Cameron Setter

March 2020 I embedded myself into improving my teaching practice, using twitter, reading blogs and books, watching webinars, listening to podcasts etc. I quickly discovered Direct Instruction by Siegfried Engelmann, reading everything I could from blogs by Kris Boulton, Sam Hall and Naveen Rizvi to finding out about Project Follow Through and eventually reading the Theory of Instruction by Siegfried Engelmann himself.  It was a tough read but fortunately there are some very clever teachers who were able to write blogs or make infographics to clear a few concepts up for me but Direct Instruction made perfect sense to me. I began to introduce choral response into my lessons, tried to be really clear and efficient with my explanations. I even changed the independent practice that students were doing so that out of 10 questions, only 2/3 of them were from the new content learned in the lesson with the rest being from previous learning.  I have found it a really effective way of te...

What does it take to develop and lead great organisations and teams?  As I start to embark on the next stage of my teaching career, I started to read some leadership books. Good to Great, Legacy and Extreme Ownership were the top three recommended to me. It striked me that they each looked at different succesful organisations from business to sport to the military and yet there were key themes that ran throughout. What was it that turned an organisation from good to great?  How did the All blacks fulfil their goal of winning the World Cup? What qualities do Navy Seals pass on to future leaders to ensure they continue to perform at the highest levels in extreme conditions? 1. Establish  Point A Jim Collins talks about leading with questions to find out where your organisation is on its journey.  Key to this is being honest to yourself and to others, confront the brutal facts. If something or someone isn't right for your team you need to be open and honest and work out...