David Didau

A short story inspired by living in Cambodia secondsummeroflove.substack.com/p/working-ni...

Oracy floats in a sea of knowledge daviddidau.substack.com/p/oracy-floa...

Oracy floats in a sea of knowledge daviddidau.substack.com/p/oracy-floa...

How do you know if your school is any good? New essay on what PISA reveals about disadvantage, why a narrower gap can mean something’s gone wrong & why we need to discount the outcomes of the most advantaged students. daviddidau.substack.com/p/how-do-you...

How do you know if your school is any good? New essay on what PISA reveals about disadvantage, why a narrower gap can mean something’s gone wrong & why we need to discount the outcomes of the most advantaged students. daviddidau.substack.com/p/how-do-you...

Our newest assessment project is Double Marker - designed to solve GCSE English mocks for you! We have an intro webinar on Thursday - register for it here.

A lot of people have asked me: why are the govt trying to undo the edu policies that have made England so successful? Latest Substack does not attempt to answer that question, because I don't know the answer! But it has some related comment. substack.nomoremarking.com/p/what-is-go...

1/n I am very much on record as not being an Ofsted fan but this is a worrying direction. This isn't the Premier League. Their primary aim shouldn't Be To Be Fair. It's to drive better schools for children. Bear with me for nuance. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Everyone knows detentions obviously don’t work. Just look at all those kids who keep getting them, right? But that’s like judging speed cameras by only studying drivers who keep getting caught. What if the main effect of sanctions is on everyone else? daviddidau.substack.com/p/the-detent...

Everyone knows detentions obviously don’t work. Just look at all those kids who keep getting them, right? But that’s like judging speed cameras by only studying drivers who keep getting caught. What if the main effect of sanctions is on everyone else? daviddidau.substack.com/p/the-detent...

I like Jamie Oliver but this is infuriating because AGAIN nobody seems to be aware/care that our biggest issue is portion size. The decline over the last ten years has been remarkable. Feed kids enough. Then worry about what. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

What students can do in a lesson isn’t the same as what they’ve learned. Learning is what survives forgetting and changes how we see the world. If we want evidence of learning, we need to look elsewhere and later. daviddidau.substack.com/p/elsewhere-...

What students can do in a lesson isn’t the same as what they’ve learned. Learning is what survives forgetting and changes how we see the world. If we want evidence of learning, we need to look elsewhere and later. daviddidau.substack.com/p/elsewhere-...

One last time for this: Sunday's blog post. What can we do if it turns out that the Secretary of State for Education doesn’t believe in education? andrewold.substack.com/p/what-can-w...

Everyone Listens to Everyone. My action step for this year, and my latest blog post for @knowledge-hub.bsky.social theknowledgehubuk.substack.com/p/everyone-l...

This is excellent.

Brilliant, thoughtful response to my @knowledge-hub.bsky.social blog post on copying. Feels like old style edutwitter at its best. More of this here please!

Is there a case for copying?

New blog post from me with my @knowledge-hub.bsky.social hat on. Stop Making Them Copy. What should we do when we just need them to get something down? theknowledgehubuk.substack.com/p/stop-makin...

This is really interesting from @didau.bsky.social. My instinct is that there are lots of parts that would be great for explaining concepts/ routines to our autistic pupils, particularly the symbolic boundaries section; concept of 'dirt as “matter out of place”' & applying to schools is brilliant.

Seeing schools through the eyes of an anthropologist. What happens when we stop asking whether rituals are effective and try to work out why they evolved daviddidau.substack.com/p/the-anthro...

This is where I live now

“Primaries are a rare example of an English public policy success. We risk undermining that success by making them compensate for state failures elsewhere.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Just got this comment on my Substack 😍 substack.nomoremarking.com/p/the-proble...

Schools are normally thought of as machines to optimise but it might be more helpful to imagine them as ecosystems to cultivate. Healthy schools renew the conditions that make future success possible. open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

Schools are normally thought of as machines to optimise but it might be more helpful to imagine them as ecosystems to cultivate. Healthy schools renew the conditions that make future success possible. open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

LAST CHANCE TO ORDER BEFORE SUMMWR CLOSURE. A Year in Willerby. 12 stories and other ephemera from a haunted village. Discounted to £15. Limited edition, locally printed. beautifully illustrated. 150 copies sold. Last 50 remaining. Well reviewed everywhere so far. www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4...

