Intro

Who is this blog for? You are here this thinking it is a blog about the Royal Marines or a blog about teaching — both is correct. The idea of a blog of teaching strategies came to me one afternoon after battling through an INSET day on a rainy September afternoon. By the way, contrary to the popular belief of many a teacher hater, INSET actually means In Service Educational Training where training is provided — not where you watch the latest DVD box set. Whilst useful, more often than not you come away from these sessions with more questions than answers and whilst there is no such thing as a one size fits all strategy to manage behaviour and improve learning it is certainly very useful to have a range of weapons in your armoury so to speak. The strategies in this blog are intended to be proffed⁠1 and have all been used by myself in my own practice, however if you recognise a strategy or technique that you have created please let me know so that I can credit you. Likewise if you have devised a strategy that you would like to be included in future editions of this blog please let me know and I’ll try to include it.

To become a Royal Marines Commando you need to complete 30 weeks of training where you become one of the finest soldiers in the world. This book is structured into sections which introduce a teaching strategy and relate that to lessons learned in my 11 years service in the Marines. So if you are ready, fall in⁠2 lofty⁠3 and get ready to learn!

1 Proffed, to obtain or use.

2 Fall in, get in line.

3 Lofty, tall person, opposite of shorty.