles from The Guardian archives. Instead, it tells the story of a struggling Newly Qualified Teacher in an inner-city state school and his journey through the early years of his teaching career. It is clearly written by a teacher – with so much insight into teaching today in the UK. I’m not sure how much of the story is fiction or fact but there will be stories, scenarios and people that all teachers can relate to in this book! Read more

BOOK REVIEW, EDUCATORS, LITERACY

Don’t Call it Literacy! by Geoff Barton book review

I was actually reading The Secret of Literacy by David Didau when I decided to purchase Don’t Call it Literacy! by Geoff Barton. Didau often praises Barton and credits him as being the inspiration to write his own book about literacy. I was really enjoying The Secret of Literacy, so I felt compelled to read this book by Geoff Barton, after the references made by Didau. I only recently became aware of Geoff Barton when he was involved in a very public campaign to become the General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) – and he was successful. Barton received a huge amount of support online, illustrating how he is highly respected across the educational community. Barton was previously Headteacher and Teacher of English, of course. Barton really does have a very impressive CV! Read more

BOOK REVIEW, CPD, LEARNING

Of Teaching, Learning and Sherbet Lemons by Nina Jackson. Book review

You could be forgiven for being confused about the title and the sherbet lemons! As well as Nina’s self-confessed personal fondness for the sweet it also refers to the fizz, fun and excitement that comes with teaching. At times all teachers, myself included, can feel that fizz has fizzled out and this book aims to bring back the fizz and sparkle into our teaching as well as providing lots of words of wisdom along the way. Read more

BOOK REVIEW, CPD, EDUCATORS, SOCIAL MEDIA, TEACHING

Book review – The Confident Teacher by Alex Quigley

The Confident Teacher : Developing successful habits of mind, body and pedagogy by Alex Quigley really surprised me – as the book covered much more than I expected it to. I have never met Alex Quigley, yet I follow his educational profile online via his Twitter account @HuntingEnglish and I am a regular reader of his blog, also titled The Confident Teacher. I thoroughly enjoy reading his blogs and they have been great resource to me as a teacher, so I was very keen to read his book. Alex is a Teacher of English, that is evident  as I think he has a wonderful style and use of language as well as many literature references made throughout his book. He is also Director of Huntington Research School, this book is heavily research informed and influenced which also supports many of his arguments and points. The Confident Teacher is obviously not some sort of quick fix self help guide to give teachers a transformation with confidence overnight, but it does focus on a wide range of strategies to develop confidence for both teachers and pupils. This book is filled with many stories from his career as well as anecdotes about various well known individuals from Pablo Picasso to Michael Jordan and Albert Bandura along the way! Read more

BOOK REVIEW, CPD, EDUCATORS, LEADERSHIP

Leadership Matters by Andy Buck – Book review

Leadership Matters : How leaders at all levels can create great schools by Andy Buck was recommended to me by Mark Anderson. I assumed this book was aimed at SLT given the experience and position of the author. However, as the title suggests it is a book written for leaders at all levels and aspiring leaders. I am a Middle Leader with experience of leading a team within my department and also leading on various whole school approaches and events. I am keen to progress with leadership so I thought this book would be very useful and relevant- and it was, as well as very interesting (throughout you can read some of my favourite quotes from the book that I have selected and made using Adobe Spark Post). Read more