Remember - there is nothing wrong with the placebo effect. Parents and adults working with children rely on it all the time.

A privilege to work with a group of such thoughtful and committed teachers. A really good day!

Route 3, on the bottom of the Royal Mile, had had a lot if changes. Holyrood Palace has a new tenant, and the museums keep evolving.

With the "inclusion" focus, as a school we are looking at how we manage (day in day out) the balance between challenge/overwhelm and between engagement/distraction. The balance and interplay. Not swinging to extremes. Thank goodness.

The purpose of the edu-fad is what it does: Post → christianmooreanderson.com/an-edu-fads-...

Always sad when managing cognitive load, or increasing learning efficiency, becomes about default joylessness. Blank classroom walls. No jokes. Always silence. The argument is always about "marginal gains". But we're not shaving milliseconds off a cycling time. We're teaching children.

I love those hashtag-less posts that seem to assume that everybody is watching the same event. Things like: "Wow! That was some finish!"

Talk, Drama and English: An EMC Teacher Conference "A truly brilliant day. The workshops were practical, useful and engaging. The panel were informed and motivating... I left buzzing with ideas that I am excited to implement at our school." Book by: 8am on 10th June buff.ly/0OKAMOk

Thought experiment for #English teachers: decades away, what individual pieces of writing about #literature might current #KS3 pupils remember doing? The only one I remember was a detailed proposal for staging Twelfth Night. I set it on an ocean liner.

This took me by surprise, as I wasn't aware that the solar system had a warranty. From Magrathea, presumably.

Despite teaching to them for many years, it's only now, as a parent, that I've come to understand how completely and utterly I Ioathe and despise exams and the system built around them.

Are we teaching English if students are silent + not allowed to articulate ideas? This blog shares one teacher's experience of a curriculum imposed from above. EMC view: English this ain't! @warwickmansell.bsky.social @natecommunity.bsky.social @englishassociation.bsky.social tinyurl.com/5a9anapp

I think the MAT thinking behind this is related (among other things) to my new post: "Information theory and why "clearly explaining" isn't enough" christianmooreanderson.com/the-transmis...

This is an important and very sad read, from @engmediacentre.bsky.social. www.englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/how-a-m...

Yes. Never forget that every subject is different. One size fits all is bound to cause problems.

Just a reminder that the recently published research on #setting pertains specifically to #secondary #maths.

I’m available to support schools, trusts and organisations with: • Curriculum development • CPD • Quality assurance • Subject leadership support • Department improvement over time 3/4

"Others might bring up that abomination of a sentence, ‘learning is change in long-term memory’, which just ignores most of the ways in which we use the word..." I enjoyed this very thorough exploration of the visibility of learning, from @bernardandrews.bsky.social

It's fascinating to watch people define 'inclusion' entirely according to what they already believe and do.

This is utterly jaw-dropping. A school that bans Atwood, Zadie Smith, Terry effing Pratchett and *literal George Orwell* is actively harming its pupils. www.indexoncensorship.org/2026/03/scho...

What does the poem do? A #GCSE_English #poetry revision tool. This is an OLD blog post, but many still find the approach very useful, especially at this time of year. #GCSE_English_Literature #Revision #Poetry jamesdurran.blog/2017/05/11/w...

What does the poem do? A #GCSE_English #poetry revision tool. This is an OLD blog post, but many still find the approach very useful, especially at this time of year. #GCSE_English_Literature #Revision #Poetry jamesdurran.blog/2017/05/11/w...

Learning *about* a book, being given knowledge of context, being tested on that, annotating extracts based on what your teacher tells you, is not the same as reading a book. In KS3, students need to read lots of books & talk about them, alongside studying some in more detail.

Thread… This is the sort of brave leadership/school dev practice that develops innovative solutions to complex problems…. It is not the Ofsted implementation model. Neither is it a quick win. It takes time to develop the behaviours needed to develop well. bsky.app/profile/jdur...

Beware of lowest common denominator teaching & learning policies Thinking of teaching and learning approaches as things to 'implement' in a school, rather than as things which evolve organically in the practice of reflective professionals and/or (in the secondary phase) reflective ...

Beware of lowest common denominator teaching & learning policies Thinking of teaching and learning approaches as things to 'implement' in a school, rather than as things which evolve organically in the practice of reflective professionals and/or (in the secondary phase) reflective ...

New, short blog post. #Reading_for_pleasure is for all subjects. jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/15/r...

New, short blog post. #Reading_for_pleasure is for all subjects. jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/15/r...

Great blog post on knowledge, spherical children and vacuums.

99% of teachers are fully invested in supporting those with SEND in any way they can, and will work hard to do so. Unfortunately, there's a tiny minority who seem to resent making any accommodations at all, if this interferes with their view of how classrooms should be.

What a heart-warming, inspiring blog by Andrew McCallum, describing a superb lesson by English teacher Maddie Lynes! It reinforces the view that drama activities do not just create engagement & pleasure but are a highly effective way of embedding learning. www.englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/drama-i...

Lots of great stuff on here at the moment on 'checking for understanding' (and on #adaptive_teaching generally.) At its core, it's all about #feedback_loops. jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/03/o...

NEW blog post: on the anatomy of great #classroom_explanations and the importance of #relationship jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/03/e...

This is such an important perspective, which is so often missing from discussions of "what works" in education. From @bernardandrews.bsky.social bernardandrews.substack.com/p/efficiency...

NEW blog post: on the anatomy of great #classroom_explanations and the importance of #relationship jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/03/e...

How important is #relationship to teacher explanations? NEW blog post on the anatomy of great #classroom_explanations. jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/03/e...

How important is #relationship to teacher explanations? NEW blog post on the anatomy of great #classroom_explanations. jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/03/e...

This is an absolute banger. Sharing with mentors and trainees today! THANK YOU.

This is why children need phones on the way to and from school.

On #teaching_talk Developing pupils' talk doesn't have to be about special activities - it can (and should) be organic to everyday classroom teaching. As schools and teachers turn their attention to #oracy, I thought I'd repost this old blog post. jamesdurran.blog/2019/08/14/t...

On #teaching_talk Developing pupils' talk doesn't have to be about special activities - it can (and should) be organic to everyday classroom teaching. As schools and teachers turn their attention to #oracy, I thought I'd repost this old blog post. jamesdurran.blog/2019/08/14/t...

All my life, I've heard that first-past-the-post voting prevents giving influence to dangerous extremists. And now it seems like it might actually put them into actual power.

Thread.

Fascinating! This historical perspective should be part of the English curriculum. I was fine back to 1300. (At university, I had to read and translate much earlier, but it's faded!)

Supporting children’s early word writing writing4pleasure.com/2026/01/19/s...

NEW POST on teaching #writing and on planning for a 'dynamic' #writing_sequence. For #primary teachers (and secondary #English teachers too) reviewing how they teach writing, this graphic may (or may not!) be helpful. jamesdurran.blog/2026/02/18/t...

If a teacher (or a department, or a MAT) discovers that by getting all pupils to write, polish and remember by heart a single piece of creative writing and then practise adjusting it to fit any given title, they can get great results in English GCSE, are they 'teaching well'?

Whe I did GCSEs my media coursework was on the party political broadcasts of the BNP and the word ‘chav’ I learned loads about racism and class and it was closely aligned with A View FRom the Bridge- our modern text and Seamus Heaney’s poetry