Curriculum – Page 5 – Richard James Rogers

Subtle Reinforcement: Techniques to Gradually Build Confidence and Character in our Students

Posted on May 27, 2018January 15, 2023 by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Award-Winning Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management and The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback)

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati

He pulled me aside at the end of class as we were getting ready to go home. I had tremendous respect for my sensei and his words, though few, always hit-home hard.

“You a look a mess, Richard. Why isn’t your gi ironed”

“My mum didn’t have time to iron it today”

“Your mum shouldn’t have to iron it for you. What are you: a man or a weasel? Take responsibility for your own life. Iron your own flippin’ gi and make sure you look tidy next lesson!”

A ‘gi’ is a karate suit, just in case you didn’t know. It’s made typically of heavy cotton drill and it’s plain white. Easy to get dirty and hard to clean. Even harder to iron.

However, I wanted to win my sensei’s approval. I wanted to ‘be a man’ and take responsibility for my own karate, my own personal dress and personal presentation.

Short conversations

It’s funny when I think about it now, but that short conversation with my sensei totally changed my life. It felt like I’d gone down a peg or two in his sight and opinion.

I worked harder than ever before to train and to be the ‘perfect’ student: My gi was freshly washed and ironed every time (I asked my mum not to help – I was 11 years old and my sensei wanted me to ‘man up’).

Years later, when I went to a local karate shop to buy a new karate suit, I happened to bump into my old sensei there that same day.

“Richard, it’s flippin’ great to see you!”

“Me too, how you doing”

“I’m good. You still training?”

“Yeah I joined a Shotokan Club at uni”

“That’s flippin’ great. You know, I remember the kid who didn’t iron his gi and was very clumsy. Remember that conversation we had in the changing rooms that day?”

“Wow! Yes, sure. I remember you telling me off”

“Haha, yes. Well, I noticed a massive difference in you after that day. I was sorry to lose you when you left for uni – you were the best brown belt in the dojo”

Wow!!!

That felt good. The fact that my old sensei remembered me, and remembered our conversation. That he genuinely took an interest in me – that was inspirational.

It reminded me of who I was, which brings me to my first tip of Subtle Reinforcement.

Subtle reinforcement tip 1: Remind your students of who they are

This is different to reminding students of their achievements – it involves reminding students of their character.

As an NQT I was full of enthusiasm, as we all are. I wanted to change the world ‘one student at a time’.

Suddenly, my chance came like a clap of thunder.

Walking down the corridor one day I passed one of my Science students. He was looking very depressed, and divulged to me that his girlfriend had just dumped him.

“John, I know how you’re feeling right now. Trust me, I’ve been there. But see this as your baptism by fire. This is the moment where you realise how strong you are. This is the moment where you gain back control and focus on what you’ve been letting slide in your life. It’s her loss and your gain – now you have more time to perfect your BMX biking and become the best geographer in the whole school.”

We part as men – his fist punches mine in a sign of solidarity. The lightning begins to fork in his soul. Already his mind is tuned-in to my words. Already he starts to fight back.

He comes to class extra early, and gives 110% to each lesson. There’s a renewed respect for me as his teacher – he knows that I actually care.

Five months later his final exams are approaching and he’s getting stressed out. I ask him how his revision is going.

“To be honest, sir, it’s going badly. I’m just so stressed with it all”

To which I reciprocate: “I remember the man who who didn’t let life beat him down when his girlfriend decided to walk away. I remember the man who achieved grade As and Bs across the board and impressed everyone in school with his complete turnaround.”

Then I lower my voice.

“I remember the man who came second place in the BMX showdown at Westminster Park”

“You know about that?”

“Your mum told me”

He walks away trying his best to hide a grin that cannot be hidden. He remembers who he is. He remembers how all it took was a change of focus to create vastly different results in his life.

He went on to get 96% in his End of Year Science exam: the highest in his year group.

Reminding our students of who they are renews their faith in themselves. This can have a dramatic impact on their lives.

Subtle Reinforcement tip 2: Remind your students of their skills and achievements

We sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that the skills and achievements that students display outside of our subject areas are not relevant to us.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Benjamin was struggling in Science class. He found experimental work difficult because his fine-motor skills were limited. His Special Educational Needs also affected his retention of written information in class.

I started an ECA at school one year – website design. It was a very simple and easy ECA – the kids picked topics they loved and basically made websites about them. Each week they would update their content and share what they had done with the group.

Benjamin signed up for that ECA and absolutely took to it like a duck to water. I was actually quite surprised – his website was by far the best in the class. He just happened to have a ‘knack’ for it.

After the Christmas break I gave Benjamin a unique task:

“Benjamin – you are now my class Online Learning Chief. This is an important responsibility which I have not handed out lightly”

“Wow. Me? Why?”

“Because you are brilliant at web design. I’ve seen your great images on your site. I remember your portfolio of Minecraft tactics that you wrote in such a comprehensive way. From now on, I want you to do all of your homework online. When you’ve built up your website to a sufficient quantity, we’ll share it with the rest of the class as a revision resource. Deal?”

“Wow. Deal”

I follow through. For once in his school life, Benjamin actually gets recognized for something valuable. This wasn’t a participation medal for turning up on Sports Day. This was recognition of something significant that Benjamin actually possesses.

He goes on to raise his achievement by two grades that year – from an E to a C. This amounts to his biggest step-up in progress he has made in school, ever.

By reminding our students of their skills and achievements, we offer them solutions to daily problems. In a similar mission to that of differentiation, we aim to inspire the inner genius through methods that appeal to each student’s learning style.

Subtle Reinforcement Tip 3: Take the time to discuss progress

A quick two-minute chat is all it takes. Bring the student to your computer and show him his grades for the year thus far.

Use this to congratulate or to offer advice for improvement.

This shows each student that you are ‘on the ball’: that you are alert to their progress and that you care about their grades.

This approach is guaranteed to have positive outcomes, if dealt with in the mood of ‘passing on information’ rather than dishing-out criticism.

Subtle Reinforcement Tip 4: Be the person you want your students to be

This is the part of the article where I must try my best not to sound like a patronizing ignoramus. I’ll have a go.

Kids notice things about us.

They notice the things we do, the way we look and the things we say, even when not spoken directly to the students who are listening.

Drawing upon our own life experiences can be a great way to get our students focussed on the right path.

The Science teacher who pulls out his vitamin box to show the students his daily supplementation for good health – this teacher is ‘living’ the subject.

The maths teacher who takes part in World Maths Day along with the students shows that maths is fun – not just something for kids to do.

The P.E. teacher who genuinely stays in shape by hitting the gym a few times per week sets an excellent example for her students to follow, and respect.

I want the very best for my students, but if my mouth is saying one thing whilst I do the exact opposite then I’ll end up becoming a laughing-stock.

That’s not a good place to be.

Student Reinforcement Tip 5: Be there when they need you to be there

My IB Chemistry students were an amazing cohort of hard-working individuals.

They needed my help a lot though.

It was not uncommon for random students to turn up at my room at lunch times and after school to seek help with questions, homework and coursework.

I could have chosen the easy option and made myself unavailable – I would certainly have gained more time and less work that way. But what’s the point in living like that?

I wanted my students to do well. I was happy to help when I could.

There was a limit, of course, and they knew that. I wasn’t prepared to stay all night and help them – I had a life of my own too. But I was prepared to stay for a significant and suitable amount of time to help them out when needed.

The results were profound – they worked harder, enjoyed the subject more and made better progress.

To be honest, I also felt a sense of satisfaction too. To me that’s the best reward of teaching – the knowledge that you’ve touched someone else’s heart. The knowledge that you’ve really made a difference.

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The Effective Use of Detentions

Posted on May 13, 2018April 15, 2025 by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management)

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati

Like what you see? 🎯 Check out my shop for unique merchandise and products that support this blog. Every purchase helps me keep creating content you love. – Richard

The events in this article are based on actual occurrences. The names and, in some
instances, the genders of individuals have been changed to protect the individuals’
privacy.

He opened his laptop and started playing around, again. I hadn’t quite noticed until I’d gotten the rest of this Year 7 class to get their books open and start completing the questions that were on the whiteboard.

It took a good five minutes for them all to settle down.

They’d just been learning about the human body in the best way I could think of: They took apart a life-sized model of a human female (filled with plastic, life-sized organs) and completely rebuilt it.

It had gotten them quite excited; especially the boys, who thought that the mammary glands inside a female breast were completely hilarious!

