I have been doing a lot of reading around transition recently. It is a topic that has frustrated me throughout most of my teaching career, and I am passionate about combating the ‘drop-off’ many schools observe when students join in year 7. An article in the JSE (https://www.ase.org.uk/resources/journal-of-emergent-science/issue-27/dropping-cliff-or-flying-high-primary-secondary) summarised a lot of the likely primary…
Subject: Physics/Maths/Biology/Chemistry Level: GCSE/A Level primarily, but also some use at KS3 Link: https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/filter?type=html The Colorado Edu Phet Simulations are a great way for students to be able to explore science in action. They can be used to replace practicals that cannot be conducted in school, either due to a lack of resources, safety, or…
One of the things I commonly see classroom teachers struggle with is managing behaviour, and I actually strongly believe that we often take the fundamentally wrong approach. We tend to default to a position of, “I am authority and I set rules, you must follow” and, if we are honest, we probably wouldn’t react positively…
There is no denying that students have a fascination with personal details about their teachers, and age, especially, seems to capture the wonder of students of any age, and in any country. I have countless anecdotes about my age, mostly my own regrets, when a student asks how old I am, and I ask them…
Subject: Physics Level: GCSE/A Level Link: https://www.flippedaroundphysics.com/ Flipped Around Physics is an incredible resource if you are a Physics teacher, especially for those teaching outside of specialism. Created with ‘flipped learning’ in mind, but absolutely perfect to slot into whatever teaching style you use, the site combines information PDFs with quizzes the students can do…
I know it might make me seem old fashioned, but I am championing the returning of the word bank and weekly vocabulary quiz. In Science, we learn as many new vocabulary words in school as we do when learning a foreign language. I think we all too easily forget that, as well as teaching scientific…
Over my, probably far too many, years in teaching, I have amassed a never-ending cycle of fairly wholesome anecdotes about my classes, and today, I would like to share one that has particularly stuck with me. I once taught an upper-school student who was terrified of spiders. Their fear of spiders reverted them back to…
In my most recent research haul, I had a lot of catching up to do after a particularly hectic couple of months. So I took it upon myself to look over Issue 27 of the Journal of Emergent Science from last November and see what I had missed, only to discover almost immediately an article…