Start as you mean to go on

September 22, 2017

Another year starts and the intentions are always good… then life gets in the way. This article is aimed at giving a brief idea of how I overcome the problems of a lack of time in the lessons and also, how to increase the amount of work and effort a student makes,...

A change is as good as a rest

August 2, 2017

One of the things that really irritates the students in my school is when the teachers keep going on about the fact that there is no such thing as ‘free time’, there is only ‘study time’. I think it seems like sometimes, the school just wants them to sleep or work …...

The work never ends

July 26, 2017

Just as the IB exams finally end, the GCSE and A-Level ones begin. Now it is all finished, I have one week before the IB results come out – there seems to be no end to the workload for a teacher – it is a hell of a life and I would not change 1 minute of it. Rather...

The work never ends

June 5, 2017

I think for IB teachers, it must seem like the work never ends.  The organisation of a typical year has the year 1 and year 2 pressure points at different times, and cunningly, it feels like the end result is that the pressure is on teachers (virtually) all the time....

What is the role of a teacher during exam season?

May 11, 2017

Just over a week to go and this really is the final run in.  In most school now, the students are on exam leave and should be in ‘exam mode’ i.e., they should be working VERY hard and teachers should be ready and willing to answer any and all questions. Our role now,...

Internal Assessment

March 10, 2017

This post is a little strange because it will only apply to a proportion of the teachers who look at it – many will have finished the IA and will certainly not be thinking about it as we now move into the final stages of the Physics course and turn to the issue of...