The class then had to cut and stick a paper human body together – organs included. But he was taking too long.

Christopher was a happy and talkative kid, but his work-rate was slow. On two occasions that lesson I walked over to his desk to help out and remind him to speed up, as everyone else was ahead of where he was. He should have been able to get that work done quickly. He had no Special Educational Needs and his English proficiency had increased so much in three months that he had graduated from the E.L.D. programme.

The only thing slowing him down was his chattiness.

I should have moved him sooner in the lesson – my mistake. 15 minutes before the end of the class I moved him to the front to sit next to me, where he couldn’t chat with friends and be distracted.

It wasn’t enough time.

I pondered the idea of giving him a detention. Break-time was straight after this lesson, so it would be easy for me to keep him behind for ten minutes to get that work done.

The concept and purpose of detentions

Before we can fully understand how to use detentions effectively, we must first remind ourselves of what detentions are and, therefore, what their purpose should be.

A detention is a period of time that is purposefully taken away from a student’s extra-curricular or non-curricular time. It may involve a teacher-supervised activity during a morning break, lunch or after school.

Detentions are given to students for a wide-variety of reasons; some of which are more logical than others. Reasons for detentions (starting with the most logical and useful) can include:

Failure to complete homework or classwork
Poor attendance
Persistent lateness/lack of punctuality
Disruption to class activities through poor behaviour
Receiving a certain, set number of ‘warnings’ or ‘demerits’

Christopher’s case as an example to follow

The most logical and useful way to use detentions is time-for-time: time not spent completing homework or classwork should be compensated by time spent on detention.

In Christopher’s case I decided to give the break-time detention. Here are the reasons for my choice:

The Science lesson ended at break-time, so it was convenient for me to keep him behind in my class (I didn’t have the problem of, say, giving him a lunchtime detention for the next day and then having to remember that he is coming and maybe chase him up if he doesn’t come along).
Christopher would be exchanging his breaktime for time spent completing his classwork. He must do this, as he will fall behind if he doesn’t.
The detention serves as a reinforcement of the teacher’s authority, and a stern reminder that a poor work-ethic just won’t be tolerated. It turns out that after only two such break-time detentions, Christopher pulled up his socks and began working at a reasonable pace during lessons.

General tips for detentions that will save you many problems

Every detention must attempt to address or solve the problem that it was given for.

Consider the following:

Detentions eat up the teacher’s time as well as the students, so we really should only be giving out detentions when it is absolutely necessary (as in Christopher’s case above)
For homework that’s not done on time: call the perpetrating student or students to your desk for a quick one-to-one discussion at the end of class, or during a class activity. Express your disappointment, and why meeting deadlines is important. Relate it to the world of work, for example “If I didn’t write your reports on time, what would happen to me? That’s right, I’d be in big trouble”. Allow the students an extra day or so to get the work done. No need for conflict, no need to spend your precious lunch time giving a detention.
If students still don’t hand in the homework even after extending a deadline, then it is necessary to give a detention. CRUCIALLY, however, the purpose of the detention MUST be to complete that homework. Print the sheet again if necessary, provide the necessary resources and get the student to complete the work. This makes the detention less confrontational and reinforces the reason why it was given in the first place.
The same goes for classwork: give students the chance to take their books home and complete classwork if it isn’t done on-time in class. Persistent slow work-rates in class, if not caused by reasonable circumstances (such as Special Educational Needs), should be met with detentions that allow the student to catch up. In almost every case you’ll find that the students will cotton-on to the fact that they can’t get away with distraction and laziness in class, and they’ll soon improve. For those that don’t improve even after focused detentions, further action will be needed and may involve parents and senior/middle management.
For poor behaviour, detentions need to be planned and crafted really well. Remember: the detention should attempt to address or solve the problem that it was given for. I remember a couple of years back when two boys got involved in a bit of a scuffle in the science lab. It wasn’t anything major, but one kid said a nasty word to the other and that kid decided to punch his mate in the arm quite hard. As a Science Teacher, this is something I must absolutely nip-in-the-bud because safety in the lab is paramount, and kids just can’t scuffle or fight in there: period. I gave them both a detention for the next day at 1pm. They came, and I spent the time explaining to them why their behavior was unacceptable. They wrote letters of apology to me and each other, and left the detention understanding exactly why I had taken their time away from them. I didn’t have a problem with them again.
Lessons that end at break times work well for giving detentions if necessary, as you can easily retain the students when the bell rings. If you do assign detentions for the next day or at a later time, then pencil those into your diary – this will serve both as a useful reminder and as a record of who’ve you’ve given detentions to and how often.

Recurring work

I’m a massive believer in the power of recurring work and journaling, and have written about it in detail here and here.

Learning journals are just great for giving regular recurring feedback and for consolidating and reviewing cumulative knowledge gained throughout an academic year. But did you know that Learning Journals save you many a supervised detention too?

Many schools provide homework timetables for students and teachers to follow. With the very best of intentions, these timetables aim to distribute student and teacher workload evenly and fairly. However, they can prove difficult to follow when units include different intensities of work, and when school events get in the way.

That’s where Learning Journals come in!

Set Learning Journals as homework each week. The basic idea is that students buy their own notebook and fill it with colorful revision notes on a weekly basis (although they can be done online too: through Google Sites, for example). Perhaps your Year 10 class could hand-in their learning journals in every Wednesday, and collect them from you (with feedback written inside, see the articles cited above) every Friday. By setting up a register of collection that the students sign, you can easily see who hasn’t handed in their journal that week.

Then……follow the guidelines given above for dealing with late or un-submitted homework. You’ll find that after a few weeks of initiating Learning Journals you’ll get a near 100% hand-in rate, because the students are really clear about what is expected each week, because it is a recurring homework.

Whole school considerations

Many schools adopt a popular (but massively problematic) ‘mass-detention’ system of some sort, which works something like this:

The student receives the requisite number of ‘warnings’ in a particular lesson which lead to a break or lunch time detention being given
The student is sent to a room with other students from the school who’ve also received detentions
Teachers supervise the ‘detention room’ on a rotating basis, thereby (in theory), sharing the workload across the staff body
The students are given generic tasks to do during the detention time, which may include filling in a form, completing homework or in the very worst cases just sitting still and being quiet for twenty minutes or so.

The problem with systems like this is that they are not personal to the students receiving the detentions. They do not follow the ‘golden rule’: that detentions should address or solve the problem that they were given for.

What’s much more effective in the long-term is to trust individual teachers to administer their own detentions. Perhaps provide a quick training session based on good practice (feel free to use this article if you wish), and allow the teachers to then use their judgement to decide when and how detentions should be given.

Conclusion

Student detentions are only effective when they have the ‘personal touch’. When detentions address the original issue by allowing more time to complete homework or classwork, or allow for a one-on-one discussion about behaviour, the following magical things happen:

The detention is given from a standpoint of care and concern, not confrontation and aggression
Students realise the reason why the detention was given as this reason is reinforced by the activities given during the time of the detention
Students improve. It’s that simple. Mass detention systems rarely work because they don’t pinpoint the personal reasons behind why the student is under-performing. Detentions with the ‘personal touch’ cause students to realise their errors and most, if not all, will improve in a short space of time.

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The ‘Care Factor’: Changing Lives One Student at a Time

Posted on May 6, 2018February 6, 2022 by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management)

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati

They were each given a stack of small cards as they entered the classroom. Each set was unique. No two students had the same stack of cards.

The kids were intrigued.

Attached to the classroom walls were ten large diagrams of different human body systems – the digestive system, the respiratory system, the circulatory system and so on.

The kids had to stick their cards to the diagrams to effectively label the different organs.

Some cards had names, some had descriptions.

It was a lot of fun. The kids were moving, talking about the work and learning new things just by doing this activity.

Following this the students played some learning games, completed a textbook question and ended the lesson with a ‘Think, Pair, Share’ plenary activity.

Some would say that this was a great lesson. But why?

The push protocol

Is a grade D an acceptable grade for any student?

Keep that question in mind for a minute or so.

A 2013 study by researchers at the University of California found that increased student engagement and excitement in class can, actually, lead to less effort being put into assignments and homework. In striking and surprising addition to this, increased engagement within lessons did not lead to increased results on tests and assessments.

This study is corroborated by what I’ve found to be true time and time again: that singing, dancing and keeping the kids entertained is just not enough to ensure high attainment takes place (but we need to do it anyway, because it still serves an important purpose).