Is Rob Coe’s idea of ‘poor proxies for learning’ “one of the most damaging ideas in education”? Or is it an essential language to help us avoid being seduced by nonsense? Find out below… open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

Exercise books are so temptingly inspectable. You can flick through & feel you’ve seen learning. But full pages, neat titles, coloured pens and polished paragraphs are, at best, proxies. The more beautiful a book is often the less evidence of learning it provides. open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

Exercise books are so temptingly inspectable. You can flick through & feel you’ve seen learning. But full pages, neat titles, coloured pens and polished paragraphs are, at best, proxies. The more beautiful a book is often the less evidence of learning it provides. open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

Later this month we have a webinar for teachers in Australia & New Zealand. We will share how our new AI marking system works & explain how schools in Aus & NZ can take part. We will also give you some free credits so you can try it out yourself! Register now. www.nomoremarking.com/events

Retrieval practice is everywhere but is it working? Wax on, wax off only works because Miyagi knows what the movements are for. Retrieval is no different: ritual needs meaning. open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

Retrieval practice is everywhere but is it working? Wax on, wax off only works because Miyagi knows what the movements are for. Retrieval is no different: ritual needs meaning. open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

"Like many ideas in education, retrieval practice has suffered the peculiar fate of being simultaneously overused and underthought" 👇

Systems should be judged by what they do, not what they say they’re for. If inspection rewards performance, compliance and fear, schools will learn to perform, comply and fear. The alternative isn’t less accountability, it’s intelligent accountability: open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

Systems should be judged by what they do, not what they say they’re for. If inspection rewards performance, compliance and fear, schools will learn to perform, comply and fear. The alternative isn’t less accountability, it’s intelligent accountability: open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

Schools don’t just communicate intentions; they shape behaviour. Like a badly designed door or a desire path across grass, environments make some actions feel obvious. Environmental psychology helps us ask better questions open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

Schools don’t just communicate intentions; they shape behaviour. Like a badly designed door or a desire path across grass, environments make some actions feel obvious. Environmental psychology helps us ask better questions open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

One of the advantages of our assessment model is that it uses AI to reduce workload BUT it also ensures every script is seen twice by a human. We can reduce the time it takes to assess a class set of essays down to about 15 minutes. It's all explained here. help.nomoremarking.com/en/article/h...

Exclusive: An experienced headteacher reduced to tears during a 'harrowing' Ofsted inspection has sounded alarm over the watchdog’s wellbeing protocols and new inspection framework schoolsweek.co.uk/an-inspectio...

Chapter 68 of The Second Summer of Love open.substack.com/pub/secondsu...

Chapter 68 of The Second Summer of Love open.substack.com/pub/secondsu...

We know teachers vary in quality but teacher effectiveness isn’t an unvarying trait that can be plugged into to another school changed. Great teaching needs schools to nurture it. Importing expertise may create a possibility but it isn’t sustainable open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

Ready or not, here’s another chapter of The Second Summer of Love? Chapter 67: Luke finally tells Nina about Fiona... secondsummeroflove.substack.com/p/i-dont-wan...

I'm in @theobserveruk.bsky.social today on why a lot of the AI/jobpocalypse debate misses the point. observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

Schools haven’t changed all that much in 4000 years. In this post I argue that’s a good thing. I discuss evolution, evolutionary psychology, culture and make the claim that schools are the first — and most important — educational technology. open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

Schools haven’t changed all that much in 4000 years. In this post I argue that’s a good thing. I discuss evolution, evolutionary psychology, culture and make the claim that schools are the first — and most important — educational technology. open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

We've just launched an exciting new post-16 writing assessment! We're going to use our AI-enhanced Comparative Judgement system to assess Year 12 writing at the start of next academic year. Read more and find out how to take part here. help.nomoremarking.com/en/article/a...

Chapter 66 of The Second Summer of Love open.substack.com/pub/secondsu...

Chapter 66 of The Second Summer of Love open.substack.com/pub/secondsu...