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Watching from the Wings
When you read this, I will no longer be CEO of Crossbow education: I founded the company in April 1993, and after the 21st of March this year I will have retired. I started my teaching career in...
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A Visit to Liberia
In January Anne (my wife, if you don’t know us) and I went to Liberia as part of a small humanitarian team working in Monrovia (the capital) and some of the villages there. Liberia is a failed state....
View ArticleHappy Earthday!
I’ve just bought a Radio Times, although about the only thing I watch on TV is when Liverpool are playing a football match… I’ve bought because there is a picture of Chris Packham on the cover,...
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The Big Schools Birdwatch
Free ResourcesChildren (and adults!) love “spotting” things. I think the game I Spy is written into everyone’s genetic code. What better activity to get them off their devices and outside than the...
View ArticleEye Level Reading Rulers – 20 years on (nearly)
It is nearly 20 years since Anne (my wife) and I designed and patented the Eye Level Reading Ruler. At the time, the provision of coloured overlay interventions for visual stress was pretty much the...
View ArticleHeads in the Cloud
We (Crossbow) exhibited at the TESSEN show back in October. It’s by far and away our favourite SEN event, with two full days of seminar programmes and many suppliers like ourselves displaying their...
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Do you know what an imposter letter is?
If you are dyslexic you will almost certainly have come across them, without necessarily putting a name to the problem. An imposter letter is a character that is identical with a different one in a...
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Still Curing Dyslexia
I’ve just been reading some material online on ‘dyslexia treatments’ that include such diverse “therapies” as inner-ear improvement exercises and electric shock treatment that increases reading speed...
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Thinking and Reading Comfort
Two thought systems I am in the process of reading “Thinking fast and slow”, by Nobel prize-winning author Daniel Kahnemann. The whole book is a fascinating insight into the workings of the human...
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They Are Supposed To Be Like That!
Why there is no need to “fix” kids with “special needs”. Guest blog by Shelley Johnstone: Dyslexic, doctor, home-schooling mum. If I am going to have a rant, I will say that I don’t see anyone...
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Lifting the lid on “exam factory” thinking.
Lifting the lid on “exam factory” thinking. In a direct challenge to the government’s performance tables fixation and the use of “exam floor targets” to label failing schools, Amanda Spielman, the head...
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Writing on the Wall
It’s not often I get excited about government reports, but the article I read in last Monday’s paper has got me blogging. A report by the Commons’ education select committee criticises the focus on...
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Shanghai’d
“Pupils to be taught maths the Chinese Way” (The Times headline, 12 July) So: we’re going for wholesale adoption of “Shanghai maths” in the UK. 8000 primary schools will be switching to the...
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Plus ça change…
This has nothing to do with phonics or visual stress, but there is a connection with spelling, and also some mathematical content… On a day when our woeful performance on the football pitch has...
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Hands off or hands on: what has happened to multi-sensory learning?
An instant multi-sensory resource creator. Hands off or hands on: what has happened to multi-sensory learning? I spent a day down at the BETT show in January, and came back with a bagful of fliers...
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Coloured overlays, bad science, and the B B C (The Windscreen Analogy).
Last week the BBC reported on a study by researchers from Bristol and Newcastle which cast doubt on the efficacy of using coloured overlays to help with reading difficulties. Now that the storm has...
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Live it, Learn it!
(Guest Blog by Beccie Hawes, of Rushall’s Inclusion Advisory Service) Whenever I made one of those mistakes you make when you are growing up (the usual stuff: silly coloured hair, ill-chosen...
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The DIRM Factor
By Beccie Hawes, (Head of Service, Rushall’s Inclusion Advisory Team) DIRM stands for ‘does it really matter?’ and it is fast becoming my mantra of choice for many of the issues that I am encountering...
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Are you dyslexic, or have you got dyslexia?
I read an article yesterday (which I’ll publish later as a guest blog) by an author who describes herself as a “proud dyslexic”. I expect I’ve written about this already, but it just made me think...
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Have you Been Phoniced? (Guest Blog from Beccie Hawes)
We are delighted to be developing a partnership with one of our local Inclusion Advisory teams, based at Rushall Primary School, near Walsall. In this article, head of service Beccie Hawes asks the...
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