Teachers in Western pedagogical systems have unfortunately been conditioned to believe the following:

That as long as the kids are engaged, well-behaved and enjoying their lessons then that’s all that matters (especially for a formal observation)
That progress, not attainment, is the defining factor in a child’s success and the benchmark against which teacher-quality should be assessed. If a 16 year-old student, for example, has achieved a grade E in Term 1, and then gets a D in Term 2, then good progress has been made.

In fact, what I’ve found is that active engagement strategies coupled with effective and regular feedback and coaching/mentoring are the ingredients needed to push students to achieve top grades.

Relentless vigilance

So, for that kid who’s not on the S.E.N. register and who’s not operating with English as a second language: is moving from an E to a D in one term in the final year of IGCSE studies really acceptable?

We often try to quantify predicted grades with ‘intelligence tests’ too, such as ALIS, CAT4 and CHEM. Certainly, if a student is achieving lower than their predicted score from these tests, then that is a cause for concern. But what if a student is meeting their target: is that enough?

In my honest opinion, we can all get students to exceed their targets by genuinely showing our care for them through Relentless Vigilance. But what is that?

Imagine the kid who rushes a homework and hands in an incomplete mess, when normally he hands in good stuff. Do we let it go with just a low grade and brush it off as a ‘one-off’, or do we take more action?

How about the kid who consistently scores poorly on tests for no apparent reason? Do we just record the grades, spot any minimal progress the student might be making and leave it at that? Do we consign ourselves to the belief that “She’s just a low achiever”, and leave it there?

The answer to all of this is that student achievement should concern us so much that we simply cannot allow or accept poor achievement to take place at all.

Relentless Vigilance is when we follow everything up. That messy homework? – a one-on-one conversation and the chance to do it again is appropriate. If we allow the mess to happen once, then it’ll happen again.

The kid who consistently scores poorly on tests – set up an intervention strategy. Maybe get the student to keep a learning journal every week, so that he or she absolutely must revise for the tests. Set up a weekly meeting with him to record progress and discuss learning. Set differentiated work that matches the child’s learning style (but don’t spend an unreasonable amount of time on this). Find out what his or her learning style actually is. Explain the importance of regular revision. Get the student to e-mail a paragraph to you every day to describe what they’ve revised in their own time and at home.

Professional Intelligence and The Care Factor

I’ve written about professional intelligence before but I believe its power requires a second mention.

I’ll illustrate its use with a true story.

Just the other week one of my students came to see me to show me a video of her dancing in a local dance competition. She described the people there, how long she had trained and the upcoming competitions and her future goals. I asked her questions about the whole thing. I was genuinely interested.

Now you might be thinking “Okay, so what the hell does that have to do with her attainment in Chemistry”. Answer: everything!

Why did she come to show me the video? – She saw me as an approachable teacher. She likes me. She wanted a sense of validation through praise from someone she respected (whether consciously or unconsciously). She wanted to share a life experience, and her goals for the future.
How does this help with her attainment? – I have written her achievement in my Professional Intelligence Journal – a catalogue of all of the professional things I learn about my students. In a few weeks time I’ll ask her about her dancing, using vocabulary that is specific to her context. I may even be able to use her interest in dancing in a future science lesson (e.g. by delivering a lesson on forces and motion acting on a break-dancer).

What does this all boil-down to in the end?:

Students perform well in subjects in which they like their teachers, and in which the teachers genuinely like them and enjoy teaching them. Students respect a teacher who follows things up, provides regular feedback and is genuinely and profoundly concerned abut their future welfare and success.

Stories personal to me

Two tales that illustrate the above emboldened proverb (okay, that’s a generous self-appraisal ;-D ):

My mathematics teacher in high school – He was super strict and scared the living daylights out of anyone who dared to disrespect him. Excellent teacher. Gave clear and concise lessons each time, marked work quickly and spoke with you face-to-face if there was an issue. Most of his students got A’s and A*s.

Me at 22 years old – I was at a high school reunion and I boyishly wanted to tell my old teachers about my success in getting my degree and being accepted onto a PGCE course. Even in my early adulthood I was seeking validation from people who I knew would care, would listen, who I respected and, at least in my imagination, would be proud of me.

We welcome you to join the Richard Rogers online community. Like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter for daily updates.

What Should Schools Teach?

Posted on April 19, 2018March 25, 2022 by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management)

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati

I often like to listen to my favourite YouTubers in the early morning. For me it’s wake up, go for a run, then shower with my iPhone blasting out some stimulating interviews, lectures or discussions.

At one point this week I was listening to an excellent and thoroughly interesting interview with the renowned David Icke in which he made a statement that really got me thinking: “I hear of lot of debate about HOW children should be taught, but very little about WHAT they should be taught”.

As a teacher I think this is a very important issue and I’d like to offer David a considered response.

10 Things I Wish I Was Taught at School

I’m one of those few people who can actually say that I use the stuff I was taught in school on daily basis in my job. I’m a Science Teacher: so naturally I’m teaching my students almost the same things I was taught at school.

However, there are a lot of things I had to work out by myself when I left school. Was ‘personal experience’ the best way to learn these things?

I don’t think so.

Many years of hardship and pain could have been avoided had (much) greater emphasis been placed on these ten things whilst I was at school:

#1 How to manage money

Surely this should be a school staple, shouldn’t it?

I was taught how to manipulate equations and a little bit about compound interest, but a more intense and focussed ‘Money Management’ curriculum would have helped me and so many of my friends.

Kids need to know about budgeting. They need to understand how credit cards, credit ratings, debt, home loans, savings accounts, interest rates and investments (such as bonds and mutual funds) all work. They need to know how to avoid debt in the first place, and how to climb out of debt if they fall into it. They need to understand the importance of saving and investing whilst they are young. They need to know how to assess financial risk.

How many schools are teaching this? Almost none, and that’s a tragedy.

#2 How to manage emotions (especially worrying)

Humans are emotional creatures, and life can test us to the limit at times.

How do you deal with worry? What makes you angry or frustrated? What makes people do silly things sometimes? Lust? The ego?

With the advent of the Mindfulness in Schools Project in 2009, educators began to see how self-observation can be taught to students as a meaningful way to avoid unconscious reaction.

Just think of the problems that this philosophy could solve, were it taken seriously and implemented nationwide. A fifteen minute meditation session per day, for example, could help students become calmer, more focused in lessons and even more willing to embrace self-acceptance , making life more enjoyable.

As for the emotion of worrying….the statistics speak for themselves. According to the Anxiety Association of America:

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older (which equates to around 18.1% of the population every year).
Anxiety disorders can be treated easily, yet only 36.9% of those suffering receive treatment.
Anxiety disorders develop from a complex set of risk factors, including genetics, brain chemistry, personality, and life events.

In my personal opinion, kids need to know this stuff! Yet how many schools offer a rigorous ‘Worry Combat’ curriculum? Almost none.

Yet again, it’s one of things we kind of have to figure out by ourselves (and many people never figure it out).

Scientists have also found strong links between stress and cardiovascular disease, diabetes and osteoporosis.

I think it’s high time that kids were taught about the effects of worry and how to tackle it as part of a national curriculum strategy. Here’s a book I think should be compulsory reading for every school student (click on the book to take you to the Amazon sales page):

220px-How_to_Stop_Worrying_and_Start_Living

#3: The importance of a healthy lifestyle

Schools are getting better at this but much more needs to be done to emphasise the urgency of this issue with our students.

The world is facing an obesity crisis.

Those words aren’t my anecdotal musings – they’re substantiated by lots of data. The Word Health Organisation publishes statistics on global obesity and in their most recent report (dated February 2018) they state:

Worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975
41 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2016
Over 340 million children and adolescents aged 5-19 were overweight or obese in 2016

The report also states that obesity is preventable, which is true: a balanced diet and good physical exercise, when embedded from an early age, can dramatically reduce the chances of adolescent and adult obesity and associated health problems.

In Japan, schools take health education to a whole new level. Students are actively involved in designing the school’s lunch menu based on nutritional value. For Japanese schools, lunchtime is just as much a part of education as Science and Mathematics.

Beginning in elementary school, kids come to understand that what you put into your body matters a great deal in how you think and feel throughout the day.

buffet-2953875_1920 — Lunchtime is a part of Japenese students’ education.

“Japan’s standpoint is that school lunches are a part of education, not a break from it.” – Masahiro Oji, a government director of school health education, told the Washington Post in 2013.

