Chalkface Blog

The best teaching materials in the most practical format.

recent posts

about

Author: Ian Grove-Stephensen

  • Our first-ever 8th Dan student

    Meet Beatrice Wongsanguan, Y11 student at Patana School in Bangkok. Beatrice is the first student ever to achieve the 8th Dan belt in Yacapaca. In case you do not know, we copied the Judo belt scheme to describe our levels. Students earn White Belt almost immediately, the work up through the colours to Black Belt. After that,…

  • Introducing Sequence questions

    Being able to work out a sequence is a classic demonstration of understanding and this makes it a popular assessment option. The new Sequence question type in Yacapaca supports up to 5 items to be sequenced, with text, images or both. It uses a simple and intuitive drag-and-drop interface. This sample quiz will give you…

  • GCSE Exam Practice modules coming in April

    Next January, we intend to launch a new series of professionally written and edited online practice GCSE exams, entirely auto-marked. The aim will be to raise GCSE results by at least one grade level for …

  • This one small accounting change could save every teacher 8 hours per week

    This one small accounting change could save every teacher 8 hours per week

    Here is a fairly typical budget for a smallish 5-teacher department in a mid-sized secondary school: Salaries for 5 teachers (inc. employers’ NI) £215,000 Discretionary (“materials”) budget £1,500 There is a third item that is usually accounted separately, cost of cover staff. If the average teacher is off for 1 week per year – whether…

  • Timed questions help students get in ‘flow’

    It all started one warm Friday afternoon about 12 years ago. I was observing a Y10 class in a fairly typical mainstream secondary school. They were taking a test using Paperless School, a now-defunct system that I had designed. One pair of boys particularly caught my attention. They were lolling back in their chairs, chatting about snooker and doing their…