Latest blogs

A personal and a national challenge: Finding transformational teachers in India

Thursday 28th May 2015

Later this year, Ark will be opening a new primary school in India, the first of several planned for impoverished neighbourhoods in South Delhi over the next five years. Ankita Dubey is an Ark project manager. In this blog, she discusses growing up in India, and how she is searching for teachers like those who inspired her early in her life. 

Seven reasons to choose a teaching job in an Ark school

Sunday 17th May 2015

May is a hectic time for teachers. Not only are they preparing students for end of year exams, it's also one of the busiest times of the year for recruitment, as teachers seek to explore their career options. 

Mountains to climb: An Ark Fellow in South Africa

Friday 20th February 2015

Guy Rimmer is an English teacher from Ark’s King Solomon Academy. He was selected as part of the Ark Global Teaching Fellowship Programme and spent two weeks in South Africa this summer, sharing knowledge with Ark partner organisation SPARK Schools.  He has written a blog about his experiences, and his thoughts on how to improve schools in the developing world:

Ark Fellows leverage their leadership skills in Uganda

Wednesday 18th February 2015

Hayley Francis is a classroom teacher from Ark Oval Primary Academy and Mark Critchard is Ark Schools’ Network Lead for Mathematics and former Head of Maths at Evelyn Grace Academy. Both were selected as part of the Ark Global Teaching Fellowship Programme and spent two weeks in Uganda this summer, sharing knowledge with Ark partner organisation Promoting Equality in African Schools (PEAS).

Sparking improved teaching through better data: An Ark Fellow in South Africa

Monday 16th February 2015

Daniella Grasso is the inclusion manager at Ark Bentworth Primary Academy in West London. She was selected as part of the Ark Global Teaching Fellowship Programme and spent two weeks in South Africa in August 2014, sharing knowledge with one of Ark’s partners, SPARK Schools. 

Sweet home Transylvania: Reuniting families in Romania

Tuesday 13th January 2015

To meet the Cosma family at their home in rural Romania, you wouldn't know that they had only recently been reunited after years of painful separation.

Transforming students' lives through high expectations

Wednesday 29th October 2014

Matt Jones is the head teacher of Ark’s Globe Academy. 56% of pupils at the school are on free school meals and 38% speak English as an additional language, both well above the national average. Here, Matt writes about how he’s managed to turn the former Geoffrey Chaucer Technology College from a school in special measures to one with consistently strong Ofsted and exam results.

Seven tips for better school behaviour

Thursday 23rd October 2014

This article first featured in Teach - our monthly best practice newsletter featuring tips and practical advice from Ark, our partners and our friends. 
Sign up for Teach now to receive teaching tips direct to your inbox. 

'School Information Systems': Not just for developed countries

Thursday 9th October 2014

A group of us at Ark () and PEAS () are collaborating to work out how to approach the School Information System (SIS) in developing countries. The first task is to get something working for the PEAS network of 24 secondary schools in Uganda. But we'd also like our solution to be viable for publicly funded schools in any developing country.

“That’s perfect – my state has 120,000 schools”: Scale in Education

Thursday 4th September 2014

The poor quality of much education provision in developing countries is a well-rehearsed problem; yet solutions are elusive. Low cost private schools struggle to show that their quality is materially higher than that found in the public system. On the other hand no successful models exist for quality reforms in state education, either. Given this situation, there is increasing interest in a third alternative in which the state invites non-state organisations to manage public schools - an arrangement commonly called a public-private partnership (PPP) for education.

Pages

External blogs

The Guardian

How I've made Walworth Academy a safe space for students to share problems

Sunday 10th May 2015

The Guardian

‘Britain’s brightest student’ taking aim at teaching’s sacred cows

Tuesday 25th November 2014

The Telegraph (Blog)

The school that proves Michael Gove is right (King Solomon Academy)

Tuesday 30th September 2014

Times Education Supplement

‘How we achieved dramatically good GCSE results in the poorest ward in London’

Monday 22nd August 2011