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Here’s my paper on evidence and teaching for the education minister. I was asked by Michael Gove (Secretary of State for Education) and the Department for Education to look at how to improve the use of evidence in schools. I think there are huge, positive opportunities for teachers here, that go way beyond just doing a few more trials: there is a need for a coherent “information architecture” that supports evidence based practice. I was asked to write something that explains what this would look like, specifically for teachers. Pasted below is the briefing note from DfE press office, and then the text of what I wrote for them, which came out this week. You can also download a PDF from the DfE website here. If you’re interested, there’s more on evidence based policy in this BBC Radio 4 documentary I did here, and in this Cabinet Office paper on trials in government that I co-authored here, as well as zillions more posts.

Hope you like it! And here’s the paper… I think there is a huge prize waiting to be claimed by teachers. This is not an unusual idea. How to build a winning team - 10 top tips from outstanding school leaders | Teacher Network Blog | Guardian Professional. Developing the right team is critical to a school's fortunes. This applies not just to the senior leadership team but to every single unit within the school, from the English department to facilities and premises.

For many head teachers team-building is all about getting relationships right and is a crucial first step to achieving their overall vision and ambitions for their schools. It's not just a matter of appointing the right staff to the right jobs. It's about developing good relations between the leadership, staff, pupils, parents and wider community.

This process is tied in with the values headteachers want to instil. For this article, I asked three leaders whose schools are rated 'outstanding' by Ofsted for their advice on how to build a successful team. Identify skills gaps Look at the balance of your team and try to find people who complement each other, says Roger Pope, principal of Kingsbridge Community College, Devon. Build friendships Identify and promote talent Lead by example. Training does not make the best teachers. None of us would accept being treated by a doctor or by a nurse who hadn’t had extensive training, nor would we want legal advice from someone who hadn’t been through law school. Nor would we be comfortable with our company accounts being managed or audited by anyone not trained to a high level in accountancy.

So why should we accept teachers coming into our schools who haven’t been properly professionally taught how to teach in a college or university? Schooling is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and poor teachers, as research shows, destroy life chances. How can we play dice with our children’s lives? Well, as someone who has been head of a school for over 15 years, I can comfortably say I am not remotely troubled by employing someone who doesn’t have a teaching qualification. I was equally happy to have untrained teachers educating my own children. I see no problem whatsoever with the government allowing academies to employ teachers who lack a formal teaching qualification. Jeremy-hardy-s-new-quiz-buddha-rant. Who does Gove think his O levels are for? - comment. Comment:5 average rating | Comments (1)Last Updated:30 June, 2012Section:comment So Michael Gove wants to reintroduce O levels.

The question is - what percentage of pupils does he think this new (or should I say old) exam is for? In the past, O levels were designed for grammar school pupils. When they first came in in 1951 only about 20 to 30 per cent of pupils took them. The rest did not have to sit any type of exam at all. You left school with nothing. O levels were around for nearly 15 years before any other type of examination was introduced. When I started teaching, the average grade for all pupils was a grade 4 CSE for English. Substantially more pupils gained what would have been a grade C at O level. The transformative power of hope Hope is a powerful thing in education. And he was proved right. But the other thing that changed was the hope that you could do better. So I ask Mr Gove again - what percentage of pupils is he going to write off? The new Sutton Trust scheme will reinforce existing segregation in schools. The Sutton Trust claims its scheme will help talented pupils from all backgrounds to enter independent schools such as King Edward VI high school for girls (pictured).

Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images There can't be many people associated with education policy who don't respect the work of the Sutton Trust. Its commitment to understanding the barriers that face disadvantaged children is unquestionable and often backed up by a generous financial commitment to research and practical schemes. Its founder, Sir Peter Lampl, was ahead of his time in acknowledging the unrelenting divide caused by the English private school system – an observation that has now become banal given the frequency with which it is trotted out by coalition politicians. As with so many of these schemes Democratising Entry to Independent Day Schools uses a superficially seductive title to mask a plan that is more likely to reinforce existing hierarchies and segregation than to increase equality. More exams could cause a generation of stressed children. Lucie Russell 24 Feb 2012 Michael Gove’s plan to phase out coursework with more emphasis on examinations is likely to create a generation of stressed out and struggling children.

The Education Secretary’s plans seem to be born out of desire to turn the education system back 30 years where schools were simply exam factories with little regard to children’s wellbeing. Already under this government pupils’ wellbeing has been removed as one of the requirements of OFSTED to inspect in schools. Children have very different learning styles with some being suited to examinations and others benefiting from assessment through coursework. In 2009/2010 YoungMinds received 6002 calls to the helpline, 859 of them about 16-17 year olds and, of those, more than a quarter, 27% , were about schools problems including exam stress. Last year YoungMinds Parent's Helpline took more calls than ever before from parents concerned about their child struggling from exam stress.

Tags: The chief inspector of schools makes my blood boil. I had a bad dream last week. I think I dreamed that I heard Sir Michael Wilshaw, our new chief inspector of schools, on the radio whingeing about literacy, and suggesting there isn't enough love of reading for its own sake. Did he really say that? Did he really suggest there was too much working to exams and not enough room for imagination? Could he actually have the gall – after decades of teacher-crushing rules, regulations, targets and tests, arrogant management, rigid and insane curriculum requirements, hyper-critical inspections and an imagination-murdering regime – to inform the nation that teaching wasn't good enough, that satisfactory was unsatisfactory, outstanding was not outstanding and that our standards should be higher?

And who are the culprits yet again? Where are they to read? A few years ago Fielding turned up at the start of term to find that his English department had been "hot-desked". And how is Mr Chief Inspector to know whether his new plans will raise standards? Dear Mr Gove: Letter from a curious parent. Michael Rosen: 'I’m not sure why reading single words, not in sentences nor in passages of writing, counts as "reading" '. Photograph: Martina Salvi /Rex Features I wonder if I can tell you about some rumours that are doing the rounds? First, we've all seen that you're going to perform that miracle much beloved by those who like measuring human beings: changing the pass level of exams. I come from an era when this was standard practice in the 11-plus exam. The pass level in any area wasn't a statement about how good or bad that cohort of children were.

I mean, there couldn't be a tiny possibility, could there, that the reason why you're fiddling around with exam pass levels is so that you can regulate the numbers of school students applying for university? Talking of labelling people as failures, I see it's full steam ahead with June's phonics test. And then, as if all this wasn't enough, you'll never guess what I heard this week? Michael Rosen's letters appear monthly. Academy plan to use untrained teachers is an outrage | Francis Gilbert. Michael Gove has announced plans to let academies use untrained teachers. Photograph: Vstock LLC/Getty Images/Tetra images RF The news today that the education secretary is to remove the requirement for academies to employ qualified teachers sent a shudder down my spine. For a teacher like me, who has taught for more than 20 years in various comprehensives and has spent a great deal of time, quite a bit of it my own time, being "trained", I know that pupils get a raw deal if they are taught by an untrained teacher.

Firstly, a properly trained teacher is fully conversant with the various theories about how children learn; he or she understands that you can't just stand at the front and bark orders, that you need to engage children in "active" learning where they are doing things that assist with their learning. I know I wouldn't be nearly as effective as a teacher had I not been trained. Much research shows that the best teachers have been very well trained.