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Invisible Intelligence: Why your child might not be failing
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 18, 2025
Invisible Intelligence is not just a book, it is a conversation. Welby writes as though he is sitting with you on a porch at dusk, leaning forward, listening deeply, and reminding you that every learner matters. His words carry the quiet power of hope. They reassure you that education can still be a place of love, care, and imagination.
Reading this book, I wanted to gather up everyone I know who has felt small or stupid because school could not see the way their mind works. I wanted to sit them down beside Welby, because I know he would make them feel seen, not judged. He would show them that their thinking is not broken, just different, and often more interesting than the narrow paths defined by the so-called three Rs.
Welby’s anecdotes glow with life. They are colourful, memorable, and always anchored in compassion. He reminds us that intelligence wears many faces, and that education should celebrate this, not diminish it. His energy lingers after every chapter, as it does after every conversation, leaving you with the sense that you, too, can make a difference.
This book is both a continuation and an evolution of Disobedient Teaching. Where that work encouraged bravery and creativity, Invisible Intelligence goes further. It helps us to understand the diversity of thought, not only in our students but in ourselves.
Educators should read this book. Politicians should read this book. Anyone who believes in building a better society should read this book. Because Invisible Intelligence is more than a theory, it is an invitation to reimagine how we value each other.
Reading this book, I wanted to gather up everyone I know who has felt small or stupid because school could not see the way their mind works. I wanted to sit them down beside Welby, because I know he would make them feel seen, not judged. He would show them that their thinking is not broken, just different, and often more interesting than the narrow paths defined by the so-called three Rs.
Welby’s anecdotes glow with life. They are colourful, memorable, and always anchored in compassion. He reminds us that intelligence wears many faces, and that education should celebrate this, not diminish it. His energy lingers after every chapter, as it does after every conversation, leaving you with the sense that you, too, can make a difference.
This book is both a continuation and an evolution of Disobedient Teaching. Where that work encouraged bravery and creativity, Invisible Intelligence goes further. It helps us to understand the diversity of thought, not only in our students but in ourselves.
Educators should read this book. Politicians should read this book. Anyone who believes in building a better society should read this book. Because Invisible Intelligence is more than a theory, it is an invitation to reimagine how we value each other.
December 20, 2025
This is one of those books that anyone that is within hands reach of a person in education (students, teachers or carer) must read. But even if that is not the case, just because you have been a student inevitably sometime in your life, read it!.
So far this books is being a discovery journey full of beauty and fun. As a child that did everage well at school, without any major problem, but that despised education, I am agreeing almost in every aspect of this author's case 🥰.
I had to wait until university, when I was more free to manage my own learning, to understand that I do really LOVE learning.
***** Review *****
And this book has become my best non-fiction read of 2025 so far!.
This is endeaering, fun, truthfully, and so well backed up by study after study, to tell you that education is really fucked up on the way that intelligence (hence achievements) is measured.
Something that most of us know with our guts, but that this author came to agree and show.
Here some amazing passages:
"She was a professional dancer, therapist, at her 67. She had trained in Britain degree in health science. She had o embark on a doctoral thesis that of ageing. Her study proposed a dy's poem 'The Darkling Thrush -ageing dancer.
It had been a complex thesis to supervise and after the reviews I was brought in, along with another academic, and asked to inde-pendently assess the validity of her progress. The university wanted to be sure before it made a final call.
But there are certain things that are required of all doctoral candidates...
I tried suggesting to Jenny that she might develop the study outside university, because the requirements of academia would distort the focus of her inquiry... But Jenny wanted a doctorate and said that time was running out. But what she pre-sented didn't fit ... I became part of the system that failed her."
Test, who does badly?... "fundamental changes. I could see that this was going to be a rich discussion. When I reached the back of the room I saw the mother and son each writing on their own paper. When I passed them, I looked down surreptitiously. I remember that I had to crane my neck to see what the boy was writing because he was left-handed. He hadn't made a note about peer assessment or clarifying criteria. He had written just two words.
No shame.
It stopped me in my tracks. I leant down and said, 'You are a very deep thinker.
... But at the end of the session his mum brought him up to talk. He told me he was dyslexic, and he had been taken out of school because things had got too tough.
Then he and his mum left to continue with their day.
But what that boy wrote, haunted me. He knew something. Something very fundamental. People will learn if you don't shame them..."
" Riding on the back of ritual:
We know that school doesn't work for everybody. For some, for mal education was wonderful. It motivated, congratulated and synchronised advancement with personal development. For oth-ers, schooling was tough. We acknowledge this. We can be quite insightful about it, but often we accept assumptions like 'most kids do okay' then we nod our heads with sage-like compassion and resolve ourselves to the status quo. We see 'the system' as too big, too assured, too embedded and too powerful to change.