A good model for school’s around the world? I think so.

#4 To question everything

We go through school believing that if something is written in a textbook, then it absolutely must be true.

It is understandable that this viewpoint is encouraged from an early age: students must believe in the integrity of what they are learning in order to take it seriously.

But is this the right approach in a rapidly changing world, where young people need to be better problem solvers and critical thinkers than any other generation before them?

Sometimes the concepts contained in school textbooks are simplified so much (to make them accessible) that they become completely different to the truth.

A classic example is atomic structure. We’re all taught that an atom looks like the classic ‘Bohr Model’, with electrons orbiting a central nucleus in concentric circles:

But did you know that this model of the atom was actually rejected in 1925? Yet it is still taught to this day in high school chemistry courses.

Perhaps a research-based approach is best for today’s learners and gadget-savvy whiz kids. Is it really necessary to simplify everything? Is it wrong for students to learn the truth about atomic structure (and other topics) even though the knowledge may be advanced and considered ‘above the level of their age group’?

Shouldn’t we be challenging students to accept nothing until enough evidence suggests the theory as being truth?

#5: To respect other peoples’ rights to an opinion

This is a no-brainer, yet statistics on bullying suggest that more needs to be done.

Stopbullying.gov (a US government organisation) compiled a fact sheet based on a variety different studies and reports that:

70.6% of young people say they have seen bullying in their schools (2007).
70.4% of school staff have seen bullying. 62% witnessed bullying two or more times in the last month and 41% witness bullying once a week or more (2007).

In the U.K. the statistics reveal an equally disturbing picture. In a 2016 survey carried out by Ditch the Label (a U.K. based anti-bullying charity), it was found that:

1.5 million young people (50%) were bullied in the year prior to the survey
145,800 (19%) of these were bullied EVERY DAY
People who have been bullied are almost twice as likely to bully others
Twice as many boys as girls bully (66% of males vs. 31% females)

Clearly, these figures are unacceptable and much, much more needs to be done to address bullying in schools.

I would suggest that anti-bullying initiatives must focus on education, not on more sanctions for students who bully.

The following strategies should be taken on by every school:

The United Nations declared May 4th as ‘Anti-Bullying Day‘. What does your school do on May 4th? Consider holding a theme-based day with activities in which kids can get to know about each other’s cultures and preferences better and learn to appreciate diversity.
Diversity, religious freedom, human rights and bullying education as part of a comprehensive PSHE curriculum at all levels of school (even up to and including pre-university students)
Assigning student buddies
Having an assigned member of staff act as a school counselor
Education on cyber-bullying and school-wide implementation of the S.M.A.R.T. acronym given below:

The U.K. government’s 2017 guidance on preventing and tackling bullying is also well-worth a read.

#6 To value creative arts

Creative arts are more important now than ever before. As the world becomes more connected to mobile technology; good images, music and graphics can really make the difference when it comes to marketing products, attracting web traffic and getting your message across.

Let’s be brutally honest – this blog would not be even half as popular as it is if it wasn’t for Pop’s beautiful images. I didn’t take art as seriously as I should have done when I was at school, so I already have a skills deficit that can only be filled in by my excellent illustrator.

Gone are the days when Science, Maths and English paraded at the summit of our educational Everest. The age of the games animator, thumbnail and avatar engineer, app designer and social media marketing expert is upon us!

#7 To respect the natural environment

Schools are quite good at this in general, but there are some easy-to-implement strategies that can further improve this area:

Having recycling bins on site as opposed to standard trash cans
Creating an ‘eco-garden’ on school premises where students learn how to plant, grow, harvest, protect and nurture plants and crops
Recognising global events like Earth Day and World Environment Day with whole-school theme days and activities
Getting students actively involved in cleaning up the school environment through eco-clubs and environment committees
Again: rigorous environmental awareness education through the school’s PSHE programme

#8 Public speaking

An increasingly important skill which is not developed enough in schools.

The power of ‘voice’ as the number one marketing tool of the future has been recognized in a number of influential books including Storyshowing by Sam Cawthorn and Ultimate Guide to Platform Building by Wendy Keller.

There’s just no room for shyness these days.

I often tell my students who are interested in business that they need to start building their platform now. They need to build up followers on social media channels (provided the students meet minimum age requirements) if they want to build up a brand name for themselves.

I’ll use myself as a ruthless example.

I started blogging back in 2016, almost a year after my book was published. In late 2016 I set up my Facebook page and in two years, on a modest budget and through my weekly blog, it’s built up to a following of around 1500 great fans and readers.

But just imagine if I’d have had the sense to start all of this when I was 20. That would have been 15 years of platform building!

One of the best ways to build your platform is through voice: videos, writing and having the confidence to get up front and show your talents and skills.

Public speaking should be a compulsory element of school education. Opportunities for students to develop their skills through conferences, plays, shows, group presentations, TEDx talks, peer-teaching and online publishing should all be fully integrated into school curricula.

#9 Manners and etiquette

As teachers we absolutely MUST be role models for our students.

But what does that mean?

“There’s no such thing as an off-duty teacher” – These words were words spoken to me when I was an NQT.

I think those words are true.

I never saw any of my teachers drunk or smoking, and even on my graduation evening when some teachers came out for a drink at a local restaurant with the students, they acted responsibly.

Our students look to us for guidance and see us as a moral compass – we’re not just sages who impart knowledge without substance.

The way we dress, the way we speak, the way we act: all of these things are picked up by our students.

Are we careful in saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’? Are we careful not to swear or use expletives within earshot of our students?

We absolutely must keep the subliminal messages we send in mind as we go about our daily lives.

As for table manners, correct speech (elocution) and common courtesy: these should be on the curriculum.

#10: How to teach themselves

According to a report published by computer giant Dell Technologies, 85 per cent of the jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t even been invented yet.

Phrased another way: we are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies and techniques that have not yet been invented.

Whilst teachers have known for decades that computers were set to take over vast areas of business operations, the scale of the acceleration has been surprising even to the industry experts.

In order to really get our kids ready for the future we must teach them how to teach themselves. Constant re-training and skills upgrades will be the name of the game for years to come.

We need to think about ways in which we can get our students to evaluate their work as they go along.

Take a look at the evaluation form, given here, and consider ways to make learning more I.T. integrated.

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Easter Revision Tips to Share With Your Students

Posted on April 1, 2018May 16, 2024 by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Award-Winning Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management)

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati

This post was featured by Twinkl in their Exams and Revision Blog

April is here already and I find myself bewildered.

A year ago I was in China preparing my students for their final ‘A’ – Level and IGCSE exams. Now I’m in Thailand doing the same thing with ‘IB’ and IGCSE students.

Time flies when you’re having fun – and it really has been a lot of fun!

This can be quite a stressful time of the year for many of our learners. They’ll soon have a two-week holiday (some schools in the U.K. have already started theirs). In that holiday they’ll be expected to revise like crazy for their final exams.

A Guidance System

Do our students really know ‘what’ to revise? Do they know ‘how’ to revise?

I’ve realized for a while now that preparing students for exams is really easy – they need to have good resources that teach them the content, and they need to be made aware of the self-discipline tactics that will ensure that they cover everything thoroughly.

Addressing the ‘What’

Rule #1: The syllabus is your ultimate guide

Our students must have access to the syllabus (in fact, they should have been using it throughout the course itself).

If at this stage of the year your students have never seen the syllabus then you ABSOLUTELY MUST share it with them.

If we are going to really prepare our kids for their exams, then they’ve got to know all of the topics that could come up on their papers.

Students should be encouraged to make notes on each part of the syllabus as part of their revision.

Rule #2: Complete lots of past-papers under timed conditions

Some exam boards release their past-papers for free, and some don’t.

For my IGCSE Chemistry students I’ve been quite lucky: Edexcel publish all of their past-papers and mark schemes online for free, and my students have had lots of practice in navigating through their past-paper site.

For the IB Diploma the papers have to be purchased. I’m lucky because my school has purchased lots of IBDP past-papers and mark schemes.

Now I’ve got to be intelligent enough to share all of those papers with my students.

Use your school’s VLE to upload past-papers (I’m currently using Google Classroom and it’s great for this)
Print out a past-paper booklet for each of your students to take home over the Easter holidays. You don’t have to mark this – provide the mark schemes so that the students can do self or peer-assessment.
Provide topic-specific exam papers (with past-paper questions that are focused on individual topics). Save My Exams is a great website that provides lots of these ‘topic tests’ for IGCSE, GCSE, ‘A’ – Level and ‘O’ – Level subjects.

