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 "Their...
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 doing, in...
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...
In the eye of the GCSE English "grade manipulation storm", I’m seeing a silver lining Almost as soon as this year’s GCSE English grades were released, the twittersphere, broadsheets and tabloids were set alight, first with murmurings, and then all-out accusations that...
The Importance of Being ... Out Why Sexuality Matters in English Chris Waugh reflects on his experiences as a gay English teacher, arguing that openness about sexuality is a crucial element of the work of the English classroom. If I were given the opportunity to speak...