The Blog

The courageous or ill advised move by the Secretary of State for education to toughen up educational standards depends on your viewpoint. Certainly the basis of the mounting criticism over falling standards needed addressing. The annual bloodbath emerging after the final GCSE and A level exam results are published resulted in two camps; parents, children [...]

The tactical manoeuvrings of divide and conquer appears  to be at play in educational circles. Michael Gove, the Minister for Education is on a roll to outflank opposition. Having had his fortune read by successive teaching union conferences, all voicing concerns over his policies, he has developed plans to circumvent the opposition.
In addition to fragmenting [...]

Once again Michael Gove, the educational secretary goes into bat, this time with the National Association of Headteachers. It must be with some trepidation that as head of the U.K.’s educational structure our intrepid minister faces the onslaught of the conference which has already indicated posing a vote of no confidence in his strategy.
The educational [...]

One of the best educational teaching resources to hit the market in recent years – is also one of the simplest.
Developed by a teacher, Thinking Dice are a set of six coloured foam cubes where each face has asks a different question to develop a student’s and adult reasoning skills.
The question areas are

Yellow; remembering,
Orange; understanding,
Red; [...]

One of the primary tasks of parents is to bring up their children to enter adulthood with the best possible options. A good educational foundation is fundamental to this objective. But achieving this without manipulation can be the hardest task any of us can take on, as failure is a collective disaster.
At this time of [...]

Now is the time to get school children involved in science education through some great practical biology games. Despite the inclement weather there is still the great opportunity to get students studying the natural world. Safely collect the bud unharmed in a Pooter bug hunter and see what it looks like at five times magnification [...]

Who would want to be a teacher, more importantly who would want to be a student in the UK at the moment? Ever since his appointment as Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove seems to be lobbing mortars into our teaching resources in an attempt to instigate fundamental changes.
Common with the military application of [...]

Educational initiatives have come and gone, created mayhem with our teaching resources and cost a fortune. Yet we still languish in an educational programme that is beset with games rather than strategy.
Estelle Morris has always been a heroine in my eyes. As Secretary of State for Education she had the immense strength of character to [...]

The annual Easter teaching conference created a stream of claims, concerns, demands and a vote of no confidence in the Secretary of State for Education. Hardly the news to allow the rest of us can relax and not worry about the fate of teaching in the UK whilst the professionals play educational games with the [...]

A significant difference of opinion is currently raging in France between the Ministry of Education and the teaching resources in primary schools. France is concerned that, in common with the UK, they too are sliding down the only OECD world league table in education. Currently they lie in 29th position out of 45 countries for [...]

Alistair Owens Keen2learn.
At the same time the children are going through the traumas of our educational system, parents are also involved in nerve-racking games and decisions to give their child the best possible schooling. News of the trials and tribulations involving our national curriculum and the performance of teaching resources at our state schools do [...]

In this competitive age the right school and the best education is rightfully at the top of the list for many parents. Displaying some of nature’s least desirable attributes we kick, scream and shout to nudge our children into the right school. We invest in legal support when they don’t. Not necessarily the ideal role [...]

Over the past decade we have seen the U.K. slip down the OECD world league table in educational quality. The shocking statistic just issued by the Institute of Education in London reveals that the brightest maths students in the UK, on a par with their peers in Hong Kong at the age of 10 years, [...]

Ever seen a child read a school text book or complete a homework exercise on a bus, train or car journey? Apart from the negative street cred it would produce it is also a little impractical. But playing some educational games for maths on a mobile device would turn the process of recapping on the [...]

A delightfully eloquent spat has kicked off in the Guardian between two eminent History Professors. Both are understandably highly articulate, hugely knowledgeable of history yet hold totally opposed views on the future of the history curriculum in our schools. An unfortunate game of wit and criticism abounds. But there is also tragedy in this situation.
The [...]

No I don’t mean locked away in prison under some criminal charge we are not aware of, it’s just that for him to perform his duties effectively as the champion of eductaional matters he needs to be isolated from the day-to-day distractions that are occurring in the cabinet as they wrestle with the economy.
Common with [...]

Years ago the pundits were heralding  we would soon all work from home. The advent of technology had introduced systems and equipment that removed the fundamental need to sit in an office, or even the school classroom. We could all work from home saving vast sums of money for employer, employee and the teaching resources [...]

The development of handwriting skills is set to be superseded in an educational move that is seen as a game being played by the USA schooling authorities. From 2014 a significant number of states in America are set to abandon cursive handwriting skills as a teaching resource and an essential element of the curriculum. Will [...]

Pity the teaching resources that are now having to reorganise their thoughts resulting from the now abandoned English Baccalaureate Certificate (EBC). This educational landmark, due to save our schooling now seems a “Bridge Too Far” according to Michael Gove, Secretary Of State for Education. It is a stark example of how to get a major [...]

Talk to any teacher, parent, or student in primary or secondary school and the mention of homework generates a largely negative reaction. Most consider it is drudgery that clouds the free time after school for children. It can also mar the harmony of home life whilst parents battle to get offspring to complete the task. [...]

Secondary schools in the United Kingdom usually incorporate children from ages 11 through 18. Exceptional students can actually advance at an earlier age and enroll in college or sixth form education. For the most part, secondary schools in the U.K. don’t differ much from those found in the United States. Although the United States educational [...]

The law of averages is endemic at most state schools. Being target driven, as most teachers are, it is only natural they will support children with the greatest potential to achieve exam grades that translate into the ideal points score for the school. If a child is outside the mean they can expect to be [...]

When I was at school, several millennia ago, I cannot recall a single day the school was closed; unfortunately. Not for Baker days, inset days or because it was snowing. The modern manifestation of risk assessment didn’t exist, all teaching resources held amazing respect, lived locally and parents’ contemplating the need of cover for children [...]

The educational journey never ends. Whole life learning is a reality now greatly supported by the internet. Access to knowledge, once the significant domain of libraries is now online at the touch of button. With smartphones and the latest tablets the technology in classroom  teaching resources,which provides  information in just a few seconds could leave [...]

The back to school trauma suffered by many students will largely depend on the teaching resources and ambience of their school. Many children, and parents, welcome the return to the school regime as a release as the Christmas holidays started to wear thin. Some will be beset by the thought of exams that loom in [...]

Part of the fundamental learning process in school is the educational programming of children in history, economics and religious studies to thrive in adult life. Something to reflect on as students and teaching resources merge once again as school re-opens after the recent holiday that has a growing contrary structure.
And it’s back to school for [...]

The continuing recession has defeated an army of often-overlooked additional teaching resources. Following the maxim that the greatest element in learning is gained through practice, this critical educational function is suffering a huge drop off due to the current market financial impact on parents. The highly beneficial repetition of classroom lessons in fun educational games [...]

The OECD reports which indicate the UK is slipping down the educational league tables for literacy may actually be wrong.    Based on the probability that 30,000 students mistakenly flunked their GCSE English exams this year can only serve to place some doubt and skew the results. Not only have examiners potentially wrecked the academic [...]

One of society’s keys objectives is to educate the young. An objective established thousands of years old, yet we still fail to achieve the base criteria in providing progressive schooling that has tracked with advances in technology. Our educational and teaching resources are suffering terminal decay. In the same time we have developed systems to [...]

The government scheme which focuses on children who struggle at maths in primary school has shown that extra tuition has a dramatic effect. The “Every Child Matters” programme centred on 47,000 children in 2,715 primary schools who were poor in maths. Providing these children with an additional half an hour per day  tuition allowed nearly [...]