The Essential Guides – serie

The Essential Guide to Lesson Planning is intended to help trainee and newly qualified teachers come to grips with the daily lesson planning required from them. This book shows how the time spent planning good lessons can help to ensure that time in the classroom is effective, productive and enjoyable. A key goal of this book is to show that planning lessons and behaviour management are not two separate entities – any good lesson plan will have built-in behaviour management strategies. If students are catered for, are allowed to achieve and have their good work reinforced, then even the most challenging of students can be fun to teach.

The Essential Guide to Secondary Teaching is the complete guidebook for the secondary school teacher. Including practical guidance on planning lessons, writing reports, formative assessment, being a good form tutor and using learning support assistants effectively, this book will also provide information on the school as an effective organisation and the teacher’s part within it to help you become an excellent classroom practitioner.

Helping you develop the confidence and basic skills needed to understand and support children with special educational needs, this guide will support you in tackling the everyday challenges that working in an inclusive classroom poses. The Essential Guide to Special Educational Needs will provide advice and support in recognising and identifying children with special educational needs, while also providing practical guidance to help you support the needs of individuals in your classroom.

“I asked myself if this book could enhance the professionalism of teachers in general. It will, irrespective of any specialism… This book should help to disperse the fog of ignorance and prejudice and I wish that some of my school teachers had read something like it.”  Cliff Jones, Critical Professional Learning, Vice Chair of the International Professional Development Association (IPDA)

Demystifying current theories and debates about assessment, The Essential Guide to Assessment will be a practical guide to show trainees and teachers how to put certain strategies and models into practice in the classroom right away.

How do I develop the best methods of assessment for my own learners?

How can I effectively track the progress of different children in my class?

What targets should I be setting?

The Essential Guide to Assessment provides answers to these questions, plus countless others. Demystifying current theories and debate about assessment, this will be a practical guide to show trainees and teachers how to put certain strategies and models into practice in the classroom right away.

Looking for new ways to use coaching and mentoring techniques for the benefit of staff and pupils in your school?  

The Essential Guide to Coaching and Mentoring is the resource you need to help build a powerful leadership team in your school through accessible and practical strategies that really bring the principles of coaching to life for teaching professionals at every level.

This second edition of Judith Tolhurst’s coaching manual provides a lively introduction to using coaching with both staff and pupils in schools and will become a powerful learning tool to help build the leadership capacity of your staff and help your pupils become confident learners.  

Steeped in real school settings and using current examples, case studies and coaching conversations, this book can advance your professional development by: