Power Up Your Pedagogy by Bruce Robertson

It dawned on me that I hadn’t read a John Catt publication in a while. Many of the clearest books I have read have come through John Catt and they tend to be well presented and interesting. Having had a quick look at recent publications this book jumped out. It turned out to be an

Talking to Teenagers by Jamie Thom

I enjoyed Jamie Thom’s books on slow and quiet teaching and was interested by this new one. It focuses on communicating with teenagers and I went in with expectations that it would have a pastoral focus. Given his previous books I am not sure quite why I thought that – they touched on pastoral (indeed,

Tips for Teachers by Craig Barton

I have always enjoyed the challenge of a Craig Barton book. They are always epics in size but packed full of wisdom. They are also invariably charming. Craig Barton is honest about his own journey exploring how best to teach. He talks with insight and wit about how he has tried to implement the new

How Teaching Happens by Paul Kirschner, Carl Hendrick and Jim Heal

This blog has lay (lain/layed???) fallow for nearly two years. Partly due to a relentless year in my last Deputy Head (Pastoral and Safeguarding) role and then a long summer of travelling, cycling and sleep. But as I began to look around for a new challenge it became clear that I would probably need some

The Craft of the Classroom by Michael Marland

I can’t remember how this ended up in my shopping basket, but I loved it. My edition was published in 1993 and was brim full of common sense. It is a relatively short but thorough handbook to being a good teacher. It covers a wide variety of aspects of teaching with common sense advice backed

The Power of Explicit Teaching and Direct Instruction by Greg Ashman

Greg Ashman often pops up on my Twitter timeline and I enjoyed his last book- The Truth About Teaching. He has an aptitude for pulling together and eloquently outlining the current state of thinking about teaching (or certainly the dominant perspective from what I have read). This book was a pretty convincing argument for explicit

Powerful Pedagogy by Ruth Powley

I didn’t spot this when it first came out but it was recently recommended on Twitter by David Didau, who enjoyed its clarity. As a man who writes with extraordinary clarity himself I couldn’t help but buy it. It reviews a variety of aspects of effective teaching with key ideas, reflective questions and time saving

Michaela: The Power of Culture Edited by Katharine Birbalsingh

I enjoyed the Battle Hymn of Tiger Teachers and have been fascinated by the story of Michaela and the educational debates it fuels. As a pastoral leader, and one who follows debates over discipline on Twitter eagerly, I have found that Michaela is often used by those arguing for zero-tolerance discipline and I have often

Great Teaching Toolkit Evidence Review

This is an excellent report (rather than a book). It tries to pull together the best in the educational research out there. It pulls its suggestions for effective teaching together in four dimensions including about seventeen elements. It had clear overlaps with the Sherrington Rosenshine’s summary. In that it identifies some ‘best suggestions’. What excited

Teaching Walkthrus by Tom Sherrington and Oliver Caviglioli

This is a beautiful looking book. Not as physically big as Caviglioli’s Dual Coding but landscaped and beautifully produced. At its heart it are 50 five-step walkthroughs that enable effective teaching. They are concise, clear, evidence-based and simple. They are really outstanding teaching supports and I took the opportunity to read each reflecting on how