Assessment Making Show Me What You Know quizzes beneficial for the pupils 10 Oct 202110 Oct 2021 Now that I think of it, I can’t quite remember who wrote the phrase, ‘you might have taught it, but that isn’t a guarantee they’ve learnt it’ and I can’t…
Reading Creating a reading culture 2021 3 Oct 20214 Oct 2021 Anyone who is trying to ‘improve’ reading in their schools knows that the first step is in creating a reading culture. It has to permeate through everything you do. Yes,…
Personal Flipped Learning and the Harkness method 13 Sep 202113 Sep 2021 The content of the IGCSE Language and Literature course is fairly substantial. Our year 10 course is focused on completing the coursework but this does not mean that I don’t…
Personal #Monthly Writing challenge: September: Awareness 29 Aug 202129 Aug 2021 I love this theme. I think summer is the perfect time to reflect which in turn heightens your awareness. To be fair, having been through quite a bit in my…
Personal Some thoughts on CPD 21 Aug 202121 Aug 2021 Over the summer I read The CPD Curriculum by Mark and Zoe Enser and it has made me really think and reflect upon CPD provision and support within schools. It…
Personal The First English lesson 8 Aug 202121 Aug 2021 One thing that many people have been pondering is the all-important first lesson. How do we set the tone for the year ahead correctly? In the summer space, it is…
Personal Essentialism by Greg McKeown 31 Mar 202131 Mar 2021 As busy teachers, essentialism is not always a skill we have successfully acquired and my interest in this book was piqued when Kat Howard recommended it on Twitter. Personally, I…
Writing Developing writing – y9 opinion columns 29 Mar 202129 Mar 2021 If you tuned in to my session at Teach Meet English icons, you will know that I am working on how I approach the teaching of writing. It is not…
Assessment… Trying to get better with retention and retrieval practice 11 Mar 202111 Mar 2021 We are in the process of putting together a new curriculum. And with a new curriculum, comes new knowledge...potentially. Like many, as I think about new units, I also think…
Curriculum… Fostering pupil voice and their experience of texts 7 Mar 20217 Mar 2021 Over the lockdown period, I had the fortune to join a series of English and Media Centre webinars with Barbara Bleiman, who is an absolute legend in the English world. …
Speaking and LIstening Revisiting old posts: The power of presentation 2 Mar 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN MARCH 2013 In my role as Literacy Co-Ordinator I am expected to run a CPD day each year. In year 1 the focus is on developing Speaking…
Vocabulary Revisiting old posts: Developing key vocabulary across the curriculum 2 Mar 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN JANUARY 2014 Strategies to develop key vocabulary across the curriculum Important considerations: 1) Students must know / understand the key vocabulary – no good using if they…
Teaching and Learning Revisiting old posts: Foldables 2 Mar 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN MARCH 2014 On Saturday I attended the Pedagoo conference. It was a great day and opportunity to touch based with Twitter colleagues. Having been to a number…
Personal Revisiting old posts: Happy 1 Year at the Welly 2 Mar 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN MARCH 2014 There is a sense of irony in starting with a cake to celebrate an anniversary and that is because, in a lot of ways, I…
Leadership Revisiting old posts: learning to lead from Dr Seldon 2 Mar 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN JUNE 2104 Last night I, along with colleagues of mine from the Academy were invited to Wellington College for a talk on leadership. The timing for this…
Professional development Revisiting old posts: Moving forward with research 2 Mar 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN JUNE 2014 The word research seemingly appeared in almost all presentations today with one professional stating ‘he was losing the will to live’, although he was criticised…
Leadership Revisiting old posts: The power of collaboration 2 Mar 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN OCTOBER 2014 In July we designed a new KS3 curriculum that saw our year 7 pupils move into mixed ability groupings. The decision was made, in fact,…
Professional development Revisiting old posts: CPD – Who or what is it for? 2 Mar 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN MARCH 2015 Once an opportunity for teachers to enthusiastically develop their practice or enhance their teaching and learning pedagogy, CPD’s alignment with PRP, accountability and the need…
Wellbeing Revisiting old posts: it’s ok to have a moan sometimes…it’s much more honest. 2 Mar 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN APRIL 2015 What a treat to read such a positive post on teaching this week! And then how interesting that the responses to the post fell into…
Leadership… Reflecting on old posts: Moving from Inadequate to good 2 Mar 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN APRIL 2016 In the fifteen years I have been teaching, I have had the honour and privilege to work in two schools during challenging times and then,…
Reading Revisiting old posts: Raising the profile of reading 1 Mar 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN JULY 2016 We all know the scary stats when it comes to reading. The National Literacy Trust state that 3/10 teenagers read independently, 54% prefer television to…
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