At this stage our students should be completing past-papers under timed conditions too. It’s so easy to run out of time in the real exam. Our students must understand the importance of completing past-papers at home under the same time-constraints as the real exams.

Rule #3: Use more than one textbook for each subject

I didn’t have a lot of money when I was a GCSE student. I couldn’t buy a lot of books, but that didn’t matter. I had some great textbooks that school provided, and my dad bought a great maths book for me, but I needed more.

My local library in Flint, North Wales, was well stocked with great books. My Easter strategy in 1999 was simple: Spend every day at the library using every textbook I could find to revise every topic I could.

Going to the library had two advantages for me:

I couldn’t fall asleep at home, or have a midday nap, or get distracted by TV. I was in the library and I had to work.
The library was quiet and very stimulating – there’s something about sitting amongst rows and shelves of books that’s really soothing and conducive to studying

flint-library — *Flint Library: The place where I made my dreams come true*

The strategy worked – I came out with A’s and A*s across the board.

But here’s the sad thing – I was the only kid at the library that Easter (that I can recall). No other kids were revising there. I was alone.

It seemed to me like scores of high school students in Flint had really missed out on the opportunity to enrich and discipline their revision that year.

Students need to get the same information from a wide variety of sources. My best students over the past 12 years of my teaching career have been those that used at least three textbooks per subject to study from.

It’s a tactic that works, and our students must know about this!

Rule #4: Use the internet

There are lots of great websites out there that have good quality notes, tests and interactive activities to learn from. My three favorites are:

BBC Bitesize: Perfect for GCSE and ‘A’ – Levels, but there’s lots of crossover with IBDP and the American SATs too
S-cool: This site has been going for around 20 years and it’s brilliant. The videos are particularly good.
UKEdChat: Tons of great resources for revision here. Check it out.

Addressing the ‘How’

Students need to know ‘how’ to revise, as well as what to revise.

We must pass on these fundamental tips to our learners:

Revise in small sections: 30-40 mins per session with a 5-10 minute break in-between
Revise for around 7 hours per day: Some may not like this, but the students who’ll get the top grades will be putting in this much time every day. Former headmaster of Harrow School, Barnaby Lenon, made headlines this week by stating that “All topics should be revised at least three times before the exam; studies should start at 9am and finish by 6pm with regular 30-minute breaks and a good night’s sleep at the end. Good exam results are made in the Easter holidays,” (Quote courtesy of The Guardian newspaper). I have to admit that Barnaby’s advice does reflect the truth of the situation – students who want the top grades have to work this hard. It really is that simple (albeit not easy to accept).
Use a variety of methods to get the information to sink in: Record yourself reciting your revision notes and listen to the audio for an hour in bed before you sleep. Make revision notes. Use concept maps, Complete past-paper questions. Use flashcards.
Exercise every day: A nice walk in the morning, or a light jog each day, will get the blood flowing and will boost alertness. You’ll also feel good too (because of endorphin release) which will make your revision more productive.
Revise in groups: Get together with friends for a revision session. BEWARE: Make sure you meet to revise, not to chat and play around.
Get up early every day – no sleeping in!: It’s up early, exercise, shower, breakfast and start revising. This self-discipline is necessary to achieve top grades.

In the infographc below I’ve summarized the key strategies for revision success. Please feel free to COPY AND SHARE WITH YOUR STUDENTS:

Recommended Further Reading

Click on the book image to take you to the Amazon sales page.

The Revision Toolbox by Georgia Heard

Just great, direct, no-nonsense tips on training your students to revise thoroughly and smartly.

How to Pass Exams by Dominic O’Brien

Should be compulsory reading for all students, everywhere. Enough said.

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What is an ‘Authentic’ Teacher?

Posted on March 18, 2018August 3, 2021 by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management)

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati

It was lunchtime but I didn’t mind. Neither did my German teacher.

I ran upstairs and entered her room. She was free – success! I pulled out my listening exam script: a set of learned responses to verbal questions that could come up in my GCSE exam.

I’m sure she was hungry and I’m sure she wanted lunch. I didn’t think about that when I was 16 years old. I probably should have.

She sat with me and helped me with my responses. Her dedication lunchtime after lunchtime was a major factor in the grade ‘A’ I achieved in the final exams. She went on to praise me publicly for my efforts and nominate me for a prestigious school award, which I won.

What makes some teachers go beyond the call of duty?

Not every teacher was like my German teacher, and understandably so. As teachers we work long hours and often give up parts of our weekends and school holidays for planning, marking and perfecting our work.

If I could write one phrase to describe my German teacher it would be this: She really cared.

That’s not to say that my other teachers didn’t care – they did. But my German teacher really cared.

The desire and drive within her to help one of her students had a profound effect on me – so much so that it acts as a huge reminder to me of the duty of care I have to my students today: almost two decades later.

How does ‘authenticity’ manifest itself?

I’ve been fortunate to receive wholehearted care from a number of great teachers in my life. I think their authenticity can be summed up in these main ways:

They don’t just teach their subject: My best teachers tried to help me out with problems I was having in life, not just in my studies. When I broke up with my girlfriend, my Biology teacher gave me some great advice and told me not to let it bother me. “It’s her loss”, he said. When I came into school looking exhausted because I’d had no sleep the night before, a number of teachers expressed concern for me and asked how I was and recommended that I get some sleep. When I was pelted with snowballs and came into my Head of Year’s office crying, he put his hands on my ears to warm them up and helped me to calm down.
They take their duty as ‘role models’ seriously: “There’s no such thing as an off-duty teacher” – words spoken to me when I was an NQT. I think those words are true. I never saw any of my teachers drunk or smoking, and even on my graduation evening when some teachers came out for a drink at a local restaurant with the students, they acted responsibly.
They remember you after you leave: At high school reunions and when bumping into each other in the street, authentic teachers and former students talk with each other like it was yesterday. “How are you getting along, Richard”. “I’m doing fine”, I said. “I always knew you would be a success, you were always a very dedicated student”, my old physics teacher responded in 2006. That felt great. It was a reminder of who I was at my core, and a motivator to keep me on track for the future.
They leave no student behind: I was in Year 10 when me and my classmates took a ‘formulae of ions’ test in Chemistry. About half of the class, including me, failed the test. To this day I still don’t know why that happened, but my Chemistry teacher just couldn’t let it go. She pulled aside all of us as a group, had a talk with us and made us resit the test the following week. On the second attempt, we all got above 80% (and it was an equally difficult test). Afterwards she said “Can you now see that the concept was really simple”. We all agreed.
They give up some of their free time: I already know that this is not going to be a popular one with some of my readers, but it is true. Authentic teachers care so much about their students that they are happy to run classes or tutoring after school or at break and lunch times to help students out. They know that this dedication will pay dividends in terms of the rapport they are building and the results the students will get in the final exams. These payoffs are more valuable to them than their free time, which is very admirable.

What are the effects of ‘authenticity’?

Authentic teachers literally change their students’ lives. They realise that their influence doesn’t just last a day, or an academic year. They know that they are part of a mission to mold their learners into happy, responsible, good adults of the future.

There’s a saying that was used in a Teacher recruitment campaign in the UK in the early 2000s – No One Forgets a Good Teacher.

I would say that no one forgets an authentic teacher, because only authentic teachers can be good teachers.

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World Book Day 2025: Every Teacher is an English Teacher

Posted on March 4, 2018March 1, 2025 by richardjamesrogers

UPDATED: 1st March 2025

An article by Richard James Rogers (Award-Winning Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management and The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback). This blog post is illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati.

Related article – Vocabulary Values: Helping Students to Learn Key Words

World Book Day has always been one of my favorite school events — and even as we move into 2025 and beyond, its magic hasn’t faded. In fact, it’s become even more important as we work to rekindle students’ love for physical books in an age dominated by screens. Here’s my latest reflection on costumes, command terms, and creative teaching ideas for keeping the joy of books alive.

A short story

He waddled his way through the corridor like a happy duckling. Amid the giggles and cries of small children he looked liked a giant orange with tentacles as he waded through the masses on his way to the library. Mr Jones was dressed as ‘Mr Tickle’ from the ‘Mr Men’ series of books.

