mrgreenw00d

Being a new middle leader

I’ve been a middle leader for four years, 2 as 2nd in Science, and 2 as Lead Practitioner in Science, each in very different settings. I don’t claim to be an expert leader in any way. I can instantly think of lots of ways that i’m probably not that great, but I do think thatContinue reading “Being a new middle leader”

Thinking about behaviour

Recently I saw this on twitter: It got me thinking about different approaches to behaviour management and how my understanding and my approach to behaviour in schools has changed in the past eight years. The effect of good behaviour is obvious. In a calm learning environment, children are able to concentrate on what is beingContinue reading “Thinking about behaviour”

Is my 4 year old a genius?

Recently I was reading to my little boy. He has just started primary school and is getting a good introduction to synthetic phonics and is starting to segment words into their sounds when asked to ‘robot’ them and blending simple words too. He can’t read yet. Despite this, during his bed time story he wasContinue reading “Is my 4 year old a genius?”

It’s my way or the highway: It’s time to ditch ‘non-negotiables’

We all know about business terms being dragged into other contexts, expecially schools. Blue sky thinking, buy-in, stakeholders, these are all well established ‘business speak’ terms that are regrettably ubiquitous in schools and while they aren’t too bad, they clearly have their origin in a competitive, corporate area. Other ideas have come into schools fromContinue reading “It’s my way or the highway: It’s time to ditch ‘non-negotiables’”

On Twitter: Some Thoughts

I joined Twitter in late 2018 as MrGreenw00d (@MGreenw00d). At the time I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing, but did follow some of the people who wrote blogs that I had been reading. I certainly didn’t know how to attract my own followers, find #FFB schemes or even to interact moreContinue reading “On Twitter: Some Thoughts”

What I Learned From: – Teach Like Nobody’s Watching by Mark Enser

Mark Enser is a Geography teacher, author, D&D enthusiast and a prolific tweeter. He has also written the book Teach Like Nobody’s Watching (TLNW) which I have recently read. I really enjoyed reading this and I felt that there’s so much good stuff in there I had to take notes. Given that I then hadContinue reading “What I Learned From: – Teach Like Nobody’s Watching by Mark Enser”

Learning to reflect

I trained in 2012/3 by completing a PGCE. I genuinely enjoyed the course and at the time I felt that I was getting a good introduction to the world of teaching and being shown the best way to teach. The work load was challenging of course but, more difficult, was the fact that for meContinue reading “Learning to reflect”

What’s the point in practical work?

I’d planned to write this post and had a bit of an idea drafted out, but I finished it earlier than I planned because I was inspired by this tweet: Until very recently, the idea of teaching science with limited practical work horrified me. How can it be science if they aren’t doing practical work?Continue reading “What’s the point in practical work?”

Resource: AQA GCSE SoW

I faced a strange problem recently where I knew that my students were listening. Cold call questioning was giving reasonable answers across the room and engagement was pretty strong. The issue came as soon as I wanted the class to write any notes. Even made as brief as possible, there is a lot of contentContinue reading “Resource: AQA GCSE SoW”

Hello World

Firstly, welcome to my first ever blog, and thank you for coming here to read my take on all things Cog Sci and classroom based. To put this site into context, I have been teaching chemistry for 8 years across two very different schools. One was a highly successful state grammar school based in aContinue reading “Hello World”