Who’s afraid of lesson observations?
“Ask any teacher for their experience of summative observations, and it’s likely their answer will involve various expletives.” Joe Kirby collates what teachers across the education blogosphere are saying about the current system of lesson observations and outlines four problems with it.
How can we improve our education system?
“In climbing the twin peaks of quality and equality, education in England has a steep ascent ahead. …And even the gains we think we have made in the last decade may have been illusory.” Joe Kirby examines the success of the education system - and how it can be improved.
How knowledge is being detached from skills in English
“Given such a content-light curriculum, assessment and training regime, who can doubt that our education system has elevated skills over knowledge?” Joe Kirby writing on Pragmatic Education argues that the education system has reduced the amount of knowledge taught in schools.
Which ideas are damaging education?
“Education must resolve the teacher-student contradiction, exchanging the role of depositor, prescriber, domesticator, for the role of student among students.” Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1968 “Education still hasn’t learned that poorly designed curricula generate poor performance in both teacher and students.” Siegfried Engelmann, Academic Child Abuse, 1992 Confused cargo cult ideas are damaging education In […]
How can we improve initial teacher training?
Forge a new, school-led professionalism and bridge the gap between research and practice. In 1818, Thomas Telford, an engineer who’d designed over 30 bridges and canals, founded the Institution of Civil Engineers. By 1828, it had earned a Royal Charter. In 1968, some 150 years later, a new town in Shropshire was named after him. When […]
Why does London outperform England?
“For decades, London schools had some of the worst exam results in the country. Recently, though, education in London has been hailed as a triumph. …So I began asking: what changed?”Joe Kirby looks at the reasons for the improvements in London’s schools - and draws out the surprisingly simple implications for education policy generally.
Why isn’t our education system working?
‘Educational inequality is the civil rights issue of our time’ - Barack Obama, 2011 Our retention, training, curriculum and assessment aren’t strong enough In 1807, radical journalist William Cobbett used an analogy to suggest that, just as his hunting dogs in training had lost the scent because he’d laid a false trail of red herrings, politics had […]