Reflections on flipped-model and PBL

Reflections on year 10 S1 This year I trialled two teaching methods with my top-set year 10 class: the flipped model and a slighter version of PBL. For context, I teach at a religious orthodox school where 30% of the students’ curriculum time is given to compulsory religious studies; this means that teachers of core …

Why the world will always need superheroes

Year 7 just finished their non-fiction Media unit, which is always my favourite way to end the academic year. The main purpose of the unit is to teach students about the way non-fiction media texts persuade an audience, whether it's to entertain, inform, or manipulate. We explore and analyse films, advertisements (representation of women in advertisements …

There’s no such thing as a bad student, only bad teachers- Cobra Kai review!

Not sure if anyone was a fan of the Karate Kid back in the day, but it was one of my all time favourite films growing up. Recently I discovered that a TV series has been made, featuring the same characters of Daniel Larusso and Johnny Lawrence (the latter was the one who was Daniel's …

Year 9- what a year!

As far as how my school structures the curriculum, the year 9 syllabus has to be my favourite to teach. We introduce GCSE skills at this early stage, but the year is broken up into three modules: Term 1: Crime and Punishment (thematic and genre study comprised of fiction and non-fiction texts) Term 2: Power …

Making feedback ‘student friendly’

I don't know about you, but my school has an obsession with paper-work based feedback. Our marking policy requires us to mark an "extended piece of work" for each class once a term- in addition to the standardised formative assessment that they have mid-year, and the summative end of year test. We spend a good …