Recommended Blogs

Why read blogs?

A growing army of teachers, school leaders, schools and others connected to the world of education now share their thoughts regularly via their blogs.

Blogs are a great way to find out what other people are:

• reading about
• trying out
• reflecting on

Some of the major advantages of blogs are:

• they are contemporary
• you can usually interact with the author and others who are commenting on the blog if you wish
• they are free

Every Sunday evening, our favourite blog from the previous week will be tweeted out as our Blog Of The Week using the hashtag #BOTW and emailed to our staff.  The Blog Of The Week initiative is a great way of sharing what’s happening in the world of education on a regular basis.  A number of other teachers/leaders also share their Blog Of The Week, using the #BOTW hashtag.  This one curated by Shaun Allison was the inspiration for ours.

Blog Of The Week

2016-17

• Week ending 27th November – What can we learn from practical subjects? – Martyn Simmonds & Chris Runeckles
• Week ending 18th November – Effective Revision Strategies – Mr Simmonds
• Week ending 16th October – The feedback continuum: why reducing feedback helps students learn – David Didau
• Week ending 9th October – This much I know about…a brilliant, evidence-informed note-taking technique – John Tomsett
• Week ending 2nd October – Whole-class marking: KS4 mock exam – Kaye Chem
• Week ending 25th September – Marking in Perspective: Selective, Formative, Effective, Reflective – Tom Sherrington
• Week ending 18th September – Sign learners up for the graft – Dan Williams
• Week ending 11th September – Time to reflect – Shaun Allison

2015-16

• Week ending 17th July – ‘Post-mortem Marking’ vs ‘Live Marking’ – Chris Curtis
• Week ending 10th July – Research evidence that has shaped what we do. #rEdYork – Tom Sherrington
• Week ending 3rd July – 12 Pointers Towards Great Teaching, Assessment and Learning – Stephen Tierney
• Week ending 26th June – Not all practice is created equal – ImSporticus
• Week ending 19th June – Some outstanding ‘Do Nows’ – Doug Lemov
• Week ending 12th June – When is a sequel not a sequel? Part two – Matt Bromley
• Week ending 22nd May – Another Six Things – Stretching the High Starters – Shaun Allison
• Week ending 15th May – Student effort: the Holy Grail of school improvement? – Steve Adcock
• Week ending 8th May – Two conversations about the front of the classroom – Shaun Allison
• Week ending 24th April – A Few Quick Tips for the Overwhelmed Educator – Cindy Wooldridge
• Week ending 17th April – Is effective teaching more about good relationships than anything else? – Carl Hendrick
• Week ending 20th March – The new GCSE & planning for learning; a practical guide – Dawn Cox
• Week ending 13th March – Thinking Hard…Practical Solutions for the Classroom – Alex Quigley
• Week ending 6th March – Homework… The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth! – Steve Foreman for Huntington Learning
• Week ending 28th February – What to do with Y11? – Shaun Allison
• Week ending 7th February – We Need to Rewrite the Textbook on How to Teach Teachers – Simon Oxenham
• Week ending 31st January – The secret to a strong department – Greg Ashman
• Week ending 24th January – In trying to do so much we do too little – Andy Tharby
• Week ending 17th January – Using research to design a revision session – Dawn Cox
• Week ending 10th January – Principles of Effective Teaching – Tom Sherrington
• Week ending 13th December – What is ‘Breaking the Plane’? – Doug Lemov
• Week ending 6th December – Is mimicry always a bad thing? – David Didau
• Week ending 29th November – Gimmicks: A Thousand Techniques Bloom – Martin Robinson
• Week ending 22nd November – Driving your own CPD – Mark Miller
• Week ending 15th November – How can we improve the vocabulary knowledge of students?  – Shaun Allison
• Week ending 8th November – Modelling Good Speech. Let’s Talk Properly – Tom Sherrington
• Week ending 25th October – Teaching knowledge through vocabulary: or why tier two words may not be enough! – Phil Stock
• Week ending 18th October – Achievable challenge: walking the fine line between comfort and panic – Andy Tharby
• Week ending 11th October – Tests are inhuman – and that is what is so good about them – Daisy Christodoulou
• Week ending 4th October – What does The Science of Learning report teach us? – Matt Bromley
• Week ending 27th September – Modelling: how, why and what can go wrong – Shaun Allison
• Week ending 20th September – Sharing the Burden; literacy and the new year 7s – Andrew Warner
• Week ending 13th September – Subject specific practice – Mark Miller

