Explicit instruction or inquiry-based learning? Perhaps that’s the wrong question. A new conceptual replication again shows that the order matters, as does what students already know. wp.me/p2nWPo-6cB

The Observer interview with Lucy Powell is worse than I feared. This is just untrue. Really poor to just be wrong about this stuff. archive.ph/2026.09.06-0...

People are starting to write the obituary for England's "knowledge-rich" era. Before we bury it, I wanted to check something - was it ever really alive? enserm.substack.com/p/the-knowle...

The knowledge-rich revolution that never was

Part 1: Before we write the obituary, it’s worth checking the patient was ever alive.

enserm.substack.com

💡 NEW POST 💡 'The End of the Knowledge-rich Era' alexquigley.co.uk/the-end-of-t...

The end of the knowledge-rich era

"Each Culture has its own new possibilities of self-expression which arise, ripen, decay and never return… each limited in duration and self-contained, just as each species of plant has its peculiar b...

alexquigley.co.uk

There is something to @benjaminjriley.bsky.social 's ways educators see the "science of learning". I think the SoL is a term more popular in the US. This post could have been the same in the UK as a way educators talk about "cognitive science". buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/the-scienc...

The Science of Learning Taxonomy

A field guide for the perplexed

buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com

"Let's talk about motivation In the Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review Element 2.3 suggests that students who feel motivated to study, learn, engage and succeed are more likely to do so. " Blog by Faye Morris

Let’s Talk About Motivation - Evidence Based Education

In the Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review, Element 2.3 suggests that students who feel motivated to study, learn, engage and succeed are more likely to do so. Motivation plays a crucial role in…

buff.ly

A reminder that a grade 4 is a standard pass. That doesn't mean grades 1-3 are fails. A fail is less than grade 1. There are students who will be over the moon with a grade 1-3, so let's be mindful of that in the language we use on Thursday. If someone can get the media on board too, even better 😆

In a village in Somerset is a grave that represents a remarkable story of reconciliation, compassion and friendship between Germany and the United Kingdom. In 1940, RAF Spitfires shot down a Junkers 88 that crash landed on the shore near Porlock... (1/4)

Ever wondered what expert thinking actually looks like? Modelling your thought process can help students see the decisions, questions and strategies that sit behind successful learning. 🧠 https://www.innerdrive.co.uk/blog/teach-modelling-thought-processes-for-students/

● The Wrong Ends of the Constructivist Stick The middle way isn't a mix of "some telling and some exploring". It's a distinct pedagogy in its own right, just one that few people are aware of. Read about it in my new post: christianmooreanderson.com/teaching-wit...

NEW POST ↓↓↓ ● Teaching with the wrong ends of the constructivist stick christianmooreanderson.com/teaching-wit...

I understand how pen & paper exams can look like anachronisms in an age of AI. Recent comments by the new education secretary indicate as much. But we shouldn't mistake adult ways of working with how children learn. Writing by hand has countless benefits: alexquigley.co.uk/learning-by-...

Learning by hand

What if the brave new world of AI and assistive technology means that we stop learning by hand? Would we lose any learning it the translating from handwriting screen tapping, or from note-taking by ha...

alexquigley.co.uk

How do we guard against people selecting routes based on their situation in society?

Niche@mr-n-wood.bsky.social · 2mo ago

At what age does a young person identify / become identified as one with technical skill vs one with academic skill? So many technical skills have an academic underpinning. So much academic knowledge is redundant with technical skill.

@labouruk.bsky.social This is an unnecessarily dichotomous way to view young people. At school the both have and lack a range of skills / knowledge to varying degrees. This rhetoric is clumsy at best.

I've weighed in on the great vocational education debate. From what we can see of the govt plans, I think they will repeat mistakes of the past. Also, we need to retire the phrase "parity of esteem". It's not helping. substack.nomoremarking.com/p/the-proble...

The problem with "parity of esteem"

Vocational education at age 14 is not the answer

substack.nomoremarking.com

Just migrated my bsky account over to Europe and eurosky's servers, run by a nonprofit: New handle: @cmooreanderson.eurosky.social Wasn't hard doing this: move.eurosky.tech

Supporting neurodiverse students doesn't always require big changes. Sometimes it's the small, intentional adjustments that have the biggest impact. Read our blog for practical ideas 👇 https://www.innerdrive.co.uk/blog/support-neurodiverse-students/

Evidence Informed? My recent speech from ResearchED on why I'm so worried about our direction of travel and why once again we may need to fight for evidence informed education. bennewmark.wordpress.com/2026/07/07/e...

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... An oracy framework for England’s schools: linguistic justice edition Open access and out now in Educational Review

If all the decent people left X it would be over for it.

A teacher in our community is planning tutor-time sessions on misogyny and toxic masculinity, and would welcome advice and resources that have worked for you. If you've tackled this with pupils, what would you recommend? Please share below 🙏 #pastoral #TutorTime

Early stroll. Clouds crowd the sky. The pleasure of chewing apple pips. A faint and fading rainbow. Someone whizzes by on a bike, trying to outcycle the weather. Birds swirl like tea leaves in a cup.

I just wanna say, several Prosecco’s and a very stressful game down, white nationalists will never take away what England is Watching this game, with my black dad, white step mom, and mixed race brother and sister on the edge of our seats remind me of this We are England, nationalists be damned

Sports Day. Back when I was HoD I had an NQT who was a Y8 form tutor. A Polish girl called Martha moved into her class. Martha was a perfectionist who found peer relationships tricky. She needed everything to be perfect and predictable which is, I think, why she preferred adults.

'Students must always ready history with an eye to the author'. When it comes to teaching Discipinary Literacy, some say History is 'the' subject where this applies most. How do we apply this in the classroom? Check out our brand new guide: researchschool.org.uk/greenshaw/ou...

Disciplinary Literacy guides

Check out our guides to Disciplinary Literacy in the classroom – an Introduction; Maths; History; & English Literature – Poetry edition.

researchschool.org.uk

My answer: not one pedagogy. Three, working together. Dialogue. Enquiry. Cognitive science. Each one converts knowledge into something pupils can actually think with. Pull any one out and the other two stop working properly. open.substack.com/pub/enserm/p...

A Pedagogy for Powerful Knowledge

Why dialogue, enquiry and cognitive science aren’t competing answers

open.substack.com

Really cool (and somewhat freighting) work on Gen AI use and highschool performance in China. Homework Scores rocket up, time spend doing homework collapses, then predictably exam scores are way down. Results show bimodal response ~75% see scores drop, the other 20-25% keep doing the work.

If we want learners to thrive, teachers need to give them less freedom in the classroom, according to evidence gathered by science writer David Epstein

Why limits are good for learning - and too much freedom isn’t

In an exclusive extract from his new book, bestselling author David Epstein explains how he discovered that constraints often have surprising benefits, including for teaching and learning

tes.com

New post out: "The gap that never closes" I've spent much of my career trying to reduce the rich/poor gap in education. Nothing's worked. Which has led me to the conclusion that we're thinking about inequality the wrong way... (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

The gap that never closes

Why we're thinking about inequality the wrong way

open.substack.com

This means SEND data can be misleading, in that very often you are comparing apples with pears. Also, some schools game the system and inaccurately categorise some children with SEND if they know their attainment will be strong. All this leads to inaccurate judgements.