IN HIS FANTASTIC BOOK, Elements of Eloquence, Mark Forsyth gives us this wonderfully vivid example of how we use complex knowledge instinctively, without ever having been taught “the rules”. NOT ONE TEACHER would disagree that teaching and assessing students this English-word-order rule would be counterproductive; being redundant, complicating, burdensome, and

Humans have an inbuilt ability for dramatic play. It’s one of the first observable behaviours in children, occurring naturally, from a very early age.   Young people instinctively explore identity, experimenting with hypothetical realities and futures. In the words of educational psychologist Jerome Bruner, they are “entertaining the results as…

Education theorist, Sugata Mitra, placed a freely accessible computer in hole in a wall in a Delhi slum, and just left it there, to see what would happen.   He found that it attracted a number of children, who proceeded to use it, teaching themselves to surf the internet, despite

SCHOOLS DETAIN CHILDREN for 6 hours a day, five days a week, 39 weeks a year. Learning is imposed; subjects are often something the student is not interested in, with little discernible relevance to their lives. In spite of the best efforts of teachers, unhealthy power dynamics foster deep resentment,

WHY IS PLAY disappearing from children’s lives? Several recent studies into children’s imaginative play have found a dramatic reduction in both quantity and quality of play. Researchers have attributed this, variously, to reduction in play environments and play opportunities, brought about by changes in the culture of childhood in general.

HOLISTIC EDUCATION targets the student’s whole self; not simply as a means to improve attendance, behaviour or academic grades, but as an ethos which regards the student’s ongoing self-actualisation as the very purpose of education. HOLISTIC TEACHERS facilitate young people to follow their own complex and unique, physical, social, emotional,

HELPING YOUNG PEOPLE REACH THEIR FULL POTENTIAL is something that rightfully preoccupies education ministers. Better-educated children mean a more skilled future workforce and a stronger economy.   THE EDUCATION RECOVERY PLAN has seen more than £3bn spent on recovery from lost learning, in order to avoid “long-term damage to life

I’ve been with Act2Cam for about five years now. I first joined the drama group and later on an art group focusing on the behind-the-scenes aspect of filming. In the drama group I got the opportunity to make my own films generating ideas finalising productions eventually being able to act

Teaching “World War II Evacuation” through Drama, at a local primary school. I knew the group reasonably well, having led the class for 5 x 2 hour sessions. Last week, something happened that made me reassess how I work.  I had asked the pupils to imagine they were in their