A hundred years ago Leo Tolstoy talked about this when he wrote about the slums of Moscow. He said:
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
It's a tough quote. It paints an uncomfortable truth. It comes from a book with a profound title - What Then Must We Do?
Hmmm. 'What then must we do?' Well, you are doing something right now and you were also doing something that caused you to pick up this book. You clearly don't accept the status quo. As human beings we have the power to make worlds better. We can change systems and we can make alternatives, be they intimately shaped for one person or new approaches for many."
So far this books is being a discovery journey full of beauty and fun. As a child that did everage well at school, without any major problem, but that despised education, I am agreeing almost in every aspect of this author's case 🥰.
I had to wait until university, when I was more free to manage my own learning, to understand that I do really LOVE learning.
***** Review *****
And this book has become my best non-fiction read of 2025 so far!.
This is endeaering, fun, truthfully, and so well backed up by study after study, to tell you that education is really fucked up on the way that intelligence (hence achievements) is measured.
Something that most of us know with our guts, but that this author came to agree and show.
Here some amazing passages:
"She was a professional dancer, therapist, at her 67. She had trained in Britain degree in health science. She had o embark on a doctoral thesis that of ageing. Her study proposed a dy's poem 'The Darkling Thrush -ageing dancer.
It had been a complex thesis to supervise and after the reviews I was brought in, along with another academic, and asked to inde-pendently assess the validity of her progress. The university wanted to be sure before it made a final call.
But there are certain things that are required of all doctoral candidates...
I tried suggesting to Jenny that she might develop the study outside university, because the requirements of academia would distort the focus of her inquiry... But Jenny wanted a doctorate and said that time was running out. But what she pre-sented didn't fit ... I became part of the system that failed her."
Test, who does badly?... "fundamental changes. I could see that this was going to be a rich discussion. When I reached the back of the room I saw the mother and son each writing on their own paper. When I passed them, I looked down surreptitiously. I remember that I had to crane my neck to see what the boy was writing because he was left-handed. He hadn't made a note about peer assessment or clarifying criteria. He had written just two words.
No shame.
It stopped me in my tracks. I leant down and said, 'You are a very deep thinker.
... But at the end of the session his mum brought him up to talk. He told me he was dyslexic, and he had been taken out of school because things had got too tough.
Then he and his mum left to continue with their day.
But what that boy wrote, haunted me. He knew something. Something very fundamental. People will learn if you don't shame them..."
" Riding on the back of ritual:
We know that school doesn't work for everybody. For some, for mal education was wonderful. It motivated, congratulated and synchronised advancement with personal development. For oth-ers, schooling was tough. We acknowledge this. We can be quite insightful about it, but often we accept assumptions like 'most kids do okay' then we nod our heads with sage-like compassion and resolve ourselves to the status quo. We see 'the system' as too big, too assured, too embedded and too powerful to change.
A hundred years ago Leo Tolstoy talked about this when he wrote about the slums of Moscow. He said:
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
It's a tough quote. It paints an uncomfortable truth. It comes from a book with a profound title - What Then Must We Do?
Hmmm. 'What then must we do?' Well, you are doing something right now and you were also doing something that caused you to pick up this book. You clearly don't accept the status quo. As human beings we have the power to make worlds better. We can change systems and we can make alternatives, be they intimately shaped for one person or new approaches for many."
December 23, 2025
In Invisible Intelligence, educationalist, filmmaker and best-selling author Welby Ings considers how schools measure intelligence and shows how narrow definitions of literacy and numeracy can lead to bright students being described as ‘behind’ and positioned as problems, when they are not. Ings mixes poignant, humorous and insightful storytelling with current research to explore the ways that some children’s intelligent approaches to problem-solving are dismissed or ignored, with devastating consequences for individuals and society. Yet Invisible Intelligence offers hope. Written with wisdom, experience and compassion, it is the kind of book that ‘puts an arm around the shoulders’ of those who love and work with kids whose intelligence is not recognised because they don’t learn the same way as other children. Pragmatic, wise and helpful, Invisible Intelligence shows what we can do better in education, and why it’s so important that we do.
‘Invisible Intelligence affirms the complex work of teachers while highlighting the things we might change. This book is incredibly timely and original, and a very fresh breath of air. It made me laugh and nod and cry. I cannot wait to give it to everyone I know.’
—Professor Vivienne Anderson
I heard this book reviewed and just had to read it, found it fascinating, a must read for any parent, teacher and or educator.
‘Invisible Intelligence affirms the complex work of teachers while highlighting the things we might change. This book is incredibly timely and original, and a very fresh breath of air. It made me laugh and nod and cry. I cannot wait to give it to everyone I know.’
—Professor Vivienne Anderson
I heard this book reviewed and just had to read it, found it fascinating, a must read for any parent, teacher and or educator.
September 21, 2025
Good list of reasons why children who fall outside of the standard
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews