When setting assessment tasks there are many criteria to consider. Certainly the most important is the relationship between the assessment task and the specification of the course. This, set by the examination board, is central to our thinking, but there are of course many other criteria which we have to… Read More

In the last blog I offered a case for using less control in the classroom. I wasn’t thinking of starry-eyed notions of freedom associated with the educational elites of yore, where students select the subject they need from a pick and mix open timetable. My point was restricted to the “ownership” of… Read More

A pressing need, following Michael Gove’s speech to BETT in January, has been the need for defining a new direction for the ICT curriculum. In the purest sense, the speech does require a complete rethink of the curriculum: blank paper, sharpened pencil and all. I suspect the outcome of these… Read More

Try this engaging lesson plan, exploring the electrical control of the heart Read More

Start a debate on conservation with your A-level Biology students with this engaging and challenging lesson plan Read More

Educational consultant John Giles discusses the possibilities and obstacles in putting programming at the heart of the new ICT curriculum Read More

Following on from his post on the life and death of cells, John Giles looks at the role of telomeres in aging. Includes lots of links to further reading and examples of relevant syllabus content. Read More

With the new academic year upon us, I wonder what troubles lurk ahead and in particular the developing shape of the ICT/Computing curriculum.   As indicators of progress in alternative designs to the computing curriculum, I’ve just been reading reports of progress which have been written by the “Computing at School”… Read More

It’s August and I have traded the office for mountains, beaches and the bike.  The result is predictable; gone is the daily time compression, replaced by, I hope not an illusion, but a more expansive assessment of what we are about. I muse about terminology and how change, gradually and… Read More