BLOG
Insights, tips, and resources for parents, teachers, and learners on their educational journey.
You can see your child is struggling, but where do you start? Research shows why interested conversations matter during the GCSE years, and how clearer learning insights can help parents offer focused support.
Rachel Dance
.png)
Help your child revise without needing to know every answer. Join Julian for four practical 15-minute sessions on getting started, asking useful questions, trying better techniques and noticing progress.
What two decades in classrooms have taught me about why teenagers struggle to start revising and how parents can help
AI can answer questions, but can it teach? Discover why SideCog puts pedagogy, adaptive teaching and lasting learning at the heart of educational AI.
When a school has excellent behaviour but still receives a “Needs Attention” judgement because of attendance, it raises an important question: how much can schools really control? After 20 years in education, Julian Dance reflects on attendance, curriculum relevance and whether we need to look more closely at why some young people disengage from learning.
A 658-day Duolingo streak doesn't necessarily make you confident enough to order dinner. A family holiday in Sardinia got Julian thinking about context, confidence, retrieval - and the difference between completing activities and actually learning.
Flashcards are one of the most popular revision tools, but using them badly can create the illusion of learning. Julian explores how to make them work harder.
After twenty years teaching science, Julian Dance reflects on the changing role of teachers, why experienced educators matter more than ever, and why he believes technology should amplify, not replace, great teaching.
Parents don't really want another grade or school report. They want to understand how their child is learning, where confidence is growing, where misconceptions are developing and what they can do to help. Drawing on twenty years in education, Julian Dance explores why the conversation parents really want has always been much bigger than parents' evening.
When Oak National Academy's CEO raised AI safeguarding in Romeo and Juliet at the House of Commons, it highlighted a challenge every education AI company must solve - understanding context. Here's how SideCog's learning companion, Cogsy, was designed to respond.
Adaptive teaching has never been about willingness. It's about capacity. Julian reflects on the growing complexity of today's classrooms, the teacher's "fourth sense", and how technology should support, not replace, great teaching.
Britain's recent heatwave has left many of us saying the same thing: "I just can't think." But what if that experience reveals something important about how learning works? In this article, Julian explores the surprising parallels between cognitive performance in extreme temperatures and the challenges students face when misconceptions, knowledge gaps and cognitive overload get in the way of understanding.
As AI becomes increasingly common in education, an important question remains: what actually helps students learn? This article explores why guided learning, scaffolding and active thinking matter more than simply giving learners answers.
A student labelled the oesophagus as "asparagus" and the bronchioles as "broccoli". Funny? Absolutely. But the story reveals something important about the difference between recall and genuine understanding.
.jpg)
After nearly twenty years in the classroom, I've become fascinated by a simple question: why do some students develop deep understanding while others struggle despite working hard? Looking back at a career's worth of books on teaching, cognitive science and misconceptions, I realised they were all helping me explore the same challenge.
Julian Dance explains why he became an advocate for Oak Academy and how its curriculum architecture aligns with SideCog's mission to help students identify misconceptions, connect ideas and become more confident, independent learners.
As students head into half term, the instinct is often to cram harder. But cognitive science suggests a different approach works far better. From dual coding and retrieval practice to short bursts of deep thinking and connected knowledge mapping, this guide explores how students can strengthen understanding, memory and confidence in the final weeks before exams - without burning out.
The viral AQA Biology “geese question” sparked frustration across social media, but the real issue wasn’t the birds. It exposed the gap between memorising revision content and truly understanding biological principles well enough to apply them in unfamiliar contexts.
A child can pass tests, repeat facts, and still misunderstand how the world works. This article explores why misconceptions in science matter far beyond one lesson, how they affect learning across the curriculum, and why understanding matters more than memorisation.
Showing 19 of 32 articles
Load more articles