The outfit must have taken an astronomical amount of time to create. With orange fur and controllable arms it was clear who was going to win the ‘Best Dressed Teacher’ competition.

I, on the other hand, tend to be a little too lazy with my outfit on World Book Day. This year was no exception. Can you guess who I am?:

If you said ‘James Bond’ then well done: you’re right! It’s a quick (and a little too lazy) conversion for me: change my tie to a bow, add a dinner shirt and a white pocket square and I’m ready to serve on Her Majesty’s Secret Service!

“Who have you come as?” one of my friends says to me as I walk into the staff room on Friday (we held our World Book Day a day later because Thursday coincided with a religious holiday here in Thailand — something that happens most years) “I’m James Bond — a classic literary icon who’s been thrilling readers and moviegoers alike for over 70 years” I say (rather upset that I wasn’t instantly recognizable). “Is that even a book” he says. “It’s a whole series of books, written by Ian Fleming”

“Wow. I had no idea”

Costume Capers

World Book Day is great for getting people to ask good questions. Often, the characters we dress up as are in fact movie stars which we never knew existed in books. This can really get kids inspired to read more as they gradually realize that good books are often the basis for their favorite movies or TV shows. Good examples include:

Harry Potter – The all-time legendary series of fantasy books written by J.K. Rowling. These books have formed the basis for 8 beloved movies, with new adaptations and spin-offs continuing to keep the magic alive.
The Hunger Games – These action packed dystopian novels featuring stoic and passionate heroine: Katniss Everdeen, have been transformed into five excellent films.
Twilight – Popular with teenagers and young adults: these fantasy/romance novels were brilliantly conceived and written by legendary author Stephenie Meyer

What message does all of this send to kids when they are fully aware of the facts? That’s simple: Books are cool! Books are inspirational. Books change lives. Read books!

It’s a shame that World Book Day is only once per year. In reality, every day should be a World Book Day as we should encourage our kids to read books and enjoy learning English on a daily basis.

As a teacher at an International School in Bangkok, I have the unique privilege and pleasure of working with classes where, in many cases, more than 90% of the students are working with English as an additional/second language. One of my unique missions every day is to help my students to see why English is a beautiful language. To help them notice patterns and sounds. To ensure that they use the correct language in their answers to exam-style questions.

Examination language

Even in 2025 and beyond, the importance of command terms isn’t going away. In fact, with exams becoming more language-focused across international curriculums, knowing how to decode these terms is becoming even more essential.

Try putting up a ‘command-terms’ display in your classroom (like the one below):

Command Terms Blooms Display.JPG — A command terms hierarchy display that follows Bloom’s Taxonomy

I use this display on a daily basis to teach my students how to phrase their answers. I like to turn the command terms into kid-friendly language when going through exam-style and past-paper questions. For instance:

Describe: Tell me ‘what’
Explain: Tell me ‘why and how’
Deduce: Work out the answer and show every step in your work

Eventually, the students can build up a long list of command terms in their Learning Journals or notebooks, coupled with their ‘kid-friendly’ descriptions. The display also follows Bloom’s Taxonomy, with command terms demanding more sophistication in written responses as you go up the pyramid.

The result: Students learn good English vocabulary and score better on exams. What could be better than that!

Command terms are so important, in fact, that many textbooks are now emphasizing them as students work through the chapters. Take this extract from a book my students were using in one of our Science tutoring sessions this week:

Command Terms Hw — Command terms emboldened in a Science textbook

As I was helping these students, I found that explaining the command term first, before tackling the question, really helped in getting a suitable answer. The two girls who I was tutoring would say “Ah, I get it now” when the command term was made clear.

Do you think that students will use these command terms in their daily and future lives? Absolutely! Command terms come up in a range of contexts when operating through the medium of English. For example: “How can we justify this business decision?”, “On the basis of the previous two-years sales, can you predict likely sales for the first quarter of this year?”, “How can we determine who is the best candidate for this role?”, and on we could go ad infinitum.

Isn’t this what language-learning is all about? Getting students to learn key words, then to enjoy using those words and then to apply them to a range of contexts?

In my honest opinion, command terms offer the ultimate key in cross-curricular learning and should be explored by curriculum leaders as a way to really ‘gel’ their subjects together. The result of this: deep learning and an added sense of importance attached to each subject as students see how they link together.

Learning Journals

I have a system set up where students in Year 11, 12 and 13 (ages 15-18, or Grades 10-12 in American/International schools) bring me a journal filled with revision notes, key words, past-paper questions and answers every Monday. It’s such an effective way to boost confidence and performance, but it does require a bit of organisation and leadership from the teacher.

If you have identified students who could use such a journal to focus specifically on learning key words and command terms, then here are the steps to take:

Step 1: Tell the students to get a special notebook. It doesn’t need to be fancy. Just a cheap spiral bound one will do just fine. Some students have even started keeping their Learning Journals digitally using apps like OneNote, Notion, or GoodNotes — which works great as long as they stay organized.

Step 2: The students should divide the first page into three columns:

Key word
Meaning
Pronunciation

For example: Moment, The force applied to a lever multiplied by the distance from the pivot, mo-men-t

For an EAL student you can include a fourth column:

Translation

In this column, the student can write the word in his/her native language.

Step 3: The students should write down the key words they learn every week into this journal, along with all of the other information.

Step 4: CRUCIAL! The key words and information must be CHECKED every week. Check the words, the meaning and the pronunciation (you can even get the students to say the words to you – this reinforces their memory of the terminology).

Don’t forget to reward students for good work too: use your school’s points/merits system, write nice comments on their work and even think of special rewards: a ‘star of the week’ for example, where you display the student’s work on the class noticeboard.

Use voice inflections

Science is great for teaching kids new words. When we, as teachers, genuinely love to pronounce and say key words then our kids will love doing that too.

I have quite a funny little system I use in class. When a key word comes up, I’ll give it a rank:

“Precipitate. Precipitate. Such a beau-ti-ful word. Say “Pre-ci-pi-tate”

Class: Precipitate

“Excellent! Precipitate is number 3 on my ‘Favorite Words in Science’ list”

Student: “What’s number one”

“That’s a secret! One day you’ll find out! A prize to first person to e-mail me my number one Science word when they hear it!”

Of course, my number one word will come at the end of the academic year when the suspense and excitement has been building up for two terms.

Use vocabulary jokes

I’ve recently started experimenting with this and it’s working like a treat! It does take some planning and skill though, and is best described through some examples:

Vocabulary Joke 1: ‘Formal Charge’

I recently used this joke with my Year 13 students to reinforce the term ‘Formal Charge’ – a concept in Organic Chemistry.

“I was walking to the coffee shop yesterday and Mr Davies asked me “Mr Rogers, what is your favorite F.C.? Is it Liverpool F.C.?’ And guess what?”

Class: “What?!!!”

“I said ‘No. My favorite F.C. is ‘Formal Charge'”

Class: (laughing)

I then laugh and say “This is the life of a Chemistry Teacher. Hashtag #chemistrylife”

Class: (giggles and laughter)

This has long-term effects outside of the classroom too. Effects which fully embed the phrases. For example: when I was actually walking to the coffee shop one of my Year 13 students passed me and I said “What is your favorite F.C.?” and she said “Formal Charge”.

Vocabulary Joke 2: ‘Alkali’

An alkali is the opposite of an acid, having a pH higher than 7 (think of soap, for example). I used this joke recently with my Year 10 students:

“A student of mine in Year 9 asked me: ‘Mr Rogers, do you like my homework?’, and guess what happened!'”

Class: “What?!!” (they know that a joke is coming!)

“I said I more than like your work, I ‘alkalike‘ your homework”

Class: (laughing)

I then laugh and say “This is the life of a Chemistry Teacher. Hashtag ChemistryLife — still trending strong in 2025!”

Class: (giggles and laughter)

Clean and fun jokes can like this can be very powerful. The kids will say them to their parents and friends, and if you refer to them outside of the classroom (e.g. John, do you like my new notebook? John: I ‘alkalike’ it), then you can really embed these key terms. The result: Kids will love English, will repeat the words you say and will eventually use these key terms frequently in their written responses.

Vocabulary jokes like these are especially powerful in 2025, when AI translation tools make communication easier — but understanding the why behind words still requires real human teaching.

Other strategies

There are many more strategies you can use to get your learners to enjoy learning the English language. Check out my blog posts on Learning Journals and Vocabulary Values for more tips.

