Top UK Education Blogs

Looking about the web, as much from a marketing standpoint, looking over the garden fence isn't healthy, but checking out the key blogs around the web is really interesting.    It's apparent though, that blogging in some circles has gone the way of the dodo, replaced by 140 characters of tweets.

Looking about the web, sites like Onalyptica and Cision have updated their list of the 100 Most Influential Education Blogs.   We're not expecting to feature, things like that just don't happen that easily or quickly.  

I’m still certain that some of what I consider to be the big hitters aren't given their merits!  Top UK education blogs lists are two a penny.  Here's some that I have bookmarked or stumbled upon wandering around the web.

1. @TeacherToolkit
2. The Learning Spy
3. headguruteacher
4. HuntingEnglish
5. Learning from my mistakes: an English teacher’s blog
6. johntomsett
7. Scenes From The Battleground
8. Geoff Barton’s Pick ‘n’ Mix
9. ClassroomTM
10. Tabula Rasa

This was an interesting list from one of the more popular blogs, the Learning Spy.

1. Pragmatic Education by Joe Kirby – one of clearest thinkers on education currently writing. Unmissable!
2. The Echo Chamber by Old Andrew et al – I’m not really part of the gang, but they do reblog most of what I write. This is a wonderful repository of blogs and contains some very unexpected treats such as the delightful Making Learners Extraordinary (TM)
3. Web of Substance by Harry Webb – a focus on education research – some excellent thinking and lots of stuff I’d never previously heard of.
4. Hunting English by Alex Quigley – Another blogger with a prodigious output – really worth exploring the back catalogue: there’s gold in them thar hills.
5. Teachingbattleground by Andrew Old – the old man of UK education blogging. Andrew’s been a thorn in our side since 2006 and still has plenty left to say. It’s curious that he seems to be writing stuff that I find myself agreeing with more an more. Maybe he’s becoming a progressive, left-wing enemy of promise? He’s also Michael Gove’s blogger of choice, don’t you know?
6. Learning from my mistakes: an English teacher’s blog by Chris Curtis – this my favourite ‘proper’ English blog, and where I go to for subject specific advice and ideas. I’d have loved to have been taught by Chris.
7. …to the real by Kris Boulton – some really wonderful thinking on some of our pedagogical articles of faith like questioning and understanding. Very impressive stuff. And he’s a maths teacher!
8. Red or Green Pen? by redorgreenpen – The second blog in my Top 10 by a maths specialist. This one is full of compassion, outrage and righteous indignation. But in a good way
9. Headguruteacher by Tom Sherrington – Tom is prolific. His writing goes from strength to strength and  the breadth of (education) topics covered is considerable.
10. Tabula Rosa by Tessa Matthews – full or wit and withering scorn for the nonsense teachers are encouraged to embrace. Always entertaining. Always thoughtful.

There are loads of other blogs I think are great, I'm trying desperately to look, discover and read more.    Running an online school may be seen as controversial in these mainstream education spheres, but we're all educationalists here. 

I would love recommendations of blogs you read, ones that don't feature, so drop them in the comments.   I have seen comment toward a bit of "Golden Age of education blogging".  I've also read, the general quality of teacher blogs has improved significantly?   Is this true?