Michael Duffy evaluates a range of bargain-priced guides to teaching good practice
Teachers’ Pocketbooks series
Secondary Teacher’s Pocketbook
By Brin Best
Mentoring in Schools
By Bob Garvey and Kim Langridge
Accelerated Learning
By Brin Best
Teachers’ Pocketbooks, pound;6.99 each
Classmates series
Managing your Classroom
By Gererd Dixie
Lesson Planning
By Graham Butt
Teacher’s Guide to Protecting Children
By Janet Kay
Tips for Trips
By Andy Leeder
Stress Busting
Every Minute Counts
By Michael Papworth
Running your Tutor Group
By Ian Startup
Teacher’s Guide to Involving Parents
By Julian Stern
Marking and Assessment
By Howard Tanner and Sonia Jones
Teaching Poetry
By Fred Sedgwick
Continuum pound;39.99 set of 10 until December 20, or pound;4.99 each
“Teachers are beginning to get spectacular results by using a range of new approaches to motivate their students and help them learn more effectively.” No, it’s not a politician speaking: the quotation comes from the publisher of the Pocketbooks series for teachers, but there are plenty of teachers who would sign up to it. It makes educational as well as commercial sense to identify the new approaches, to pin them down for inspiration or for reference in a handful of punchy, pithy pages.
Continuum’s Classmates series, which promises “accessible, practical and indispensable advice for teachers”, covers some of the same ground with a slightly different format. They are also pocket-sized, but the pocket’s bigger and there’s more text: thoughtful, continuous prose rather than notes and bullet points, and more room for case studies and activities.
Read more in this week’s TES Friday magazine
