Born Listening? Why Listening Is Hard and How to Help Your Students Listen and Understand Better.

This blog is about the forgotten half of oracy: not talking but listening. Listening is often described as the Cinderella … More

Good Enough Comprehension

Or not quite good enough… I’m a decent reader, but I find recipes hard to follow. The trouble is that … More

Writing Full (and I Mean Really Full) Sentences in Subjects

When we quiz students for knowledge retrieval, we are helping them remember key knowledge but we aren’t helping them build … More

Some Jobs Sentences Do in Science

I’ve been thinking a lot about how important sentences are in science. The new DfE Writing Framework puts sentences at … More

Building Sentences in Physics – Talking Precisely about Energy at KS 3&4

It’s a mistake to think that we don’t have time to explicitly teach the sentences that students need to talk … More

2 Comma Rules for Science Teachers

Yesterday, I published a blog showing how I teach longer sentences in science (here). The sentence examples I used were:  … More

Build better sentences in science writing

How can we ensure students understand complex scientific ideas, beyond just recalling facts? Developing their ability to write clear, precise … More

Tier Three Vocabulary: The Forgotten Words`

How important is science vocabulary in everyday reading? Are geographical terms helpful outside of a geography lesson? To what extent … More

Why you should make your science lead responsible for whole school literacy

The problem with most English leads is that they don’t love science enough. They love novels, poetry, speeches. Some even … More

The Art of the Sentence in Primary Science

There’s a truism in primary education: “before they can write it, they need to say it.” But that’s not quite … More