Conclusion

Our aim must be to get our students to LOVE English – speaking it, reading it, listening to it and writing it. Encourage good language learning by:

Taking part fully in English-themed events such as World Book Day (or your school’s equivalent celebration if you’re reading this outside the UK)
Using and embedding command terms
Creating a Learning Journals system
Pronouncing key words in a funny way and getting students to repeat them out loud (elocution)
Making full use of powerful ‘Vocabulary Jokes’
Using other strategies, such as vocabulary games, which you can find on my blog posts here and here.

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Mock Exams: Preparing Your Students The Right Way

Posted on November 25, 2017January 14, 2023 by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management)

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati

For many of us the next few weeks will be very eventful. Christmas is just around the corner and we’re all looking forward to spending time with our families and enjoying the festivities.

For our final year students, however, the festive period will be very busy. They’ll be preparing for mock examinations in IGCSE’s, GCSE’s, ‘A’ – Levels, IBDP subjects and others. Many, unbeknownst to us, will also be topping up their revision time with private tuition and extra classes.

The pressure is on: as it should be.

My view point has always been that if students are going to give up a whole Christmas break revising and studying in this way, then they need to be doing it properly.

As teachers, I feel we have a duty to train and monitor our students thoroughly as they get ready for the most difficult exams they’ve ever taken.

In many schools, students are simply told that they have mock exams coming up in January and that they’d better revise or else! But is this really fair?

We sometimes assume that our students are old enough to take responsibility for their own learning. Sometimes we are content to take a back seat and let the students take ownership of their own revision.

I believe that standpoint neglects the true needs of our learners in terms of guidance and assurance. By adopting the idea that we can leave these kids to their own devices over the Christmas vacation, we are essentially being negligent in our duties.

So how do we make sure that our students are really making the best use of their time? What can we do to truly help them achieve success in the mock exams?

#1: Provide Past-Papers

We must not assume that our students can, or will, find past-papers online.

We must not assume that our students can, or will, find mark schemes and model answers online.

Consider doing the following:

Print out booklets filled with past papers and mark schemes. Give these to your students just before they set off for the Christmas vacation. Perhaps set the papers as a homework? Between 10 and 15 past-papers usually suffices.
If you’re conscious of the cost and/or environmental impact of printing so many past-paper booklets, then simply share the pdfs with your students. You can publish these online via your school’s VLE or even set up a padlet or bulk e-mail.
Encourage your students to complete the past-papers under timed conditions: this will train them to answer efficiently without leaving blank spaces.
Provide the examiner’s reports for each exam paper: these offer rich information which the official mark schemes don’t offer. Show your students how to use these.
Just prior to the mock exams (i.e. just after or just before the Christmas break), consider holding some past-paper ‘clinics’. These can be run after-school if class time is taken up with whole-school exams. Use these clinics to go through the mark schemes to specific papers. Whilst you’ll be sacrificing some of your time, the pay off is that you’ll be helping your students immeasurably and at exactly the right moment for maximum impact.

#2: Teach your students how to revise

Just recently I held a very active Year 11 revision class. It was a summary session on polymers and plastics.

Providing material for revision: such as websites and printed summaries, I gave the students a menu of options from which to complete their topic overviews:

Mind-mapping
Flash cards/revision cards
Writing bullet points
Recording notes on their phone (spoken verbally)
Creating a website summary
A Google slides presentation
Build a game or quiz
Past-paper question hunt
Anything else they could think of

Sessions like this encourage the students to find out what their preferred methods of revision are. They also show students new methods they may never have thought of before.

Try to increase the frequency of revision sessions like this as the terminal exams approach. Use tried-and-tested methods you already know about, and draw upon the ideas of your students for new creative inspiration.

#3: Do your students know when to revise?

Have you done the research yourself? How many hours per night should students be revising? Are morning sessions better than afternoon sessions? How many breaks should they have? When should they have breaks? What should they eat? When should they eat? When should they sleep, and for how long?

Surprisingly, the vast majority of educators do not know the answers to these questions. As a consequence, our students are often misguided and left to figure all this out by themselves.

Whilst research in the area of effective revision and knowledge retention can be conflicting, there are many startling consistencies. I’ve summarised this research in my ‘Mock Exams Preparation!’ infographic below. Please feel free to share this with your students, colleagues and parents. They need to know this information!

#4: Monitor their revision over the school vacation

Yes, I know that we’re on holiday too.

Yes, I know that we deserve a break too.

What I’m suggesting is not massively time-consuming, but it will have a MASSIVE impact on the success of your students.

Set up some kind of online journal, where the students can record a few sentences each day describing what they revised. Consider the following ideas:

Make the journal open for all students to see, maybe by creating a Google doc that every student has access to. This will provide other students with ideas as the vacation progresses and they see what their peers are revising. It also adds a thin layer of accountability, as it’s easy to see who hasn’t added to the class journal. Use your judgement of your students to see if this is appropriate. Maybe ask them for their opinion about it before you set it up.
Make the journal closed, perhaps by setting up a Google doc for each student that you can check each day. Maybe an e-mail system works better for you: where students e-mail you a few sentences each day.
Market the idea as a ‘help tool’: an online journal where students can record what revision techniques worked well for them that day, and ask any questions they have. The other students in the group can then answer those questions, comment on the suggestions and the teacher can even offer written guidance too. This ‘collaborative’ form of journaling can have an amazing motivational effect, and can even raise students’ enjoyment of your subject.

There’s one experience in my sixth-form schooling that I’ll never forget as long as I live. It shows the impact that a dedicated teacher can have on his or her students.

It was Christmas 2001. I was 17 and getting ready for my mock exams, but I was slacking off. One week into the holiday and I hadn’t done any ‘AS’ – Level Physics revision.

Then, the telephone rang. I picked it up and to my shock and embarrassment it was my Physics teacher.

“How’s the revision going, Richard?”

“Err, err, it’s going okay, sir”

“Do you have any questions so far?”

“Err, no I think I’m good”

“Okay then. Don’t forget that the exam is only 10 days away”

“Okay. Thank you, sir, bye”

“Bye Richard”

If ever there was a wake-up call in my life, that was it. I was embarrassed to have to lie to my teacher. The revision wasn’t going well – I hadn’t done any.

That day I pulled up my socks and went at my studies like a steam train. It was the phone call that did it – a call from someone who cared. Someone I respected.

Sometimes a little bit of pain does a lot of good. Left to my own devices I would have crammed my Physics revision into the last few days of the holiday.

Summary

Provide plenty of past-papers, mark schemes and examiner’s reports. Crucially: go through the papers when the students have completed them.
Teach your students the science of good revision. Feel free to share my infographic with them!
Monitor revision over the Christmas vacation (very powerful!). Set up some kind of online journaling system that suits your students. Ask for their input on it before you set it up.

Don’t miss the Christmas Giveaway for 2017! From 25th – 29th December, Richard’s book will be free to download on the Amazon Kindle store globally. Merry Christmas and enjoy (and tell your friends)!

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Developing Independent Learning Skills: Teaching Our Students to Teach Themselves

Posted on November 19, 2017November 22, 2022 by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management)

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati

The ability to learn independently is a key aspirational skill of all of our students; or at least it should be.

Not only do our top students need to learn how to study independantly when they get to university, but all of our students need to be prepared for careers that may not yet exist.

Empower students through marking

When you first meet your advanced learners, or when they are starting out on their ‘independent learning training’, empower them with encouraging comments on their work.

Take this recent example of mine for instance:

This work is from a final year IBDP student. She’s done a good job of finding and filtering relevant information by herself. I’ve praised the things she’s done well, and offered tips on how to extend her research.

Over time, the amount of written comments I give on this kind of project work/research will definitely decrease. This is only needed in the initial stages.

For her next piece of work, peer assessment and some verbal feedback from me may be all that she needs to be encouraged to keep on track and continue to improve.

Design project work with a creative outcome in mind

Here are some ideas for group and individual projects:

Create an infographic about a particular topic, to be displayed on the classroom wall
Create a class presentation, perhaps on Google slides, to be presented to the class at some future date
Create a website summary of a topic
Build a model or a demo to show the class
Create a dramatized play/news report about a topic
Create a song/rap
Create a stop-motion animation of a process
Create a spatial Learning activity (kids might need some training for this one: see my blog post here for help)
Create a leaflet or brochure, to be distributed to another class or Year group (cooperate with other teachers on this one – perhaps a leaflet exchange is a good idea)

Can you think of more to add to the list?

