Careers Advice

The purpose of this article is both to highlight barriers to the learning process and to share some techniques and strategies teachers can use to help overcome them. Barriers to adult learning The key barriers identified through research are: lack of time and energy negative perceptions of education from their own experiences lack of available…>

A classroom can be a scary place. Walking into a new classroom, with a new teacher and a new group of peers can be daunting for even a confident individual. Equally, I always get butterflies before meeting a new group of students. Preparing the space Before the students arrive, think about the room layout. I generally…>

Technology is a resource As with any other resource, its use needs to be based on how it can enhance the learning of your students. Technology can be used to personalise learning as well as support collaborative learning. It can be used to gather valuable student feedback. Used as flip learning, it can also be…>

Findings from recent Ofsted research (2018) have found that teachers are highly stressed and anxious. Stress in teaching is not new, indeed research into teacher stress dates back to the 1970s. More recently, issues of teacher recruitment and retention are associated with stress. To help manage stress we can help ourselves to some extent and…>

The purpose of education is to help students achieve the best they can, and more! None of us know our own potential, so feedback can be vital, it can be inspiring and motivational, but it can also be devastating. So, here are a few tips on how to give feedback so that it ignites that spark…>

Feeling the pressure An article in TES reported on a survey carried out in 2018 which found that almost two-thirds of students in FE feel very or extremely stressed about exams. The survey further found the most significant stress factors are, firstly, students putting pressure on themselves and, secondly, teachers. So, with this research finding…>

Setting home-study tasks brings frustration. Frustration for teachers when students say they have not done it; frustration for students who perhaps do not see the relevance of tasks set. Flip-learning is a new way to approach the setting of home-study tasks. Rather than being retrospective, it is future looking. It is pre-lesson preparation, reflection and…>

New Year. New term. New resolutions. A new start. January offers a time to reset. Take some time before the term begins to review the Autumn term; what has worked well; what has not worked well. You will have met your new groups of students and begun the process of getting to know them; know…>

The ‘T’ level reform to vocational education planned to be rolled out from 2020 is ambitious and probably the most significant reform to post-16 education since the introduction of ‘A’ levels. The first T Level courses in education and childcare, construction and digital will be taught in over 50 further education and post-16 providers from…>

Last year I wrote several articles about ‘T’ levels. In the last article, I addressed the key issues facing FE colleges in preparation for their rollout in September 2020. It seems that these issues are still key, the difference now being the timescale with which colleges have to make the final preparations so ‘T’ levels are…>