Here’s what you missed... Top reads for NQTs

For newly qualified teachers, starting your career in the classroom will feel like an adventure. However, like on most adventures, there will be moments when you lose your way, feel underprepared or just want to grab the nearest hand available.  

Given the disruption encountered during the last six months, this is hardly surprising. So what can you do to help you through your first term?

Although books on education are in plentiful supply, it’s hard to know which ones are worth investing in. Given the fact that you’re a brand new teacher, are these books even suitable? Not only that - each teacher starts the profession with different skills, interests, strengths and weaknesses.

So with that in mind, we’ve curated some lists for you to mix and match to find the right reading material for you.

For those fresh into the classroom

If your training year was the first time you returned to the classroom, then this combination gives you a great balance of theory and practical tips.

When you’re new to teaching, it is possible to read too much about how to do it. These books will let you dip your toe into some big and important ideas - but be ready to also put them down and come back to them later.

1. Why Don’t Students Like School? by Daniel Willingham
2. Simplicity Rules by Jo Facer
3. Memorable Teaching by Peps McCrea
4. Responsive Teaching by Harry Fletcher-Wood
5. The Writing Revolution by Doug Lemov

For those with a bit more experience

For those teachers who have got their QTS as well as lots of classroom experience - maybe a TA-to-teacher journey - these books should help you develop your classroom practice.

You’ve probably already done a little reading about the way classrooms work. The following texts will build on what you already know, and also give you a range of different thoughts on what makes a “good” lesson.

1. Teach Like Nobody’s Watching by Mark Enser
2. The Confident Teacher by Alex Quigley
3. 7 Myths About Education by Daisy Christodolou
4. Boys Don’t Try by Mark Roberts and Matt Pinkett
5. Why Knowledge Matters by ED Hirsch

Especially for primary

The joy of primary teaching is that you get to do a bit of everything. But as much as that gives you freedom - it’s also a real challenge.

This list will give you a little bit of the crucial subject knowledge that will develop over the course of your whole career, as well as some much-needed information on how young children learn.

1. Lessons in Teaching Phonics in Primary Schools by David Waugh
2. Thinking Classrooms: metacognition lessons for primary schools by Katherine Muncaster
3. How I Wish I’d Taught Maths Craig Barton
4. Understanding and Teaching Primary Geography by Simon J Catling
5. How Children Learn by John Holt

Every teacher is a teacher of literacy

It isn’t just the job of the English department to deliver literacy in the school - every teacher needs to be able to help their students to read and understand in order to fully access their subject, and this collection will help develop that knowledge.

These are great books to dip in and out of, so make good use of the glossary and index.

1. Spell it Out by David Crystal
2. Closing the Reading Gap by Alex Quigley
3. Why Children Can’t Read: and what we can do about it by Prof. Diane McGuinness
4. That Spelling Thing: resources for every age group by Tricia Miller
5. Thinking Reading: what every secondary teacher needs to know about reading by James and Dianne Murphy

Teachers serve their communities

As teachers, we serve our communities. Every single teacher is a tiny, but crucial, cog in society. As we turn, our movement has an impact upon all of those connected to us - and that impact can be good or bad.

These books will make you think about that impact, and how you can be a positive force for good.

1. The Matthew Effect by Daniel Rigney
2. Inclusive Education: perspectives on pedagogy, policy and practice edited by Zeta Brown
3. Black, Listed by Jeffrey Boakye
4. Sapiens: a brief history of humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
5. What’s in a Word?: vocabulary development in multilingual classrooms by Norah McWilliam