'What gets in the way of ˜fearless learning™ is the cognitive bias that creates beliefs about our limitations and abilities. Staying true to the principle of the ˜unique child™ as children progress through school is a way to empower their learning and fulfilment.' Read the full article here.

The article relates to Jackie's new book The Complete Learner's Toolkit, which you can discover here.

"This was a fascinating read. Stephen Lane is a pastoral leader who has been watching the golden age of research-based advances in the quality of information available to guide academic teaching. Rather than simply enjoying this it led to him ask the question- why aren™t the pastoral aspects of teaching so well catered for. Despite my wide reading it isn™t a question I have ever asked myself but as soon as I read it, it seemed obvious. Out with behaviour, there is a relative lack of clarity as to who or what to read to get a sense of the best bets in pastoral care. This book was Lane™s admirable attempt to address this. He covered key aspects of a school pastoral provision and identified what research or books were out there and then outline his conclusions in each area. The identification of key issues and great reads is worth buying this book by itself. Some of Lane™s conclusions were less convincing based on my own experiences/reading but they were always well argued, thought through and evidenced. This was a book that I will return to when reviewing specific aspects of pastoral provision- if nothing else for the quality of the further reading suggestions.

Read this if¦ you are in a position of pastoral leadership."

Find out more about Beyond Wiping Noses.

Find the pieces here.

Discover the Opening Doors series here.

‹Barry will be speaking as part of the session Using Chess Data for Science at 9am GMT. Find out more and register for your place here.

Find out more about Barry's book Chess Improvement here.

‹Find the full list of books here.

Discover The Wolf was Not Sleeping and the full range of books in the Feel Brave series.

The fact is, chess improvement is a slippery subject. There is no magic formula, but opinions are like ” ahem ” kings, in that everybody has one. Distilling the wisdom from the dogma is no easy task, setbacks are inevitable, and misdirected effort can be worse than useless. So it was refreshing to see these and other topics discussed thoughtfully and deeply in a new book, Chess Improvement by Barry Hymer and Peter Wells. 

Read the full piece here.

Find out more about Chess Improvement here.