GordonsMFL

I think @head_teach is the best blogger on educational policy right now. Long read, but totally worth it. Every line is quotable. matthewevanseducation.substack.com/p/something-ve…

I know I keep posting about them, but here's a video explaining why I love @SentenceBuildrs grids. Having been both a Welsh learner and a teacher, they are my favourite language teaching and learning tool, paired with @gianfrancocont9's E.P.I teaching methodology. #dysgucymraeg

'We're not teaching them to order baguettes' - languages enjoy a renaissance in schools bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

Hi all, Year 11 GCSE Speaking Exams start today. Coincidentally, this is also the day they start building the new extension to the science labs, the resurfacing of the car park, the KS3 yodelling competition and they’ll be cutting the grass on the football pitches, too. Thanks x

Here is a summary of my session at the CAFI Congress in Santiago today, where I demonstrated how educators can move beyond "AI slop" by using artificial intelligence as a cognitive sparring partner to design inclusive, multimodal learning experiences. linkedin.com/pulse/producti…

Japanese football fans have been praised online after staying behind to clean up Wembley Stadium following their team’s 1–0 victory over England. After the historic win, Japanese supporters remained in the stands to tidy the stadium before leaving.

Germany is celebrating the late Queen! A special stamp marks what would have been Queen Elizabeth II’s 100th birthday on 21 April. It honours her legacy and work towards reconciliation between the UK and Germany.

One day, I'll receive an email about keynote speakers being announced for a big conference, and those speakers will be actual teachers. With timetabled classes. I'll receive an email about educational panel events where organisers have committed to having at least one person with a timetabled class on the panel. I'll receive an email about people being invited to some glitzy event in town or Number 10, and the people invited will be actual teachers. With timetabled classes. One day, but not today.

Mini-white boards are great. I genuinely love them. But as with any means of participation, they have benefits and limitations and teachers should be aware of both and use accordingly. On the upside, they offer maximum observational efficiency. When everyone writes i can see the full data set—everyone’s answer—and when they hold them up I can scan and review with maximum speed. That’s a big win. Plus they feel low stakes to students and therefore low-risk… if it’s wrong I just erase it. Ideal for settings like retrieval practice. And when the routine is installed well they are fast and engaging. Some limitations to consider though. There’s a downslide to disposable writing that disappears. It’s harder to go back to it: to study and revise it later or to improve it. The answers are not in your notes! By the way we have a video of a chemistry teacher, Abi Mincer of Totteridge Academy in London who writes the answer on her smart board after students erase so there’s a list of the answers permanently visible. Love that. MWBs can also socialize hasty or even sloppy writing- with the sloppy referring to the production or to the thinking. The goal can easily become speed of response. The marker slips easily across the board and this just maybe makes it so that students don’t write as slowly and thoughtfully as they might on paper. Slow, deliberate thinking leads to careful word choice, the inclusion of new ideas and assists with encoding. MWBs can be a crutch. It’s an easy way to engage students. A bit easier than other also important ways to engage them such as cold call and stop and jot. That means there’s a risk of over relying on it. It’s a great tool for some situations. But a craftsperson needs lots of tools. I’m sure you can think of other benefits and limitations. Just wanted to share a few so that teachers are more likely to use a great tool for maximum gain.

Many decades after members of their families were unjustly stripped of their right to German citizenship by the Nazis, a group of their descendants became German citizens again at the Embassy this month.

Germany has a shortage of workers - so it's turning to India for help #Alevel #Germany #integration #immigration #Y13 🇩🇪♥️🇬🇧 bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

I’ve been away for a bit. We haven’t been having the best time, to be honest. I’ve noticed a few things happening with Ofsted and their supporters recently, and I’ve written about it. Ofsted, of course, are driving on regardless. difficultlessons.wordpress.com/2026/03/17/dri…

Thanks to Norbert Pachler for announcing today that the recordings of the recent NCLE AI Symposium have now been made available to watch. A treasure trove of reserched based evidence on AI and language education. ncle.ucl.ac.uk/ai-symposium

Education debates are full of self-assured voices—politicians and policymakers, union leaders, reform advocates, and researchers. But one group goes largely MIA from the conversation: teachers who have left the profession. My latest for @AEIeducation aei.org/education/list…

I've written an article with Sophie Winkleman on why we must save textbooks in schools. You can read it on my Substack here substack.com/home/post/p-19… or in the @spectator

Have you registered for Language World? 2 days of stimulating discussion and useful presentations for languages teachers. Look forward to seeing you there: Language World 2026 @ALL4language #LW2026, #edutwitter #mfltwitterati

Deadline to apply, 6 March. Don't miss your chance to engage your Spanish learners 👇

And this is why education is stuck in such a rut, and constantly regresses back whenever we make an inch of improvement: because the progressive tropes are so intuitively attractive, easy, and simple, and the reality of learning is much more complex and difficult. You don't learn very well by watching an amusing or entertaining video; you retain the information in it like a river running through you. You're aware of it temporarily until it is replaced by the next packet of facts, but you don't retain it well or in a way you can retrieve easily later. You might remember novel, surprising, amusing, or shocking parts well enough, but miss the details that weren't obvious, or the links between them. Knowledge and skills are acquired through scaffolded explanations/ demonstrations followed by the student processing it, using it, thinking about it. The teacher then checks their understanding and offers high quality feedback, reinforces, corrects, redirects or reconstructs. Then the next lesson connects meaningfully with the last one in a similar way, infused with retrieval and revision of prior concepts to ensure deep learning. Videos can be part of that, but they are not that. We actually do know a lot now about how we learn, and how we teach, and collectively they tend to be called the Learning Sciences, or Evidence-Informed Education. It's urgently required across the world as an antidote to both the winner-takes-all grindhouse of poorly led-lecturing, or more commonly, the inane performative pantomime of progressive flim-flam. Mr B's references here demonstrate the old Keynesian adage of how so-called practical men who believe themselves free from bias, are usually in the grip of some long dead economist or philosopher. He trots out the most pedestrian and reactionary dogma about learning while believing himself to be a common-sense revolutionary. It's not his fault. I don't know anything about being a social media megastar. But tech, no matter how shiny, cannot replace the architecture of the human brain. There is a 1300g bag of neural porridge inside every one of us that isn't going anywhere fast, so we better get busy using it to understand how to replicate and build on how we already actually learn, rather than what we wish it was like- or what sells content.

🇩🇪🤝🇬🇧 From Bavaria with love. A 12-metre tall galleon has arrived in London from the German village of Frasdorf. It was there that the ship and other playground equipment were produced for the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens.

The Scausländer (a delightful Anglo-German wordplay on Scouse + Ausländer/foreigner) is the University of Liverpool's German student newspaper. Our Honorary Consul Dorothea Mücke-Herzberg took part in the paper's 5th anniversary celebrations – Herzlichen Glückwunsch to the team!