Is ‘learning’ a noun or a verb?
This is in some ways a pointless question as it is of course both: the OED allows us both. I do however have significant concerns over how ‘learning’ gets used as [...]
Articles by Michael Fordham
Should teachers choose to learn a particular teaching style?
I have recently been reading Doug Lemov’s various works on teaching teachers. The books and videos will be familiar to many and, although some of the Americanisms jar on my [...]
How do we teach when it’s possible our students might die?
This blog is a copy of a comment I made in response to Sue Cowley who commented on this post about having a content repertoire. She suggested that maybe learning to walk in [...]
Can we find out ‘what works’?
Consider the following three statements: “Converting secondary schools to academies improve GCSE attainment”. “Peer coaching is an effective form of teacher CPD .” [...]
The importance of a ‘content repertoire’
I am rather hoping that you might, for this blog post, permit me a slightly extended analogy.I have spent a lot of my free time in the last fifteen years in mountains. I [...]
Who should know a pupil’s predicted grade?
It is very widely accepted that a teacher ought to know a pupil’s predicted grade. Although I think Ofsted don’t specifically require this, I have heard so many times [...]
Teaching facts
There are some words that bring people out in a rash in the contemporary world of education. ‘Memorisation’ is one of them. ‘Facts’ is another. There is something [...]
Schools as the intellectual heart of the community
Although some readers of this blog might assume that I attended a fancy independent school in London, I am in fact the product of a rural comprehensive school on the [...]
Getting children to care about Syria
When faced with suffering, it is a very natural thing to respond with a range of emotions. Children might lack emotional maturity (whatever that means), but they too [...]
Is teaching as hard as brain surgery?
I can’t remember the first time I heard this, but I think it was at an education conference about three or four years ago. A wise man was on stage, talking about the [...]
The danger of dressing up our subjects as something else
One of the saddest things I see (and have done) in schools is the dressing up of our subjects so that they look like something else. Take Tudor England. The stories that [...]
Better at reading *what*?
I read Heather’s blog post about problems with the EEF with some interest yesterday, not least because I have also been frequently dissatisfied with the kinds of studies [...]
Should exam questions be predictable?
I have over the last half term started teaching a Year 11 class for the first time in a couple of years, and I am reminded of just how much work has to be done on teaching [...]
What are our pupils reading?
It has long been recognised that ‘literacy’ is not simply the responsibility of the English department in school. Most of the discussion surrounding reading in recent [...]
Five academic papers all teachers need to read
This blog post is a quick summary of five of the academic papers that have most influenced me in my development as a teacher, and I would heartily recommend all five to other [...]
Is ‘understanding’ a thing?
We hear a lot about ‘understanding’ in education: it is a common curriculum and assessment term, particularly in ‘generic’ models such as Bloom’s Taxonomy. It is [...]
How to choose a good teacher training course
If you are someone who is thinking about applying for teacher training this year, then this blog post is for you! Similarly, if you know someone thinking about going into [...]
Clio et cetera 