Arranging classroom seating to facilitate discussion and collaboration

Seating pupils in an inward-facing circle provides an inclusive and collaborative learning environment that overcomes disengagement and fosters peer-to-peer learning.

Teaching good learning behaviours

We may unwittingly be teaching our pupils that conformity leads to successful learning. Teacher and pupil roles need to move with the times, but this won’t happen without serious debate in the schools.

Educational Gap: focus on the school, not pupils, to reduce inequalities

Educators should now be focusing on closing the product gap (the way in which schools fail to cater for certain populations) rather on the idea of helping low-achieving groups to somehow catch up with the others. Investing in changing the low-achieving system rather than changing the pupils whose achievement is limited by the way the…

Storm, norm, perform: understanding the dynamics of newly-formed groups.

Teachers and school leaders can benefit from a well-known model of group process psychology – Form, Storm, Norm, Perform –  to design their own role in the development of a collaborative group culture. Although the storming phase may feel uncomfortable for some, it is a vital developmental stage of an effective group. In a truly…

No child will ever return to the school they left: how past disasters impacted on schools in Japan and New Zealand

As schools plan to reopen for all students, they can learn from the experiences of schools in Japan and New Zealand, where earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear disasters not only closed schools but shook the whole community. Teachers identified what helped and what hindered their attempts to get their schools up and running again. Unexpectedly, students…

Why school leaders should put their own wellbeing first

If head teachers and other school leaders do not look after their own wellbeing, they will be unable to support their staff and pupils. This article explains why the least selfish option for head teachers and school principals at this time is to put their own needs first. Just as parents in an aeroplane emergency…