Martin Robinson

Testing, testing… why one test can’t do everything

2016-05-17T19:16:16+01:00May 17th, 2016|assessment|

The thing which most seems to rile people about testing is the fact that it puts children under stress. A certain amount of stress is probably a good thing - there's nothing as motivating as a looming deadline - but too much is obviously a bad thing. Martin Robinson writes here that ... a teacher needn’t pass undue exam stress onto her pupils, and a Headteacher needn’t pass undue stress onto her teachers. People work less well under a lot of stress; by passing it down the chain, each link ceases to function so well. Therefore if a school wants to [...]

This is what I want

2014-05-20T18:30:32+01:00May 20th, 2014|Featured|

In the past few days I've told you what I think and a little bit about who I am. This post outlines the role I'd ideally like. Choosing to leave the classroom has had some surprising consequences. It was very flattering that my local paper wanted to write about the fact the blog won an award, but look at that headline! I'm not at all sure how I feel about being an 'ex-teacher'. Does it necessarily follow that just because I'm not currently at the chalk face, I'm no longer a teacher? Maybe it does. There were some pressing push factors as well as [...]

On dichotomies

2014-03-28T17:14:40+00:00March 27th, 2014|Featured|

I seem to regularly find myself embroiled in various polarised debates, and invariably, at some point in the discussion, someone butts into to dismiss the entire exchange as a 'false dichotomy'. (And hence, a waste of time.) The answer, they claim lies not at the margins but somewhere in the centre. In this way we can dispense with the futile bickering between 'traditionalists' and 'progressives', and those who champion either the teaching of knowledge or skills because they are both right. We just characterise our adversaries as occupying an extreme position but no one really believes something so diametrically oppositional. Do [...]

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