Blog

So I finally decided to attend an RSA AGM that wasn’t in Sydney – since I’ve been a fellow of the RSA I’ve made a real effort to attend the ones that were in Sydney. Paul, who is the Chairman of the RSA, usually organises for a speaker to follow on from the more dry…

So my brother, Marc, turned 35 today. I’d like to say that we caught up and drank 21 year old Scotch Whisky, but the reality was that the best that we could do was a hurried telephone call. Now, though, I’ve got a little more time, so I thought that I would take the chance…

Recently had the chance to travel down to Melbourne for the RSA AGM. Fantastic session with Dawn O’Neill and a few other very impressive speakers talking about collective impact, mental health and lots more. I’ll write more about this later, but I wanted to write about Melbourne in this post. I’ve lived in Victoria for…

I’m not an expect in the Japanese language or culture but one thing that I have learned about is the concept of Kaizen (which I think translates exactly as ‘good change’ but has become linked to the idea of continuous self-improvement). Teaching is a tough job at the best of times – good teachers are…

Introduction: Recently, there has been an increase in interest amongst educators and policy makers about the notion of student engagement and student empowerment as well as the most effective ways that schools might leverage such factors in order to improve student outcomes. Despite this recent interest, the notion of Student Voice (which is often linked…

I host a small radio program every Friday night on WOW FM. You can listen to it here:http://www.wowfm1007.com.au Originally, when I and the other teacher involved set it up, we envisaged it as a bit of an educational show, talking about current trends in education, sharing tips for teachers and discussing educational news. So far, so…

So my doctorate continues to progress – I’ve written more than 90 000 words now, although I acknowledge that a lot will be cut as I try to slim it down to a more pointed, sharp argument. I have to admit that I’ve really enjoyed it – I’ve set myself a target of about 1500…

The sudden interest in Game of Thrones – brought about more by the television series than the books – has made me reflect upon what makes a good fantasy novel. I’m nothing more than a reader – I’ve never written anything that’s been published or made into a TV series, but I have read a…

I realise that this is hardly every a popular topic, and it’s certainly not a popular topic at this time when we have Royals on tour in Australia, but I think it’s really time that we, as a nation, grew up and realised that there is no place for the English Royal family in our…

I work at a school where our literacy and numeracy are both areas of concern. Not because our students are not making progress – they are, often in advance of the expectations of other similar schools, but because many of our students start below average and sometimes struggle to reach that benchmark. It is what…