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Curriculum: The Outliers

  Missing Chapters There are some excellent books out there on curriculum. My eyes were opened by Mary Myatt (2018); Clare Sealy and co. (2020) enriched my understanding; Ruth Ashbee (2021) schooled me further in theory, concepts and language. But every time I get to the section on ‘subjects’ in any education book, I flick tentatively through the pages, yet I know in my heart of hearts that there probably isn’t going to be a section on my subject! That is absolutely not a criticism of these amazing and incredibly useful books though. There are a great many ‘small’ subjects out there and there are, of course, practical limits to what can and should realistically be published in a book that is written for all teachers, and thus (obviously) not  every  subject can feature. Furthermore, even if one attempted obsessively to try to include them all, what would one actually write? Often very little exists for small subjects in terms of a developed subject community or rele...

What is ChatGPT? And what do educators need to know about it?

After registering on the ChatGPT website you are taken to a browser page. You can type in any question you like, and you will be provided with an answer. That’s what ChatGPT offers. It is a ‘chatbot’ and it is currently operating in a free ‘research phrase’ to collect feedback from users.   Great, isn’t that what Google does? ChatGPT is not a search engine - it is text only and it won’t pull information from elsewhere on the internet. It will give you answers using only the large body of content which it has been fed, so it does not know ‘everything’ and cannot address questions about current or future events. It does converse in a more ‘human’ manner than Google though, it’s maybe best thought of as a quiet, somewhat bookish, Alexa.  Why should I care? Home Study The content provided by ChatGPT appears to be of a much higher quality and far more specific than students could typically obtain from the internet via search engines. Users can obtain everything from c...

From Teacher to Leader: rED 2025!

Another great conference! Find the slides linked below from my session, ‘From Teacher to Leader’ from the 2025 researchEd National Conference. I’ve been passionate about and fascinated by the field of leadership since I was a teenager. Studying GCSE Business gave me the most gentle of introductions into the field (a quick look at autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire styles), and yet even what I learned then has stayed with me.  Years later (after pursuing Economics at A level, and going on to study International Business at degree level), I was perplexed by some of the leadership behaviours I was exposed to in schools. Why were these senior people using styles that most Year 11 Business students would call out as ‘not appropriate for the context’ if presented to them in a case study.  Not everyone studied GCSE Business did they though, never mind higher level qualifications in the field. In fact many, many school leaders had received no leadership education whatsoever. Goo...