Effective Papers For learning

Schools are complex organisations, and the job of a teacher is far from simple. There is, frankly, a lot to do, and significant good judgement and skill is required to perform the constant decision-making, management of interactions and relationships, time management, lesson organisation and so on which make up the daily life of teacher. The systems and processes in which we work don't always seem to help; often, those responsible for devising said systems seem to me to get it the wrong way round. There are measures in place to simplify things which are in fact highly complex and should be recognised as such - accountability measures and judgements for individual schools for example. At the same time, there is a trend to over-complicate those things which could be made simple, or at least considerably simpler: the twenty strands which the APP materials suggest are a pre-requisite in order to understand a child's capacity in English, the complexity and abstractions of the variou...

Interesting stuff on creativity in lessons knocking around twitter this morning, following an incisive post from Alex Quigley on trying to make practical use of the thinking of Sir Ken Robinson. Before I start going on, I would point out that all of the below is only how it seems to me, as an English teacher, and, well, as me... In the early years of my own teaching, I tended to feel troubled with a sense that my lessons were a little bit lacking when it came to creativity, that my planning missed the creative spark with which I could ignite the fires of learning in the kindling minds bobbing expectantly in front of me (ahem). I suffered from a sort of 'creativity-envy'; an abiding belief that I just wasn't creative enough myself to devise the sort of imaginative and engaging activities which would (in that mildly-alarming edu-phrase) 'grab them' and, through sheer fun and adventure, ensure that they loved to learn. This nagging anxiety prodded me to action at times...