Practice Makes Improvement

Teaching is an amazing career and if done properly can change lives forever.

Everyone remembers that one teacher who inspired them and made them believe in themselves and their particular talents.

This book examines all the theories and popular approaches to teaching. It breaks down all the theory into actual approaches to be used at the classroom level.

Teacher-pupil interaction is the crucial element to a child developing in all aspects of their life.

All children are born with wings and a good teacher helps them to fly!

Stillness in Preschool and School

This is a hands-on report on how to find calm in the most stressed out and turbulent of worlds today – preschools and schools. Not a calm out there, but the calm inside all of us, closer than our thoughts and as natural as the air we breathe.

25 years of experience with the Dream of the Good in preschools and schools in all parts of Sweden show very good results. The grown-ups did not believe the kids would take to it.

But the message is, it can be done, and kids of all ages like it – if the practices are simple and natural. Their teachers often didn’t think it was possible, but once they learn they also benefit. Research confirms the positive results: less stress, less psychological problems and better self-image.

The Agile Coach's Cookbook

“With this coach’s cookbook, Jon has managed to create a thing of both great simplicity and immense value. A must read for the coaching community, this is an easily referenceable guide to coaching excellence, full of handy hints, tips, tools and techniques. As a coach, no matter your experience, expertise and specialism, this is a resource you will all want in your back pocket.”

— Gustav Bjorkeroth, CEO at Radtac

“There are so many self-proclaimed-and-promoting agile experts, and best-selling agile authors. It’s challenging to decipher who’s right, who to engage with, or who to follow. Then there’s Jon Ward of Beneficial Consulting. Jon’s pragmatic and catalytic approach nullifies these challenges. Within the world of ‘agile transformation’, transitioning from ‘waterfall to agile’, Jon stands up and out providing practical advice based on successful recent experience. This book provides an essential read for agile coaches who wish to make a difference.”

— Alan Gedye, Head: People Change Management and Enablement, Absa Johannesburg

The Complete A-Z of German Verbs

I think I know which verb to use….but can I use it in this context….? I have a verb in my mind that I think should be used, yet is it the one used by German speakers themselves? How can I find out?!

Does this sound like you? As a fellow linguist and Translator, I completely empathise. This was the question I asked myself for many years. The world of languages can be a tricky one indeed. Countless days of learning verb tables and endings and running through verb after verb; this may seem like an impossible feat, yet is one commonly undertaken by dedicated linguists.

My book, The Complete A-Z of German Verbs, seeks to break down this confusing process, providing students with a guide to help understand the multiple uses of German verbs in different scenarios. Upon reading this book, you will gain an insight into morphological patterns that may have eluded you in the past and will guide you on your path to becoming a talented German linguist. Are you ready? 

The Future Knowledge Compendium

Thriving in the 21^st Century

Humans have a unique capability to both understand their situation in the world and to envision and act to realise their aspirations in the emerging world. And most of us would welcome knowing how we can become ever more skilful at both understanding, and shaping the future of, our emerging world, so that we can thrive in it. The 21^st century is very different from the 20^th century. Globalisation, the greatest economic prosperity uplifting machine humanity has ever invented, and mass education, are combining to sweep humanity into an emerging interdependent global village. It is creating a global educated middle class that will number 5 billion in 2030.

In this emerging world, a world where our future prosperity will be increasingly based on metaphysical wealth, on what we know, 20^th century nation-first, competitive, win/lose, mindsets and agendas can no longer work. These now yesteryear mindsets will instead undermine our best endeavours, including making our future ever more climate and pandemic safe.

Humanity is now beginning to learn that it now has no option but to adopt planet-first, collaborative, win/win values and mindsets, if it wishes to shape our emerging global village so that it can become liveable for all: ever more prosperous, harmonious, inclusive, sustainable, healthy, and secure. Meeting these challenges successfully will require that humanity innovates for itself a new future knowledge curriculum so that it can economically thrive in a sustainable and humane manner.

Peter Ellyard has asked the question: what would be the contents of such a curriculum? In The Future Knowledge Compendium: A Curriculum for Thriving in the 21^st Century, he has sought to answer this question.

The Graduate Book

“It’s a tough world out there for graduates—and students definitely

 know it. As a result, we’re seeing more and more that they’re preparing

 for post-graduation life early. The Student Book and The Graduate Book

 are invaluable resources, showing them exactly how to get ahead of

 the game whilst still at uni, and what to do if they’ve left their career

 planning until the very last minute! From a real-life success story, it offers

 crucial advice in an engaging and light-hearted way. An essential

 wherever you are in your university career or graduate job search!”

 Lucy Miller, Senior Editor – The National Student

 “We talk and interview with literally thousands of students every year

 and less than 5% of them really know what they need to do to land that

 vital first job. These books should be compulsory reading for every

 student and new graduate.

 We highly recommend it.”

 Jack Catherall, Managing Director Wiser Elite and Wiser Digital.

