First-Year Teaching for Dummies (Flaherty et al, Wiley, £18.99) 

This is the guide I wish I’d had when I started teaching. It’s full of practical advice – including ‘how to manage your senior management’ and instructive teachers’ stories, all served up with a good sprinkling of humour.

As with all ‘Dummies’ books, there’s a ‘Part of Tens’ section containing chapters on the experiences and challenges ECTs can expect to face during that first year, the mistakes they’re likely to make, and a very useful section about teaching online.

The American terminology didn’t intrude to the extent I feared it would, though a chapter on grading is perhaps a little too specific to the US education system to be altogether useful, aside from some general points. More positively, however, its advice on exercising professional judgement when using commercially-produced tests is very apposite. A good investment.

First published in Teach Secondary magazine