about the author

I started in education as a Teaching Assistant at a Pupil Referral Unit back in 2004. Aside from a year travelling Europe in a campervan, I've been involved in education ever since. I took my CELTA in 2008, my PGCE (English) in 2011, became Deputy Head of Department in 2013, Head of Department in 2017 and Head of Teaching & Learning in 2020. I've taught in the UK public system and internationally in the private one, and marked exams for AQA and the IBDP. I've fulfilled various pastoral roles along the way (Deputy Head of a Hall of Residence, KS4 & 5 coordinator) and was also an Associate Tutor on the University of Bristol PGCE program. In my current setting, I am also the TOK Coordinator.

Regardless of the role I've held, teaching for me is all about engagement. I learned that the hard way back at the PRU. If students weren't engaged, they either didn't show up or kicked off (literally: steel toed boots hurt!) Even with better behaved students who don't put their foot through walls, if they aren't engaged, they won't learn.

I hope that here you might find ideas for how to engage students, either through fun and diverting activities that scaffold them towards the objectives you want them to attain; or through ways to bring the learning to life; or through showing them the success they are achieving; or some combination of all three. As I am an English teacher, there is obviously going to be a huge bias towards that subject. However, I have in my time trained Computer Science and German teachers, mentored Maths and Spanish colleagues, and run a Teacher-to-Teacher coaching program in a Spanish Primary school. So, hopefully, no matter what subject you teach, you'll find something relevant here.

I am also a TES author, with over 190,000 downloads: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/tb9605 Lots of those are free so, especially if you are an English teacher, help yourself.

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