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Whether you're a permanent teacher, supply teacher or student teacher, you'll find others in the same situation on our Staffroom forum.

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Whether you're a permanent teacher, supply teacher or student teacher, you'll find others in the same situation on our Staffroom forum.

The staffroom

20 years of educational fads

236 replies

Piggywaspushed · 19/03/2018 17:33

This article on Teacher Toolkit is actually two years old so I am sure we could update it! (SLANT anyone??) but it appeared on my Twitter feed and I thought MN might find it diverting:

www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/2016/07/10/education-fads/

loving that triple marking is declared a fad.

Send to all your SLTs! I dare you!!

OP posts:

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ChipsForSupper · 09/04/2018 11:05

Late to this but enjoyed - if that's the word (!) - the trip down all those ridiculously pointless aspects of memory lane.

I can confirm about the VC headset thingies as I had a young colleague who left to join a company promoting them and is doing well, or so I hear. So coming to a strapped-for-cash staff room near you soon, no doubt.

Can I add PIXL Edge to the list - anyone else had to suffer this?

And PEE paragraphs - these seem entrenched now but have managed to suck the joy/creativity/interest/point out of all forms of analysis over the last 20 years.

Piggywaspushed · 06/04/2018 18:01

True enough but, sadly, I doubt that's a passing fad...

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OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow · 06/04/2018 17:35

Shall we talk about the biggest con perpetuated on education in this country-the commodification of education through academies, free schools and MATs? Education as a businesses run by business people, total incompetents (yes you Mr Young)and those who know nothing about education, purely for profit and the advancement of the few.

Springforwars · 04/04/2018 16:17

Suspect we are charting a route for others to follow. Hopefully we're ahead of the game.

LiquoriceTea · 04/04/2018 13:17

Spring :( I'm looking at minimum wage work too post teaching. So demoralizing:(

Piggywaspushed · 04/04/2018 08:17

Well, that doesn't matter spring. the education ministers have never done the job!

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Springforwars · 04/04/2018 07:49

"And every fad is an attempt to deflect away from the reality that learning is tough and developing a competence is repetitive and by its very nature boring. That's why a hard worker can top an indifferent talent."

"So true and probably one of the most sensible things I’ve ever read about education!

Can you be our education Minister, please?!"

Appuskidu Sadly after 23 years have just given up teaching. I'm now temping in an office.

phlebasconsidered · 03/04/2018 21:19

That's It! I can still read It! It looks rather beautiful actually.

MiaowTheCat · 03/04/2018 20:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

phlebasconsidered · 03/04/2018 19:41

Nobody has mentioned that weird phonetic alphabet that was around and I was taught the tail end of. That disappeared after a few ladybird books and then I had to learn to read again.

I'm sure I didn't dream it. I'm off to google it. Some of the letters looked Greek.

TuftedLadyGrotto · 03/04/2018 15:21

Exactly. I think that bugs me the most about the fads. There is some nugget of evidence based truth in most of them. But they are contorted and misused by schools.

Of course its good to praise effort and to teach resilience and to keep trying. But in that school it was like some sort of cult.

Piggywaspushed · 03/04/2018 15:18

Ridiculous : poor Dweck is fairly typical of all this faddishness as no one has ever read everything she says. She herself would know that that was patently obvious.

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TuftedLadyGrotto · 03/04/2018 14:50

I had an argument with a member of SLT about bloody growth mindset. It was Olympic year and they wanted us to use olympians as examples.

I pointed out that I could try and try and try, and train and train with the best coaches in the world and I would never be a first class olympian. Because there needs to be some inherent talent as well as body shape, natural ability.

He wouldn't have it.

noblegiraffe · 03/04/2018 14:47

Bloody Dweck.

I actually really like a lot of Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion but SLANT and the like are a step too far for me.

Piggywaspushed · 03/04/2018 14:34

More I'd say!

And don't forget Dweck!

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noblegiraffe · 03/04/2018 14:00

More or less than Doug Lemov?

Piggywaspushed · 03/04/2018 13:54

He's quite old , isn't he?

No offence to people form NZ but I have never been quite sure why we are so in thrall to an educationalist from the antipodes!

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noblegiraffe · 03/04/2018 13:49

I just googled and found Mr Hattie’s CV. It’s 45 pages long! He has certainly been busy. Still wrong though.

cdn.auckland.ac.nz/assets/education/hattie/docs/cv-john-hattie.pdf

Piggywaspushed · 03/04/2018 13:43

No echt I meant the sneering was directed at the wrong thing so rather than 'oh he's not a statistician, what would he know?' they should be saying 'oh my God ; he's actually a statistician ??!??'

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noblegiraffe · 03/04/2018 12:09

I don’t understand how someone with a lot of statistics in their background can fail to see the fatal flaw in their work.

Cochrane do the same sort of meta-analyses for medicine. Clinical research is highly regulated and much better conducted in general than education research (though there are plenty of crap clinical studies out there, Cochrane discard them from their analyses). They don’t attempt to quantify the effects of interventions, their results are a descriptive paragraph including the limitations of the evidence. E.g. see here for antibiotics use against the common cold www.cochrane.org/CD000247/ARI_antibiotics-for-the-common-cold-an-infection-of-the-upper-respiratory-tract

Compare that to Hattie’s output.

echt · 03/04/2018 11:58

but statisticians are very quick to sneer at Hattie for not being a statto, when in fact he has a PhD! That probably does make it worse for him, though

When the stats are fucked, it's not sneering.

Appuskidu · 03/04/2018 10:30

And every fad is an attempt to deflect away from the reality that learning is tough and developing a competence is repetitive and by its very nature boring. That's why a hard worker can top an indifferent talent.

So true and probably one of the most sensible things I’ve ever read about education!

Can you be our education Minister, please?!

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Springforwars · 03/04/2018 09:35

And every fad is an attempt to deflect away from the reality that learning is tough and developing a competence is repetitive and by its very nature boring. That's why a hard worker can top an indifferent talent.

Piggywaspushed · 03/04/2018 09:16

Now, once again,I may sound like I am defending Hattie . There are many pseudo statisticians out there (Didau, for example, who I rather like...) but statisticians are very quick to sneer at Hattie for not being a statto, when in fact he has a PhD! That probably does make it worse for him, though...

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keiratwiceknightly · 03/04/2018 09:15

As an aside... I used to teach the son of the Tony The Tiger actor. Tony himself was a huge American guy with a deep voice.

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