Am in the process of trying to digest a number of education texts at the moment. Here is my current stack of reading courtesy of the lovely people at Crown House:

My thoughts so far:

The Little Book of Music in the Classroom by Nina Jackson

The effect of music on students isn’t something I’ve put much thought into before. Yes, I know playing Bach is meant to be good for brainwaves or something, but to my shame, this is an area of my practice which has been sadly neglected. A colleague of mine makes a point of playing deliberately cheesy, upbeat ‘chunes’ for her students and I have to be honest, a little bit of Reach for the Stars always manages to put a smile on my world weary face.

Not only has Nina (@MusicMind) done loads of research on the neuroscience of all this, she’s also compiled handy lists of tracks to use to affect our students’ moods. In fact she’s made it so simply that I have no excuse for not trying it. Roll on Monday! Am so far enjoying the straightforward style – makes it very easy to understand al the complicated bits.

The Buzz by David Hodgson (@DavidHitl)

This one’s subtitled ‘A practical confidence builder for teenagers’. If begins with lists of  preferred means of interacting with the world. You have to make 4 sets of choices before being presented with an animal which represents your personality type. I, apparently, am a clownfish! These are the clownfish’s strengths:

  • Can get things done at the last minute – check
  • Can work on a number of things at once – hmmm?
  • Can adapt and change plans – actually I’m bad at this
  • Are full of enthusiasm – check
  • Can persuade others – normally
  • Can solve problems using imagination and improvisation – check
  • Are interested in the idea behind the job, particularly how it affects people – yes
  • Enjoy learning new skills – yup
  • Can enjoy variety and action – yes indeed.
The clown fish is then exemplified by Jonathan Ross. Not sure how I feel about this. Getting my wife to decide on her animal (dolphin) was pretty useful as there are also relationship tips! Interestingly, she reckons I’m a ‘falcon’.

It’s engagingly written, but I’m probably the wrong audience. This feels like a book aimed more at students than at teachers and as such I’m not precisely sure how it would be used. Maybe I should share some of the information with my classes? I probably need to delve a bit deeper.

Inspirational Teachers, Inspirational Learners and Leadership with a Moral Purpose by Will Ryan

Both of these books came highly recommended and I was looking forward to geting my teeth into them. ITIL is all about getting teachers to shut up so that kids can take centre stage. As a former primary head, Will is dealing with the experience of inspiring younger children and it’s clear that the job is different in the secondary sector. There’s a lot of stuff on assessing the PLTS which I am very wary of. Need to persevere a bit more with this one. The leadership one has only been skimmed so far, but there’s some impressive looking diagrams which I’m looking forward to.

Am looking forward to The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children by E. D., Jr. Hirsch arriving shortly – Hirsch is Gove’s Go To Guy so should make interesting reading.

Also, am assured that High Performers: The Secrets of Successful Schools and Learning to Learn in Practice: The L2 Approach by Alistair Smith (and Mark Lovatt) are on their way.