2014-15

• Week ending 12th July – On balance bikes and stabilisers: how we should support and scaffold – Bodil Isaksen
• Week ending 5th July – It’s all about the books, about the books, about the books – no trouble! – Chris Curtis
• Week ending 28th June – Beyond National Curriculum Levels: One Year On – Alex Quigley
• Week ending 21st June – The Mindset Journey – ImSporticus
• Week ending 14th June – Assessment alternatives 2: using pupil work instead of criteria – Daisy Christodoulou
• Week ending 7th June – The Elements of Language – Lessons learned – Phil Stock
• Week ending 31st May – How should I revisit past content? – Bodil Isaksen
• Week ending 24th May – Teachers do it for the holidays – Matt Bromley
• Week ending 17th May – The space between the question and the answer – Mark Miller
• Week ending 10th May – What should written feedback look like? – David Didau
• Week ending 3rd May – Two stars and a bl**dy wish! – David Didau
• Week ending 26th April – Can I be that little bit better at…..understanding that how they say it, is as important as what they say? – David Fawcett
• Week ending 19th April – Teacher Knowledge: From ‘Outside-In’ to ‘Inside-Out’ – Carl Hendrick
• Week ending 12th April – What could/should happen to work that the teacher doesn’t mark? – Damian Benney
• Week ending 5th April – Life without levels – With opportunity comes responsibility – Dan Nicholls
• Week ending 29th March – Getting revision right – Chris Hildrew
• Week ending 22nd March – How I do revision – Shaun Allison
• Week ending 15th March – Meaningful Manageable Revision – Ruth Powley
• Week ending 8th March – Marking – The Circles of Correction – Chris Curtis
• Week ending 1st March – 4 ways to use evidence in education – and 15 places to start – Harry Fletcher-Wood
• Week ending 22nd February – Want to improve your teaching? Study the teaching of your subject – Michael Fordham
• Week ending 15th February – This much I know about…teaching students meta-cognition & self regulation skills for the examination hall – John Tomsett
• Week ending 8th February – Beyond Dependency Learning: scaffolding, crutches and stabilisers – Tom Sherrington
• Week ending 1st February – Supporting learning through effective revision techniques – Shaun Allison
• Week ending 25th January – Trying to grow their mindset – Shaun Allison
• Week ending 18th January – What I remembered about practice from 15 minutes tinkling on the piano – Bodil Isaksen
• Week ending 11th January – What if assessment was used to elevate learning rather than to rank students? – Ron Berger
• Week ending 4th January – Changing the Game – David Fawcett
• Week ending 14th December – Teaching matters more than setting – Lee Elliot Major
• Week ending 7th December – Is the feedback you are giving students helping or hindering? – Dylan Wiliam
• Week ending 30th November – Interventions AKA Helping Students – Shaun Allison
• Week ending 23rd November – Growth Mindset in the Staff Room – Stephen Tierney
• Week ending 16th November – The problem with Growth Mindset – Alex Quigley
• Week ending 9th November – Closed-question quizzing – unfashionable yet effective – Andy Tharby
• Week ending 2nd November – What makes great teaching? – The Sutton Trust – Shaun Allison
• Week ending 19th October – Moving from marking towards feedback – Harry Fletcher-Wood
• Week ending 12th October – Closing the learning gap with homework – Shaun Allison
• Week ending 5th October – The Fear of Failure: Part 1 and 2 – Pete Jones

Here’s a set of links to a range of blogs you might also want to follow to get you started.  Most of the authors you can also follow on twitter…enjoy!

Recommended Blogs

• Class Teaching
• The Learning Spy
• Pragmatic Education
• Must Do Better
• Othmar’s Trombone
• Bodil’s blog
• The Wing to Heaven
• MrHistoire.com
• Reflecting English
• Chronotope
• Doug Lemov’s Field Notes
• missdcoxblog
• Mr Benney
• Hunting English
• Improving Teaching
• Learning from my mistakes: an English teacher’s blog
• The Goldfish Bowl
• Drowning In The Shallow
• Keven Bartle’s blog
• headguruteacher
• johntomsett
• @LeadingLearner
• Clio et cetera
• SurrealAnarchy
• Love Learning Ideas
• My Learning Journey
• Teaching: Leading Learning
• edssential
• Where’s your head at?
• Sharing Pedagogical Purposes
• The Education Echo Chamber
• marymyattsblog
• Ikonoklaste
• Meols Cop High School Learning and Teaching blog