Christopher Waugh
Teaching writing is one of the greatest joys and challenges of the English domain. Along the way, you encounter, acquire and discard many approaches and strategies – but there are always some that stick. Unlike the teaching of reading, for which I entered the...
Albert Einstein defined insanity as: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yet, inescapably, the English education system ignores this logic, and repeats the same tired strategies and the same ill-informed notions in and out of the...
When a teacher fails, it’s “mea culpa”; when we succeed, it’s “didn’t the students do well?” Something that struck me when listening to John Hattie speak at the recent London Festival of Education was his exhortation for...
Presented to Teachmeet London on Tuesday 11 December, 2012, to follow is a quick drive through one moment in the life of The Edutronic – with a focus on feedback. Teachmeets are a grass-roots phenomenon where teachers get together and share elements of good...
As part of Dr Laura Ovenden’s presentation to the London Leadership Strategy meeting I was invited to present an introduction to Edutronic and its power as a vehicle for student feedback. Here’s a video of the presentation documents. Some of the delegates...
I have set up a comprehensive student blogging platform for my classes. I have a blog for every class with a lesson stream that tracks and compiles the daily traffic of the classroom, I publish my year plans, samples of excellent student work, moderated exemplars,...
Two days ago the long-awaited installation of internet-connected devices landed in my underground classroom. The buzz was palpable. My students, unable to contain their enthusiasm, started to burble inchoate (and largely unwarranted) references to my being...
The London Nautical School has for the past 4 years had the privilege of participating in an international film making programme run by the French film archive the Cinematheque Francaise. This is a film learning programme like no other. Groups of students from all...
Most of what I know about learning I discovered through running on mountain trails. This journal entry represents my manifesto for teaching and learning in my classroom. I want to make something perfectly clear from the outset: while experimentation with technology...
Picture this: a classroom inhabited by a class preparing for a “functional skills” English assessment. The students are clear about what was expected of them. They are working with focus and the atmosphere in the room is calm. What these boys are earnestly...
Sometimes things just don’t go the way you’d hoped in a new school. Here is some advice for students and their parents about how to turn a bad situation around. It will not escape your notice that secondary schools run an elaborate scheme of rewards and...
Here I write some of my thoughts as I head into the new teaching year. I recently received a message from a newly qualified teacher who was filled with anxiety about her first week at a new school. It got me thinking… We can go a long way towards alleviating the...