Reading time: 3 minutes
Student behaviour can be difficult to control at times especially around exam season due to a decrease in attentiveness and focus to several factors. Here are three tips that can help get students back on track.
Several ideas can have a positive impact on student behaviour, but these tips can help schools in the long-term with their relationship with their students.
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During December the academic year tends to slowly lose momentum, but now could be the chance for students to catch-up on lost learning. Here’s 5 tips.
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Raising standards of behaviour remains a significant challenge for many schools.
Many actions can be taken in order for schools to improve. No matter how skilled the teacher, intervention at a policy level from a senior leader can have far greater an impact than a classroom teacher can.
How can your school create a culture to raise standards of behaviour? This blog post explains.
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“Even I saw the massive value of active, inclusive and personalised learning,” says Hilary Moriarty a teacher who experienced e-learning for the first time in 2020.
Personalised learning has a multitude of benefits for students – not only has it come to the aid of students in both retention and learning, but if done effectively they will also appreciate what they have learnt.
Virtual classrooms have become a buzzword in coronavirus times. If done effectively, it can provide a personalised learning touch too. With schools returning in September, we take a look at the elements of virtual learning here to stay.
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Are you getting the most out of students in inclusion units?
According to the Department for Education, over half of secondary schools use internal inclusion units.
An inclusion unit is a specific resource which ensures parity of opportunity for all by allowing teachers to teach, students to learn, and those learning with additional needs to be supported. According to the Welsh Government it should not be used as a sin bin, dumping ground or holding cell.
Inclusion units provide schools with an opportunity to address pupils’ individual needs. But are they effective in doing so? This blog post explains.
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Visual learning is one of three different types of learning styles. The visual learning style means that people need to see information to learn it. This can take the form of spatial awareness, photographic memory, colour/tone, brightness/contrast, and other visual information.
In a classroom environment these could take the form of overheads, the chalkboard, pictures, graphs, maps, and many other visual items to entice visual learners into knowledge.
But what are the strengths of visual learning and how should teaching styles adapt to this. Our latest blog post explains.
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Students have not been engaging with education during lockdown, so schools have a responsibility to make sure students are re-engaged.
The NFER found that a third of pupils are currently engaged with education. 90% of teachers have said that their pupils are doing less than they would normally produce.
The reasons for the lack of engagement are varied. However, schools have a responsibility to provide an education which is engaging for their pupils whether they are inside school or learning from home. This blog post can help.
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To revise is a crucial skill in preparing for exams. As end of year exams edge clearly, revision will form a crucial part of your strategy of best performing for an exam.
But when is the best time to revise? Is it during the day? Is it during the night?
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EDArcade is exhibiting at the BETT Show on 22-25 January.
Ahead of the show we can reveal a new competition: we are giving one lucky winner the chance to win a free arcade machine when they order EDArcade before or during the show.
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With the advances in technology and the capabilities that the internet has introduced, many traditional learning tools and resources have started to decrease in popularity.
As students prefer to do online research from the comfort of their room, there is a noticeable difference in approach to studying and research methods compared to 20 years ago.
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Constructive feedback (whether formative or summative) is an important part of development, throughout different levels of education and into careers and even general life and social skills.
As a teacher, being able to provide constructive criticism is a very beneficial skill and can be very important in improving learning outcomes.
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Over time there have been more than few vocal commentators who relish an opportunity to criticise the ways in which students are seemingly wrapped in cotton wool. In some environments, children are not taught about failing and every attempt to achieve is considered a success.
Yet amongst all the hyperbole and media bias, there’s an important question at the centre of it all – do they have a point? And more importantly, should we allow our children to try and fail?
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Technology that improves the learning experience and enhances teaching methods is already utilised widely across the UK and beyond.
However, technology isn’t solely confined to assisting academic achievement – it can also be used in various ways to improve behaviour.
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Poor attendance is seen by many as the simplest and most fundamental indicator of the overall quality of a school and its teaching.
And it’s not only appearances that schools with low attendance should be concerned about, as pupils who have low attendance are far more likely to fail their qualifications, and struggle to pick up the skills they need to successfully progress in adult life.
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In recent years there have been a number of studies commissioned to look at the importance of STEM subjects in UK schools and how teachers (and industry) can help increase and encourage students to choose a STEM career path (E.g. Royal Academy of Engineering, Wellcome Trust, University of London, Futurelab).
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Some of your students are arriving late to lessons. Again. You run through the usual lecture. You hear yourself repeating words you’ve said one hundred times already this term, and it’s only the end of October.
The late student misses out, you face playing catch-up with them, and your punctual students must suffer too. No one benefits from this situation. So what can you do to stop them arriving late?
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Whilst the dangers of ‘off-rolling’ or ignoring/marginalising pupils by moving them to poorly managed alternative provision are real, when it is properly managed, alternative provision can be a very useful tool in encouraging school refusers to re-engage with their education.
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Reading for pleasure is starting to feel like a lost art. It is something that every primary school student is encouraged to do but they often find other pastimes more appealing as they grow up.
Whether this is due to lack of motivation at home or at school is often down to individual cases. Reading is an important tool for every child and adult, as it keeps the imagination active and also helps to further learning in general – deepening cognitive ability.
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Disruption in the classroom – it’s an issue that is as old as the teaching profession itself.
Disruptive behaviour is experienced by 47% of teachers on at least a weekly basis (Department for Education); even more concerning, is the fact that four in 10 teachers have been ‘attacked by students’ (BBC).
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Procrastination is often a tool of avoidance – something to block out our thoughts or need to address that painful task, intimidating challenge or mind-numbing chore. You already understand what you need to do and why, now is the time to do it.
