We love getting feedback on our teacher planners and we often hear that one of your favourite pages in the planner is the ‘Books I’ve Read This Year’ page. Teachers love to read! You can use this page for all kinds of different reading, whether that’s books you’ve read with your class, books you’ve read in your free time, or books you’ve read for your professional development – or all 3! We know so many of you new and trainee teachers are so keen to expand your knowledge and build up your set of tools and ideas to draw on, so you’re often looking for good books on teaching to read. There are so many great books out there about teaching, it can be hard to know where to start, so we’ve put together a list of 10 great books for teachers to take a look at.
Spending your free time reading books on teaching is a great way to build up your knowledge and your confidence as a new teacher – but remember that your time is precious and you need to take time for yourself too! So we don’t recommend rushing out and buying every single book on this list. Instead, have a look and pick a few which you think sound the most interesting or will be the most helpful, and start there. You could even grab one of our hardback notebooks to take your notes in! They have a contents page so you can keep your book notes organised, plus mind map and idea spaces so you can jot down any ideas you have while reading these books.
Wellbeing in the Primary Classroom – Adrian Bethune
This is a lovely book that’s focused on ways you can encourage positive wellbeing in your students from your classroom. Happy children are more ready to learn, and many schools are seeing an increase in mental health issues such as anxiety in children, so this book gives you ideas for how to build up your students’ wellbeing. It has lots of practical ideas and activities including mindfulness, exercise and kindness, as well as some mindset ideas.
Mark Plan Teach – Ross Morrison McGill
Marking, planning, and teaching – three key elements of a teacher’s job. This book focuses on each of these elements and breaks them down, to help you refine these skills and do each as best you can. The book looks at each of these stages as part of a whole, cyclical process, and includes lots of practical things you can implement into your own teaching practice, whether you’re a primary or a secondary school teacher.
100 Ideas for Secondary Teachers: Outstanding Lessons – Ross Morrison McGill
We love this ‘100 Ideas’ series, there are so many great ones. This book, as the title suggests, is packed with ideas for delivering outstanding lessons as a secondary school teacher, from the same author as Mark Plan Teach. It covers teaching, lesson planning, behaviour, assessment, and even homework, and has ideas you can implement straight away as well as ideas you might want to include in your longer term planning. So many ideas, you’ll definitely need to tab some of these pages!
100 Ideas for Primary Teachers: Outstanding Teaching – Stephen Lockyer
Another great one in this series, this time for primary teachers. This is full of practical ideas that are easy and quick to implement in your classroom. Each is super simple to understand, with step by step instructions as well as bonus tips and links to other resources. It covers so many different curriculum areas, as well as ideas for things you can do in lots of lessons regardless of subject.
Lesson Planning for Primary School Teachers – Stephen Lockyer
From the same author as the previous item on this list comes this book, specifically about lesson planning. It’s a short and sweet book that’s really refined down Lockyer’s knowledge and experience into some straight-to-the-point tips and advice. In this book, he discusses different strategies for lesson planning as well as some practical ideas. A great read for a trainee teacher or teacher in their ECT period who wants to really get thinking about how to plan lessons.
The Writing Revolution – Judith C Hochman and Natalie Wexler
This book is specifically focused on writing, communication skills, and reading comprehension and can be so helpful for teachers who really want to focus on improving their class’s abilities here. It’s all about the Hochman Method, which you can then apply to your own curriculum which means it’s relevant to teachers all over the country in different schools. Students can then use their communication and comprehension skills to help them in all different subjects, and bring their skills with them as they move up through the key stages.
Teach Like a Champion – Doug Lemov
Teach Like a Champion is a really interesting book that draws heavily on research into cognitive psychology and the way students think and respond to teaching, and incorporates that into their advice and ideas. It’s focused on strategies not just for teaching, but on creating a classroom culture of respect, where students feel that they can openly engage with the learning. It has lots of practical strategies with real-world examples, including lots of real videos of the strategies being used in classrooms so you can see exactly what it looks like. It’s such a wealth of information, definitely read this one with a highlighter and a notepad!
Let’s Hear it From the Boys – Gary Wilson
Girls, statistically, tend to perform better than boys academically at school, and there is a lot of discussion as to why this is. This book focuses on talking and listening to boys and their perspectives, and using this feedback to improve their academic success. Aimed towards secondary school teachers, this book gives suggestions on how to start conversations with boys and make their needs a whole-school focus, which, as a new teacher, may not be something you’re able to do just now, but it’s a great way to gain an insight into how the boys you teach may be feeling.
Teach Like Nobody’s Watching – Mark Enser
As teachers, we often feel like SLT and OFSTED are watching, and this may be especially true for new teachers who have been observed continually throughout their training and ECT periods. But this book asks the question – how would you teach if nobody was watching? This book focuses on three key elements of teaching: the lesson, the curriculum, and the school’s support structure. It looks at different kinds of pedagogical advice that teachers receive and tries to strip away all the external things that may be influencing your teaching to get down to the basics of teaching well. A great one for new teachers to help them to stay grounded and confident with their instincts.
When the Adults Change, Everything Changes – Paul Dix
It’s a classic, so we had to include it, as if you haven’t head of it already then we’re sure you will soon! This was a book that got so many educators talking, and they’re still talking to this day, so it’s best to give it a read so you can be in on it too. This book is focused on improving behaviour in schools by changing the way that the teachers and staff behave first. It’s all about modelling kindness, empathy and respect, and not relying on rule after rule to enforce good ‘behaviour’. The book gives lots of anecdotal examples and has lots of practical tips and checklists of things that you can start to implement in your own teaching practice.
We’d love to hear what teaching books you’ve found helpful, there are so many out there! If you enjoy learning about educational ideas like these, it might be worth starting a Twitter/X account and following some educators on there, and there’s always lots of discussions going on online. You can follow us there too! Happy teaching!
