Category Archives: Education

Knowledge-led strategy

Posted on September 18, 2021 by Joe Kirby

How can we think better about school improvement?  Schools are prone to overstretch.  We need a way forward that doesn’t overload us as school leaders.  But we should also beware of oversimplifying and boxing ourselves in to templates.  The history … Continue reading →

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Strategy: a 2,500 year-old history

Posted on September 11, 2021 by Joe Kirby

In 10 years in schools, I’ve always been prone to frazzling overstretch. I think we as school leaders often are: it’s tough to know what and how to prioritise. I reckon the history of strategy can help us out.  I’ll … Continue reading →

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Teachers lead the scientific revolution in education: 44+ seminal articles

Posted on August 28, 2021 by Joe Kirby

‘The scientific approach to identifying best practices is the best long-term bet.’ Prof Rob Coe The scientific revolution dramatically improved medicine.  Doctors applied scientific research evidence to vastly improve healthcare over time. Infant, maternal and preventable mortality fell worldwide; longevity … Continue reading →

Posted in Education | 4 Comments

Articles

Posted on September 1, 2018 by Joe Kirby

I focus on how to improve the culture, curriculum and teaching in schools.   What can we learn from cognitive and behavioural science? Teachers lead the scientific revolution in education Cognitive psychology Why students forget Long-term memory Science of learning … Continue reading →

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Three Assessment Butterflies

Posted on July 1, 2017 by Joe Kirby

Winston Churchill once said ‘success is stumbling from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.’ Looking back now on assessment in our first year at Michaela, I can now see what I was blind to then: we stumbled and blundered. What mistakes … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Teaching | 7 Comments

Staying stoical in school

Posted on April 29, 2017 by Joe Kirby

Some two thousand years ago, a teacher, a playwright and an emperor asked: What is the best way to live? How can we deal with the difficult situations we face? What does it take to improve our minds? Their answers … Continue reading →

Posted in Education | 6 Comments

Netflix

Posted on March 4, 2017 by Joe Kirby

Imagine working for an organisation where there are no annual performance meetings, no bureaucracy, where you do not need permission to take time off, and where the expense policy is just five words long: ‘act in our best interest’. Imagine … Continue reading →

Posted in Education | 3 Comments

Shakespeare’s Schooling: King’s New School

Posted on February 4, 2017 by Joe Kirby

“Education made Shakespeare what he was” Soul of the Age: Life, Mind and World: Jonathan Bate ‘with his Tiger’s heart wrapped in a player’s hide … Shakes-scene’ Robert Greene, Shakespeare’s contemporary “Shakespeare’s schooling provided an excellent resource for the future … Continue reading →

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Scaling Mount Improbable: King’s Wimbledon

Posted on January 14, 2017 by Joe Kirby

What can we learn from a top private school? King’s College School Wimbledon is one of the most academically successful schools in the world. 96% of pupils achieve A*-A at GCSE, and 41 pupils gained A*s in every one of … Continue reading →

Posted in Education | 6 Comments

The Blogosphere in 2016: Roaring Tigers, Hidden Dragons

Posted on December 31, 2016 by Joe Kirby

The Signal Sharpens If felt like in 2016 the signal sharpened. The education blogosphere improved its curation of quality posts. This is mainly thanks to Andrew Old’s work on the Echo Chamber. In 2015, 6,000 blogposts were published (over 100 … Continue reading →

Posted in Education | 3 Comments