Trivium 21c ltd.

Grid of Posts 3×2

  • A Knowledge Organiser and the Trivium

    Knowledge organisers are gathering momentum in a number of schools. This is a good thing. Some people have misgivings about their reductive nature but many can see how they assist pupils in getting to grips with basic subject matter and being able to memorise key bits of information. There are many different designs of knowledge Read more

  • The Narrowing Curriculum

    Today’s identity politics has another interesting feature: it teaches students to think in a way antithetical to what a liberal arts education should do. When I was at Yale in the 1980s, I was given so many tools for understanding the world. By the time I graduated, I could think about things as a Utilitarian Read more

  • Nothing Will Come From Nothing

    “Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.” Is a quote often attributed to Einstein which is actually from a piece by BF Skinner called “New methods and new aims in teaching”, in New Scientist, 22(392) (21 May 1964). The quote was retweeted into my timeline today accompanied by a tweet Read more

  • Drama in Decline

    Apparently there are now 1,700 fewer drama teachers teaching in UK schools than there were in 2010. I don’t have any information as to how accurate this figure is and what the figures are in the constituent nations of the United Kingdom nor how it compares to other subjects, suffice to say it adds to Read more

  • Social Mobility? Forget It…

    The Government wants to unlock talent and fulfil potential with its plan to improve social mobility through education. It intends to do this by: targeting communities that are left behind, closing the ‘word-gap’ in early years, closing the attainment gap in schools between disadvantaged and more affluent children, providing high quality post 16 skills education Read more

  • In Defence of the Graded Report Card

    In a piece for the TES Bernard Trafford wrote that: Assessment is linked, of course, to the whole question of reporting. Many parents still love nice, simple effort and attainment grades: they feel they know how their child is getting on. The message that such judgements are both arbitrary and unscientific is only now starting Read more