The Knowing and Caring Profession

Teaching has always struggled with its identity. Is it a profession? A vocation? Something that people who can’t do anything else fall into? A safety net or a career?

Is it a walk in the park? All those holidays. Something anyone can do, let’s face it, we all went to school.

Or is it a complex, challenging, somewhat maligned and misunderstood profession made up of exceptional and perhaps not so exceptional members. How would we know?

The Knowing and Caring Profession takes a look behind the rhetoric and rigmarole, to explore education and more specifically the education profession through a variety of lenses.

Phil Lambert’s approach to education, teaching and the broader profession is at times confronting, challenging and controversial. At its heart, it is an exploration of education by a teacher, a bureaucrat, an academic, a leader and a parent, all rolled in to one.

Phil brings a different perspective to many of the complex and challenging facets of education. From curriculum and class sizes to teacher education and student learning outcomes, Phil distils what can be polarising and emotive topics into easy to digest, fascinating and, at times, funny anecdotes and examples for non-educators.

Anyone who has even a passing interest or involvement with the education system will gain significant insight and understanding of what is truly at its very core, a knowing and caring profession.

The Little Blue Book for Teachers

Jargon free, clear and concise, The Little Blue Book for Teachers provides both new and seasoned teachers with over 50 strategies that will help engage students and keep teaching fresh. The content is wide in scope, covering topics such as lesson planning, questioning, small-group and cooperative-learning strategies, homework, reading, grading, reviewing and more. It is a toolkit for primary and secondary teachers alike with all strategies having passed the most rigorous of tests: they have actually worked in the classroom. Just open the book and get stuck in.

The Simple Truth

When it comes to supporting young people, Joanne Kirby knows her stuff. She is a mother of four and a qualified social worker who has years of experience working within education. She brings her knowledge together to provide an easy to understand, inclusive and educational resource which provides holistic teaching of all aspects of relationships. The Simple Truth equips the readers with the tools to navigate falling out with their friends; to understand why someone might not like them; how to deal with bullying, how to protect their mental health and how to love who they are. This book has been designed as a tool to help parents and professionals to safeguard young people by empowering them with the knowledge of what a healthy relationship looks like, teaching them to respect themselves and others and by giving them the full facts about all aspects of sex including how to masturbate, the realities of pornography and how to have healthy and enjoyable sex. The simple truth avoids making assumptions about what the reader’s life might look like and understands that each person’s home life; sexual identity, sexual preferences and/or ability to understand and process relationships is unique to each and every one of us; this is what truly makes The Simple Truth, truly inclusive. 

The Student Book

Chris Davies is acknowledged to be Britain’s foremost graduate coach. He founded his company, Graduate Coach, seven years ago and, since then, has kick-started the careers of over 300 graduates. As a result, Amazon, Aviva, Bloomberg, Coca-Cola, Deloitte, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Google, JP Morgan, Lloyds Bank and many other blue chip companies count Chris’s alumni among their employees. So, too, do organisations such as Network Rail and the NHS. Before Graduate Coach, Chris pursued two other careers, in magazine publishing and advertising and marketing. In both cases, Chris built successful enterprises from scratch.

Your Career Marketing Plan

This book will guide you through the steps of both developing and implementing a career marketing plan. Hopefully, it is going to be a valuable journey for you and one in which you will learn a great deal about the person you are in life as well as in the workplace. More importantly, you will have a better understanding of the field in which you want to pursue your career and the type of employer to whom you want to offer your peerless expertise.

If you will take the time to complete the exercises at the end of each chapter, they will help you to analyse the information gathering you need to do to start building your own Career Marketing Plan. A Career Marketing Plan template is given at the end of the book for you to start entering your strategies, tactics and action steps for the implementation, control and feedback of your plan.

This book will hopefully change you and your self-perception in a very positive way and give you greater confidence as well as self-awareness. It will help you know who you are, what you want and how you are going to get it. There is nothing stopping you from having the career you want and, ultimately, the life you desire. You will realise that you have what it takes to control your career destiny.

Best of luck to you on your career path and best wishes for tremendous success with marketing not only your career but also marketing you!

An Idiot's Love of Idioms 2

Ever wondered where the sayings we commonly use originate?Sometimes the things we say, if we really think about it, make absolutely no logical sense.Take what I’m saying as read but not with a pinch of salt, I think this book will be a sight for sore eyes and will warm the cockles of your heart.This book won’t cost you an arm and a leg and you won’t have to push the boat out to buy it and I’m not trying to pull the wool over your eyes as there are no smoke and mirrors here. If you like idioms it might be right up your alley and I’ll stick my neck out and say you’ll find it top drawer.Hang fire you say, well, this kind of book only comes once in a blue moon so keep your hair on, don’t flip your lid and remember every cloud has a silver lining even if it’s not cloud nine. So don’t drop a clanger and cut me some slack, buy this book and I guarantee you I’ll have you in stitches.