Pedagogy

Knowing how to build a good rapport with students is useful knowledge and seems to come naturally to some teachers.  If this is something you’d like to develop, there are some useful tips below. Smile There is a famous poem by Spike Milligan where the first line states ‘A Smile is Infectious’.  (You can read […]

It’s human to worry about things that might not happen. At the moment there is a lot we don’t know. It appears likely that year 10 will be the first year group to return to schools in the UK. When will they return? Will it be before summer? How much work they have completed? How […]

As soon as my daughter got a cough I, of course, had to self isolate. I was plunged in the deep end of having to embrace home learning. Luckily, my school had already been training us for this eventuality. I’m excited to make home-learning a success.  Here is what I have learned so far. Using […]

There are lots of teaching books for art teachers out there and my advice is read as many as you can.  We want our students to be life long learners and we should practice what we preach.  A good teaching book should rejuvenate your passion for teaching and give you new ideas to try in […]

What is a good demonstration in art?  We all know that when we do a demonstration, a large percentage of the class will be able to independently complete the task immediately afterward but there will also be a proportion of the class who will need more help. This smaller percentage will not have been able […]

I have tried all sorts of classroom seating plans for lots of different reasons over the years and I thought I would share some of them with you.  It’s all too easy to start the year with students sitting in alphabetical order and then forget about seating plans as a valuable teaching strategy. Having said […]