Why I teach students the references for quotes

Learning a lot of quotes is hard work. I find it hard - I have a strange memory that can remember a lot of facts but really struggles with quotations. To know quotes properly requires teaching quotes for every topic, it requires constant retrieval practice in lessons and during revision, and it requires students to...

5 reasons I hate being off school

I'm currently off school. Yes, you guessed it, I'm holed-up at home waiting for a test result, having been struck down with a cold that then developed (for a few hours) into a continuous cough. There are plenty of things I could write about Covid, testing and the national strategy, but instead I thought I'd...

8 takeaways from Richard Sibbes and The Bruised Reed

I’m quite good at reading books about church history but really bad at reading books by theologians from the history of the church. In other words, reading about Athanasisus’ life is a breeze but actually reading On the Incarnation is a much harder deal! So, this summer, over the holidays, I decided to read an...

Mark’s Gospel: Teaching the importance of events for Christians today

Here's a post that may be helpful for anyone teaching Mark's Gospel for AQA GCSE. When teaching Mark's Gospel one of the key things pupils need to understand is the importance of each event for Christians today. For example, in the 2018 paper one of the questions was: 'Explain two ways in which the conversation...

What are you NOT going to do this year?

September is fast approaching and it is of course the month for new ideas, approaches, activities and habits. Most schools go through a process in the prior summer term of planning ahead, putting together department and school development plans and generally coming up with new things that will make the education the school offers better....

5 reasons to teach a Bible overview in Y7

This is part of a series I will be doing this year on 'blogging through the curriculum', with thoughts on many of the units I will be teaching to Y7, 10, 11 and 13. When I arrived at my school a number of years ago the first programme of study I introduced was one that...