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Five Key Ways to Teach Poetry Effectively

Learning from Fiona Plant’s Masterclass On 19 June 2025, we were privileged to host a remarkable masterclass by Fiona Plant, an alumnus of the MA in Creative Writing and Education, who is also an inspirational primary teacher and resource designer. Fiona led a vibrant, resource-rich session on how to teach poetry effectively, especially to younger children. Her workshop was packed with practical…

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How can you teach people to write innovatively? Here are 5 ideas…

Niall Bourke, writer and teacher, alumni of MA Creative Writing and Education (formerly named Writer/Teacher) On 12 June 2025, Niall Bourke led a rich, warm and deeply practical Continous Professional Development (CPD) session for the MA Creative Writing and Education summer programme, exploring how to teach creative writing in ways that are emotionally engaging, structurally clear, and…

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Four Things I Learnt from Watching the Stage Version of North by Northwest

A Classic Film Can Be Reimagined as a Theatrical Ballet of IdentityWatching North by Northwest live on stage taught me that Hitchcock’s iconic thriller can be powerfully transformed into a live performance without losing its essence. Like The 39 Steps stage adaptation, this production embraces a minimalist, stylised approach, yet it never slips into parody. Instead of mimicking the film’s…

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Four Reasons Why VAT on Private School Fees Is a Good Idea

On June 14th 2025, I appeared on LBC’s Matthew Wright show to discuss the new policy of applying VAT to private school fees—a policy recently upheld in the courts despite pushback from the private sector. This issue cuts to the heart of what kind of education system we want in the UK. Here are four reasons I believe this policy is fair, progressive, and beneficial to the majority. 1. It Removes…

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What’s the Best Education for Your Child?

What school should we choose?Is this the right path?Should we move them?Will they fall behind? These are the questions that haunt many parents. I’ve asked them myself. So in this special episode of the Mindful Learning Podcast, I sat down with my son, Theo, to talk about his educational journey—one shaped by change, creativity, challenge, and unexpected opportunities. Here’s what I took away,…

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Six Things We Can Learn About Publishing and Navigating the World as a Writer

We were privileged to welcome back Nick Bailey, an alumnus of the MA in Creative Writing and Education, to share his experiences of the publishing world, from self-publishing to securing an agent and working with a small independent press. What followed was far more than an industry talk, it was part pep talk, part group therapy. Here are six takeaways we’re still thinking about. 1.…

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Five Things We Can Learn About Fathers and Sons from Fiction

I have just finished reading Benjamin Wood’s A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better (2018), a compelling, harrowing novel that explores the complicated terrain of father-son relationships. Set in the early 1990s, it follows an uneasy road trip from the Midlands to Leeds taken by Dan, a boy on the cusp of adolescence, and his father Francis, a man whose charm, duplicity, and volatile emotional…

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Five Ways to Help Teenagers Love English and Learn to Grow as People

📣 Are you a teacher, trainee, parent, or education student wondering how to make English more engaging and meaningful for young people?This blog (and podcast episode of The Mindful Learning Podcast) explores five powerful ways to help teenagers connect with English—and grow as people. 📚 English for Generation Alpha: A New Purpose How can English teaching nurture young people—not just…

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Four Lessons from Meet the Kids at Theatre Peckham

Performed 23rd May 2025 | Written & Directed by Desiri Okobia The cast celebrate at the end of the play, see below for full listing of them On 23rd May, I had the privilege of seeing Meet the Kids at Theatre Peckham — a bold, moving and energising new play written, directed, and produced by Desiri Okobia, one of my brilliant former students on the MA in Creative Writing and Education at…

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Five Key Things I Learned About Mental Health First Aid

June 6, 2025 This week, I had the privilege of attending a two-day Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) course at Goldsmiths, led by the outstanding Alicia Nagar of MHFA England. It was intense, enlightening, and profoundly helpful. Having trained in mindfulness and therapy (including the Human Givens approach), I was struck by how this course distilled so many useful principles into a digestible and…

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Guerrilla CPD: Why Research-Informed Teacher Collaboration is the Future

It was a joy and a privilege to co-author an article with Debbie Bogard for BERA Research Intelligence (Issue 163, Summer 2025), titled “Guerrilla CPD” (Gilbert & Bogard, 2025). The piece explores how a grassroots, teacher-led collaboration between a Further Education (FE) and a Higher Education (HE) institution during the pandemic sparked meaningful pedagogical change. Our article tells the…

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Five Salty Lessons from The Salt Path: Walking the Edge of the World

On the last evening of May 2025, I was immersed in The Salt Path, the new film adaptation of Raynor Winn’s memoir. Having read the book some years ago, listened to it on the radio, and walked parts of the South West Coast Path with my son at various ages, I wasn’t sure how the cinematic version would handle such precarious, deeply personal material. It could easily have slipped into…

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English Subject Skills Audit

English Subject Skills Audit

What follows a subject skills audit for English teachers interested in auditing their knowledge. You can download a Word version of the audit Subject skills audit FG August 2017 and fill in the charts etc using that.

Theory and practice Aims, values and purposes of education

What do you know?

Why do we go to school? Have you thought carefully about what education should be aiming to do? Is there…

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Advice on the English Language paper

Advice on the English Language paper

What do you think of this advice? Is it right to tell students not to answer the story question?

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Very useful advice on the new GCSE English exam

Very useful advice on the new GCSE English exam

John Tomsett is a wonderful headteacher who has many insightful comments to make about the new English GCSE. What do you think?

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Media & English PGCE ‘Teacher Advert’ videos

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Growth mindset: What interventions might work and what probably won’t?

Growth mindset: What interventions might work and what probably won’t?

talesbehindtheclassroomdoor:

This was useful because it explores the complexities in changing students’ behaviour, examining the evidence behind the psychological interventions that change students’ mindsets. Surprisingly, very brief interventions can have a significant effect.

Originally posted on Evidence into practice:

Whether discussed under the guise of ‘resilience’, ‘grit’ or ‘character’,…