I’m available to support schools, trusts and organisations with:
• Curriculum development
• CPD
• Quality assurance
• Subject leadership support
• Department improvement over time

3/4

"Others might bring up that abomination of a sentence, ‘learning is change in long-term memory’, which just ignores most of the ways in which we use the word..."

I enjoyed this very thorough exploration of the visibility of learning, from @bernardandrews.bsky.social

It's fascinating to watch people define 'inclusion' entirely according to what they already believe and do.

School book banning escalates in the UK as Greater Manchester secondary school censors scores of books - Index on Censorship A school librarian faced a disciplinary hearing and scores of books were removed from her school library after she stocked Laura Bates’ Men Who Hate Women

This is utterly jaw-dropping.

A school that bans Atwood, Zadie Smith, Terry effing Pratchett and *literal George Orwell* is actively harming its pupils.

www.indexoncensorship.org/2026/03/scho...

What does the poem do? A revision tool This is an approach which I have used successfully when revising clusters of poetry for GCSE. (Apologies for any parts which seem commonplace or obvious.) The basic idea is familiar – to prac…

What does the poem do? A #GCSE_English #poetry revision tool.

This is an OLD blog post, but many still find the approach very useful, especially at this time of year.

#GCSE_English_Literature
#Revision
#Poetry

jamesdurran.blog/2017/05/11/w...

What does the poem do? A revision tool This is an approach which I have used successfully when revising clusters of poetry for GCSE. (Apologies for any parts which seem commonplace or obvious.) The basic idea is familiar – to prac…

What does the poem do? A #GCSE_English #poetry revision tool.

This is an OLD blog post, but many still find the approach very useful, especially at this time of year.

#GCSE_English_Literature
#Revision
#Poetry

jamesdurran.blog/2017/05/11/w...

Learning *about* a book, being given knowledge of context, being tested on that, annotating extracts based on what your teacher tells you, is not the same as reading a book. In KS3, students need to read lots of books & talk about them, alongside studying some in more detail.

Thread…
This is the sort of brave leadership/school dev practice that develops innovative solutions to complex problems….

It is not the Ofsted implementation model.

Neither is it a quick win. It takes time to develop the behaviours needed to develop well.

bsky.app/profile/jdur...

Beware of lowest common denominator teaching & learning policies

Thinking of teaching and learning approaches as things to 'implement' in a school, rather than as things which evolve organically in the practice of reflective professionals and/or (in the secondary phase) reflective ...

Teaching & learning: prescription versus autonomy As schools develop their teaching and learning ‘strategies’, or ‘policies’, or ‘principles’, they have to grapple with the balancing of autonomy with consistency – of teacher or subject difference …

jamesdurran.blog/2025/11/22/t...

... There must be space for risk-taking and experimentation and adaptation and eccentricity.

... There must be space and encouragement for the organic development of varied approaches within the practice of individual teachers and subject teams, other than those approaches which are 'implemented' by policy. ...

... subject teams, risks a sort of lowest common denominator system.

If a policy is at all prescriptive, it has to exclude practices which are:
- difficult to do well
- hard to 'implement' across a school
- not already supported by the 'right' kind of evidence
- even a little bit experimental ...

Beware of lowest common denominator teaching & learning policies

Thinking of teaching and learning approaches as things to 'implement' in a school, rather than as things which evolve organically in the practice of reflective professionals and/or (in the secondary phase) reflective ...

‘Reading for pleasure’ is for all subjects ‘Reading for pleasure’ is suddenly a topic of lively and interesting debate. What is it? What should ‘it’ be called? What is its value? Where should it sit within education? The discussion is focus…

New, short blog post.

#Reading_for_pleasure is for all subjects.

jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/15/r...

‘Reading for pleasure’ is for all subjects ‘Reading for pleasure’ is suddenly a topic of lively and interesting debate. What is it? What should ‘it’ be called? What is its value? Where should it sit within education? The discussion is focus…

New, short blog post.

#Reading_for_pleasure is for all subjects.

jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/15/r...

Great blog post on knowledge, spherical children and vacuums.

99% of teachers are fully invested in supporting those with SEND in any way they can, and will work hard to do so. Unfortunately, there's a tiny minority who seem to resent making any accommodations at all, if this interferes with their view of how classrooms should be.

Drama in English: what embodied learning looks like Revising for GCSE using drama strategies

What a heart-warming, inspiring blog by Andrew McCallum, describing a superb lesson by English teacher Maddie Lynes! It reinforces the view that drama activities do not just create engagement & pleasure but are a highly effective way of embedding learning.
www.englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/drama-i...

On ‘checking for understanding’ and feedback loops A lot is being written and published at the moment on adaptive teaching, and particularly on how ‘checking for understanding’ happens in classrooms. It strikes me that some of the discourse risks o…

Lots of great stuff on here at the moment on 'checking for understanding' (and on #adaptive_teaching generally.) At its core, it's all about #feedback_loops.
jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/03/o...

Explaining in the classroom: the importance of relationship I see a lot of explaining happening in classrooms, and I did a lot of explaining as a teacher. It’s a key aspect of instruction, which has been much theorised and written about. For what it’s worth…

NEW blog post: on the anatomy of great #classroom_explanations and the importance of #relationship

jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/03/e...

😂

Efficiency is an educational vice How ‘efficiency’ derailed education

This is such an important perspective, which is so often missing from discussions of "what works" in education. From @bernardandrews.bsky.social
bernardandrews.substack.com/p/efficiency...

Explaining in the classroom: the importance of relationship I see a lot of explaining happening in classrooms, and I did a lot of explaining as a teacher. It’s a key aspect of instruction, which has been much theorised and written about. For what it’s worth…

NEW blog post: on the anatomy of great #classroom_explanations and the importance of #relationship

jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/03/e...

1970s Hillman Hunter

How important is #relationship to teacher explanations?

NEW blog post on the anatomy of great #classroom_explanations.

jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/03/e...

1970s Hillman Hunter

How important is #relationship to teacher explanations?

NEW blog post on the anatomy of great #classroom_explanations.

jamesdurran.blog/2026/03/03/e...

This is an absolute banger. Sharing with mentors and trainees today! THANK YOU.

Thanks Terra!

This is why children need phones on the way to and from school.

Teaching talk Classroom strategies for the explicit teaching of spoken expression When we think about how to develop pupils’ talk in the classroom, it is natural to focus on the ‘opportunities’ we’re provi…

On #teaching_talk

Developing pupils' talk doesn't have to be about special activities - it can (and should) be organic to everyday classroom teaching.

As schools and teachers turn their attention to #oracy, I thought I'd repost this old blog post.
jamesdurran.blog/2019/08/14/t...