1.1.1

Mary Myatt

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Mary Myatt

Mary Myatt is a respected speaker, writer and education adviser. She has worked as a teacher and as an Ofsted inspector.

Biography

Biography

  • Studied Classics at university.
  • Worked for PR and marketing companies.
  • Owned her own ice-cream company.
  • Became a teacher at 34.
Ideas about the curriculum

Ideas about the curriculum

  • The curriculum should be an ongoing piece of work, not only aimed at government inspections.
  • She believes the curriculum should be robust.
    • The stronger, more robust, more demanding and more interesting the curriculum is, the better for the pupils.
  • When planning the curriculum, the conversation in schools should not be about "wanting more time for subject X", but rather "how to make the most of the time subject X gets."
Gallimaufry

Gallimaufry

  • Mary Myatt uses the word Gallimaufry to represent what she thinks of the current curriculum in schools.
    • The word means "a confused jumble or medley of things".
  • SLT in schools need to make time for discussions about the curriculum. They need to strip out things that are not really adding value to school, so they have time to talk about the curriculum.
Cultural capital

Cultural capital

  • Secondary school should be about building cultural capital and not only training students to pass exams.
  • It is impossible to teach everything. So, we should identify the big ideas and show students how they fit together.
    • We need to identify what students really need to know.
Wider texts

Wider texts

  • Myatt thinks teachers should use wider texts to motivate and engage students. It is ok if they cannot answer every single thing about that text in their homework.
  • Example: Richard Kennett is a Year 7 History teacher. He uses the scholarly text "The Norman Conquest" by Marc Morris with the students.
    • Students are expected to read parts of the texts and answer questions.
    • They will not be able to get the entire text, but it is a high challenge with low threat, which motivates interest.
Effective learning strategies

Effective learning strategies

  • Myatt is also an advocate of spaced and retrieved practices.
  • She recommends choosing a topic and teaching it in different contexts.
    • Example: Choose one topic and discuss it from the point of view of different literature books.
Jump to other topics
1

Important Educational Researchers Currently

1.1

Interesting Current Educational Researchers

1.1.1Mary Myatt1.1.2Daisy Christodoulou1.1.3Alex Quigley1.1.4David Didau
2

How to Have an Evidence-Informed Classroom

2.1

How to Have an Evidence-Informed Classroom

2.1.16 Steps by the Evidence Based Teachers Network2.1.23 Steps by the George W. Bush’s Institute2.1.35 Steps by the University of Birmingham
3

Interleaving

3.1

Optimum Interleaving

3.1.1Optimum Interleaving
4

Curriculum

4.1

Cognitive Sciences and SEND

4.1.1Cognitive Sciences and SEND
4.2

Curriculum Design

4.2.1Curriculum Design
4.3

Christine Counsell: Senior Curriculum Leadership

4.3.1What is Senior Curriculum Leadership4.3.2The Curriculum as a Narrative
5

Future Questions

5.1

Future Questions

5.1.1Future Questions

Practice questions on Mary Myatt

Can you answer these? Complete these activities in the Seneca app to progress towards your certificate.

  1. 1
    What word Myatt uses when talking about the current situation of the curriculum in schools?Multiple choice
  2. 2
    What should the SLT do about the curriculum, according to Myatt?Multiple choice
Answer all questions on Mary Myatt

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Daisy Christodoulou