Use Imaginative Evaluation

When people think of an ‘evaluation’ they’re often drawn to their early memories of their Science lessons at school.

In those kinds of evaluations students have to decide what worked well, what didn’t work well and what changes could be made to methods and equipment to make the experiment better next time.

With Imaginative Evaluation, students use their ingenuity to think of what they could do better if there were no limitations in terms of equipment, time, resources and technology.

In an attempt to create the innovators of tomorrow, Imaginative Evaluation aims to get kids thinking about what technology, currently not available, that they would invent to solve the problem they’re facing.

This excerpt from my book shows a planning and evaluation form that can be used with any assignment, in any subject, to encourage Imaginative Evaluation:

Build things

Get your students to build what they are learning in some way. You don’t need fancy equipment: straws, bottle caps, crumpled paper, cardboard, paints and even plastic bottles can all be mashed and mangled together by students to create amazing models.

I’ve used this technique across my teaching in Science to get students to create everything from atomic models (a recent example is given below) to makeshift ‘eco gardens’.

Can you think of times where you could use this technique in your curriculum area?

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Spatial Learning: A Powerful Teaching Tool

Posted on November 12, 2017January 22, 2018 by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management)

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati

It was a cold October morning in North Wales. I was a fresh, Newly Qualified Teacher at Denbigh High School.

Young and inexperienced with rose-tinted goggles: I was mindful of my responsibilities as a new Science teacher. Expectations were high.

When the Deputy Head of the school suddenly asked to observe one of my Year 9 Physics lessons I knew I had to perform well. As a thriving school with a great reputation, Denbigh definitely set the bar high.

My Year 9 kids were typical 13 and 14-year-olds. Some days they were great and some days they’d just had enough. Keeping them on-task was a challenge for an unskilled teacher like me.

Frantically thinking of ideas for this major lesson observation that was coming up, I thought about how to keep the kids interested whilst maintaining challenge at the same time. I was going to be teaching a lesson about series and parallel circuits, but I’d made the mistake of not ordering circuitry and equipment from my Science technician. A class practical was simply out of the question at such short notice, and the circuitry was booked by a number of other teachers that day anyway. I could only order enough equipment for a class demo.

What on Earth was I going to do?

Simulations and online learning was out of the question – this was 2006 and kids didn’t have the right mobile devices and they didn’t carry laptops. Online resources were also limited.

I felt uneasy about taking the kids to the computer lab, even though it was available. My Deputy Head wanted to see me teach, not watch the kids work on computers for 40 minutes (or so I assumed).

In a moment of despair and perplexity I was suddenly given a flash of inspiration: what if I could turn the lab into a giant circuit? The kids could become ‘model electrons’ and could walk around the classroom holding up little signs, pretending to be flowing around a circuit. I could even hold up a sign saying ‘cell’, and a few kids could be model ‘switches’ and ‘bulbs’. Hell, it might just work!

The day comes

I frantically printed a class set of A4 signs – just simple sheets which said ‘electron’, ‘switch’ and ‘bulb’ in big letters.

‘This crazy idea might save my day after all’, I thought!

The kids came in and sat down. Back then I hadn’t mastered the art of giving students something quick to do as soon as they enter the door (see my three A’s in my book). I got right into this activity as a starter (which turned into a semi-main body of the lesson).

I lined all the kids up and gave them each a sign. Most of them would pretend to be electrons and a few would be switches and bulbs (‘switch on’, ‘switch off’, ‘bulb on’ and ‘bulb off’ signs were given to these pupils).

The desks were arranged in rows, so I started with a series circuit. I explained the route the kids had to take and they started walking, holding up their signs. They smiled and giggled along the way. When the ‘electrons’ passed the ‘bulb’ it ‘lit up’, and when the ‘switch off’ student held up his sign, the ‘electrons’ stopped moving and the ‘bulb off’ sign was held up, proudly.

To my astonishment, the kids absolutely loved it. More importantly: they understood the concepts of the lesson brilliantly. They completed a short worksheet after the ‘circuit walk’ (which they all could answer with ease) and then I gave my short circuit demo with actual wires and bulbs and switches.

Feedback

My deputy head was very impressed. She praised my creativity and said that the ‘circuit walk’ was very effective.

Not bad for a freshy who prepared in rush!

That day I became a hardcore Spatial Learning fan. Fast forward to today and all of my students will tell you that I use spatial learning in almost every lesson I teach. It’s effectiveness speaks for itself.

But what is Spatial Learning?

There are many definitions and interpretations of spatial learning on the web and in various books. Some of this pedagogical mumbo-jumbo can be really confusing, but I believe I’ve nailed it down to one sentence:

Spatial Learning is when students use bodily movements to express themselves, solve problems and model situations.

Spatial Learning has both general and specific applications. I’ll now go through some great examples that illustrate the power of this excellent teaching tool.

Here’s a quick video I made about Spatial Learning:

A human graph and true or false?

Do you want to know the opinions of your students on a subject matter? Maybe you’re taking a survey (e.g. which day is the best for canteen food). Maybe you have a list of multiple choice questions and you want a fun way to get the kids through them.

A human graph might be the right tool for you!

What if you just want to quickly check your students’ conceptual understandings (e.g. as a plenary)? You could ask some true/false questions and get the kids to raise their hands, or you could use a way cooler (and more fun) method!

Choose one wall to be the ‘True’ wall and one to be the ‘False’ wall. Once you’ve asked the question, get the kids to walk to the correct wall. It’s that simple! Just make sure that the kids walk back to the middle of the classroom before each question.

This great illustration from Pop shows you the steps to take for each of these activities:

Body numbers

Do your kids need to express numerical answers sometimes? Maybe they need to work out a percentage or a fraction, or translate numbers from one language into another. Maybe they need to express something in Binary Code. Well it’s time to put pen and paper down and get your kids moving!

Turn your students into ‘human numbers’ by following Pop’s beautifully illustrated instructions:

For double and triple-digit numbers you can put students into groups for added fun!

Modelling

The vast majority of the Spatial Learning I do involves modelling a situation, concept or solution. Like the example I gave earlier about the electrons travelling around the circuit, the students actually become the things that you’re teaching about.

I find that almost everything I teach can be modelled spatially in one form or another.

I’ll provide some examples to show just how easy it is, with just a little creativity, to turn any monotonous textbook paragraph into a living, breathing, exciting and stimulating task.

Modelling example one: Diffusion

Textbook definition: Diffusion is the passive movement of liquid or gas particles from a region of high particle concentration to a region of low particle concentration. The speed of diffusion of any given particle is dependent on its molecular mass. This means that a particle of ammonia, for example, will diffuse faster than a particle of hydrogen chloride as ammonia is the lighter of the two particles.

Modelling activity: As you can see, the textbook definition is rather hard to swallow. So, to jazz things up a little, you can turn the students into ammonia and hydrogen chloride particles and tell them to diffuse! In this activity, the students simply walk across the classroom at different speeds, depending on which molecule they are. Quick, easy to do and a nice break from writing, reading and listening to a lecture. More importantly: it’s really useful as a tool to help kids understand this concept.

See this illustration I drew below (my art work is dire compared to Pop’s, so I hope it’s understandable!):

Modelling example two: A Typical Home Network

In an attempt to show you just how pliable spatial learning is, I’ve designed a task for a subject area I don’t specialise in: ICT

Concept: A typical home network may be wired, wireless or a combination of both. Hardware components process and convey the data message from from part of the network to another.

Spatial learning task: For this task you need moving and stationary students. The stationary students stand at predetermined positions in the classroom (you can put signs on desks or on walls to help). These students represent the hardware. The rest of the students are the ‘data message’, and they move from one component to another. I hope the illustration below helps you to see just how easy this is to implement and how much fun it can be. Students should shout out the name of the hardware component they reach at each stage as they walk around the room.

Can you think think of ways to use modelling in your subject area?

Further reading

My debut book is filled with great spatial learning and active engagement tips. After the enormous success of that book I’ve decided to work on a new book that will be released mid-2018 which goes into even greater depth and breadth about the range of classroom management tactics available to teachers. Also, if you’re looking for a great book to build up spatial learning skills in small children, then I strongly recommend Julie Dillemuth’s Lucy in the City:

Also, a great manual for designing great spatial-learning activities is Dr. Thomas Armstrong’s Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom (highly recommended):

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Tag: Curriculum

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Spatial Learning: A Powerful Teaching Tool

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