46% of us who procrastinate report that it negatively impacts our life “very much” (46%) or “extremely” (18%) (Brandon Gaille). Whatever the facts of the matter, it’s clear that many of us waste our times on tasks that don’t matter.
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If you have a kinaesthetic learner in your class, gaining a solid understanding of their learning styles can be the difference between a motivated, engaged child, and a completely disinterested pupil. The latter can leave you with nothing short of a battle of wills between them and you – which isn’t helpful for anyone.
By crafting your lesson plans to allow your students to play to their learning strengths, you can establish a productive learning environment within which they can flourish.
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Independent learning is more than just a teaching buzz term. It is an approach to teaching that can set a pupil up with critical life skills – preparing them for the world of higher education or work.
However, there is still some confusion about this topic, with various sources of information overcomplicating different approaches to independent learning.
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There has been much research on the topic of just what it is that makes for an effective reward system; despite extensive academic literature on the subject (and debates that rage on between topics such as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation) rewards really needn’t represent a complex, time-consuming system that adds to your everyday pressures as a teacher.
Here are five ideas that work and require minimal effort on your part.
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There is often frustration among teachers who cannot get the quiet students to participate in class, and as a result it is not uncommon for their names to be called out randomly in class – which can be very damaging to their confidence, especially if they do not know the answer.
So when it comes to teaching a class that has a couple of quiet students, here are a few tips for getting them to participate in class.
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Girls outperform boys at GCSE, A-Level and degree level and yet there are clear gender differences in the higher education subjects they select. Only 13% of engineering, 22% of maths and 18% of technology places are taken by women. Compare this to the 89% of women who make up the UK’s nursing workforce.
How can schools close the gap and lure more girls into STEM? It’s a subject that’s generated much debate and a slew of initiatives, including Stemettes, Girls Into STEM and the WISE campaign’s People Like Me resource that address why girls aren’t taking up physics.
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Being a teacher is not an easy task, and while a good number of parents may tell you that you have an easy job, there are many who understand just how difficult things can be.
Of course, every teacher has their own methods, their own ways to connect with a class. However, this can be a lot more difficult when it comes to school refusers – the ones who rarely show up for your classes. Now this can be for a number of reasons (health, lack of interest/motivation), so here are a few tips for teaching different types of school refusers.
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Student participation forms one of the most crucial areas of teaching because participation enhances the learning experience of everyone involved – including the teachers.
Active participation can prove difficult for students as many are reluctant to raise their hands or even speak up, however, there are a range of ideas and methods that help to increase participation while also giving students the confidence they need.
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Homework is something that the vast majority of student’s dread, and it is the least looked forward to at the end of the day. It can be equally frustrating for teachers as well, after all they want nothing more than to inspire students, and it is not often that homework does this.
However, there are ways that you can make homework that much more interesting for students, and these five tips will help you to discover how.
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Strategic planning in schools has evolved in recent years, transforming itself from a one-year model to a cyclical one that promised long term changes.
As the environment around your school changes, so too must the way your school functions, and this is where the strategies come in.
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Without doubt these are the most challenging times I have experienced in teaching and school leadership.
Finding a middle ground between doing what is morally right for the students and keeping the academy from falling into a category due to the new measures is a difficult task.
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Behaviour on the corridors of school is just as important as behaviour inside the classroom.
It can be disruptive and challenging for teachers when they are trying to teach a class where there is activity taking place on the corridors and there are particular times of the day when the corridors can be noisy areas where incidences of unacceptable behaviour can occur.
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English is often a love it or hate it subject. For those pupils who enjoy great literature and poetry, they look forward to exploring the pages of the texts they are studying or letting loose their creative imagination in writing fiction which explores their thoughts and enables talent to be seen.
For those who do not enjoy English, it can feel like a dull experience they are forced to attend, either because they can’t relate the work they are asked to complete to any part of real life or because of low literacy levels and any associated learning difficulties.
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Science has traditionally been a difficult subject to promote among many pupils. It’s viewed by some as difficult to understand and by others as not being relevant in day to day life. Many switch off when faced with chemical equations and theories and universities struggle to fill their science-based courses due to poor uptake at A level.
There is a way though to raise engagement in science and it’s being pioneered by the very people who are seen as elite and exclusive – scientists. Those who are carrying out research are using data more and more collected by school pupils through specific projects and the overall title given to this kind of work is ‘citizen science’.
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The success of a lesson can often depend on how many of the class have completed their previously set homework. If some haven’t attempted any or all of it, they are at an instant disadvantage in their knowledge of the activities ahead and they lack the achieving of set targets and goals.
The solution is to try to find innovative ways to encourage all the class to complete their homework on time. This way they stay up to date, their learning increases and they feel comfortable with tackling the next steps of the curriculum.
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The new SEN reforms have, more than ever, placed the emphasis on all classroom teachers to be ‘teachers of SEN’. This is not new information; in fact it is a sentence that has been repeated in almost every discussion about the reforms. It is the impact of this catch-all statement that will really be news.
Increasing numbers of children who would have been considered to have additional needs, and would be placed at either School Action or School Action Plus will now simply be members of the class.
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Students have great capacity to develop and to better every aspect of their lives whilst at school and in preparation for further education or work.
Most capacity though lays dormant unless challenged – similar to a ballerina at the barre each day or a violinist practising and learning new scales every day. If pupils take their thinking methods for granted and they aren’t given the opportunity to have knowledge of and embrace the skill of critical thinking they won’t improve.
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This blog touches on one of the biggest challenges facing anyone in school leadership: how to promote student achievement.
Improving the raw data that defines the progress of the pupils is the bottom line to end all bottom lines and can make or break an inspection.
Aside from the raw data, the phrase all head teachers want to hear in an inspection report is that ‘a culture of achievement’ has been created in their school. So how does this happen?
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