Teacher Proof

​According to recent research, 97% of teachers who have purchased a title recommended by this Teach Secondary reviewer report a marked increase in attendance levels amongst their KS4 students. Don’t believe me? Disprove it. And if you can’t be bothered, don’t have the time, or have no idea where to start… well, maybe you should read Tom Bennett’s latest book. Bennett has had enough of impressive sounding statistics being used to generate exciting headlines and/or policy shifts that are useless at best and disruptive at worst, when the methods by which they have been generated are deeply flawed. Social science, he insists, is about as close to actual science as a random stranger wearing a cape is to being a superhero… and educational science rarely even bothers with a costume at all. His deliberately bloke-ish tone and bluff humour grates at times, as does his insistence that what works, must be what works for him – but nonetheless, this scholarly deconstruction of research-based educational advice is both entertaining and deeply reassuring.