Curriculum « The Creative Education Blog

Should We Still Teach Handwriting in Schools?

On January 25, 2012 / Curriculum, Opinion / 7 Comments

How much do you write each day? Not on a computer, a tablet or a phone – but actually write. Probably as teachers we write more than many people, particularly with endless mounds of marking, but for many whole days can go past without them having to write anything at all by hand. So are we wasting precious time teaching handwriting in our schools? Are we just doing the modern equivalent of teaching pupils to ride a horse to get places, when they’ll be driving round in cars in 10 years’ time?

Guest Post: Is Competition Between Awarding Bodies Good for Our National Curriculum?

On January 12, 2012 / Curriculum, Opinion / 5 Comments

All Awarding Bodies are competing for a sale of their qualifications, whether you provide one course, hundreds of courses or even thousands. You could be teaching Maths, Science, English, Computer Science or Food Technology. They want your business. Assessment and qualifications is a multi-billion pound industry in the UK and with the ongoing government emphasis on education it is an industry that is only likely to grow.

Guest Post: How to Teach About the Holocaust

On January 10, 2012 / Curriculum, Guest Posts & Interviews / Leave a comment

Research by the Institute of Education shows that while 94% of teachers think that it will always be important to teach about the Holocaust, almost half say it is difficult to do so effectively. The Holocaust is a particularly challenging part of the curriculum, both because of the complexity of the history and because of the emotional demands it places upon both the teacher and the learner. How can we explain modern Europe’s collapse into genocide? How do we engage young people without traumatising them? What if students do not take this seriously or make inappropriate remarks?

Guest Post: Should Schools Encourage Pupils To Be More Entrepreneurial?

On November 8, 2011 / Curriculum, Guest Posts & Interviews / 2 Comments

Schools have traditionally divided their students into the ‘academic’, destined for university and a professional career, and the ‘non-academic’, those channelled towards work or training after school. However, this narrow view excludes a third possibility – entrepreneurship. While many businesses are started by those with experience in their field as an employee, there are many businesses that could be started by anyone – including school leavers. For this reason, schools should encourage their students to consider a business career, and teach the skills needed to do so. One reason that schools tend not to prepare their students for a life

10 Ways Your School Can Raise Achievement at KS3

On October 26, 2011 / Classroom Ideas, Curriculum / Leave a comment

Key Stage 3 is often a time when boys can become disengaged with learning – making them less likely to achieve at Key Stage 4 and more likely to disrupt the learning of others in your class! Here are ten whole school approaches you can take to try and improve the achievement of boys in your school at Key Stage 3. I think in many respects they’re general good practice too, which you could apply to developing learning with any group across your school with some modification. 1) Identify Boys That Need Support A programme of assessment through

Let’s take maths back to basics

On August 11, 2011 / Curriculum, Guest Posts & Interviews / 2 Comments

even at FE, some students didn't know when to divide and when to mutiply

Hilary Nunns discusses her experience of teaching functional skills to FE students and why she believes that really getting back to the basics would benefit some students’ understanding of maths.

Carol Vordeman’s Maths Report – a teacher’s view

On August 8, 2011 / Curriculum, Guest Posts & Interviews / 3 Comments

Carol Vordeman proves her maths skills... but what do you think of her maths report?

Carol Vordeman’s maths report has caused some controversy – not least because many feel her unqualified to have written it. Here, one teacher shares her views on the reports content. I’d love to hear your views too.

How to take creative writing outside with storyseeking.com

On August 5, 2011 / Curriculum, Guest Posts & Interviews / Leave a comment

visit storyseeking.com for more information

Storyseeking.com is a fantastic, free resource that enables you to take creative writing outside the classroom in a new and interesting way based on the concept of geocaching

A great resource: Gus the Singing Gorilla

On July 4, 2011 / Curriculum, Guest Posts & Interviews / 2 Comments

When I learnt about Gus the Singing Gorilla I was blown away at how useful one singing primate could be within a primary school. I hope he’ll inspire you too!

Give our Lesson Plan Search Engine a Go!

On June 9, 2011 / Curriculum / 8 Comments

We’ve created a lesson plan search engine to help you when you’re developing your lessons – give it a go!

Do vocational courses making studying for GCSEs harder?

On January 25, 2011 / Curriculum, Guest Posts & Interviews / 1 Comment

do vocational qualifications get students out of the habit of traditional studying and have a knock on effect?

This is a guest post written by Glen Gilchrist and was first posted here. Glen is head of science at Newport High School. As a school we have embraced vocational qualifications – both Btec and OCR Nationals. The qualification suits our learners as it allows us to work alongside them and to guide them towards their portfolios. With Science, DT, ICT, Health & Social Care, Animal Care, Public Services, Hospitality, Construction and Travel & Tourism – it is quite possible for our learners to leave school with 12 / 14 GCSE equivalents. Now, leaving aside the debate about the exact nature

Lesson planning – necessary evil?

On December 31, 2010 / Curriculum, Guest Posts & Interviews / 5 Comments

How much time should you be spending planning your lessons?

Should lessons be planned down to the tiniest detail or should we be a little free-er in our planning?

Books that Boys like to Read

On December 15, 2010 / Curriculum / 6 Comments

Getting boys into reading can sometimes be hard so I’ve assembled some great advice in this blog post

Spiralling the ICT Curriculum

On December 8, 2010 / Curriculum, Guest Posts & Interviews / 9 Comments

Is it a good idea to spiral GCSE tasks down to KS3 and up to KS5?

Pete Bell is a Principal Examiner for GCSE ICT. As he looks to develop a new specification for A Level he will be sharing the process with you via a series of guest posts and inviting your input. Pete would like to take the innovative approach of partially crowd sourcing the new A Level specification so your input vital! Today he talks about the idea of spiralling GCSE specifications down to KS3 and up to A Level. Originally posted here. “Last night, I had a very interesting conversation about how to develop a KS2 ICT scheme of work that was engaging

Can Culture and The Arts be Used to Bridge the Divide Between Rich and Poor Children?

On November 3, 2010 / Curriculum, Guest Posts & Interviews / 4 Comments

Can culture and The Arts help 'close the gap'?

What can be done to close the gap between rich and poor children?

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