Curriculum… Revisiting old posts: Collaborative planning 1 Mar 20211 Mar 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN MAY 2017 Last year Kaz Armstrong, our KS3 Subject Lead and the English department collaborated to create a Key Stage Three curriculum that we felt would equip…
Teaching and Learning Revisiting old posts: Displays set the tone 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN JULY 2017 This term a key priority for the department has been on creating the right environment. Displays, you see, set the tone, establish the culture, support…
Reading Revisiting old posts: Tutor time reading 28 Feb 202128 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN JULY 2017 Moving in to the academic year 2017-2018, I am really keen to focus and develop three things with regard to reading across the academy: Our…
Teaching and Learning… Revisiting old ideas: When ideas from Twitter come together 28 Feb 202128 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN NOVEMBER 2017 I love reading and, as a result, I love teaching reading. Just this week, I got over-excited reading Oliver Twist with year 8, getting into…
Assessment… Revisiting old posts: knowledge 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN JAN 2018 - talking about knowledge since day dot. This isn’t a radical blog post but I kind of promised myself I would write more this year…
Teaching and Learning Revisiting old posts: Explode a quotation 28 Feb 202128 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN 2017 Jamie Clark originally introduced this idea and it is something we now use at the start of every lesson. It's a simple idea but has had…
Assessment… Revisiting old posts: interleaving and recall 28 Feb 2021 Over the past year, I've been conscious that we haven’t interleaved our texts as much as we should and that our pupils’ retention is poor so, this term, I've spent some time addressing…
Curriculum Revisiting old posts: KS3 Curriculum 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN MAY 2018 So we began this process nearly two and a half years ago and we are finally getting to the point where we have a curriculum…
Vocabulary Revisiting old posts: Ian’s work on vocabulary 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN MAY 2018 This blog is a thank you to Iain Kemp – a Teach First participant who joined us this year. At the start of the academic…
Assessment… Revisiting old posts: My work with Quizlet – quotation retention 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN MAY 2018 There is no doubt the embedding of short, concise quotations throughout literature responses supports pupils to hit Band 5. A member of #teamenglish did a…
Assessment… Revisiting old posts: The importance of Do it Now tasks in aiding short-term and long-term recall and retention. 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN JULY 2018 Last year, our then deputy, Michael Goves, introduced a lesson framework to the academy for teaching that consisted of a Do it now, the imparting…
Personal Revisiting old posts: breaking the mould 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN JULY 2018 Disclosure: this is an honest blog. I'm not sure everyone will like that. Over the wall, I see my future standing tall. Over the wall,…
Personal Revisiting old posts: Ciao Roma! 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN AUGUST 2018 So I thought I'd write a little blog about my arrival in Rome. A bit of a diary but it could be useful for anyone…
Coaching Revisiting old posts: it all starts with the heart…coaching with Graydin 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN SEPTEMBER 2018 Coaching with Heart – The Graydin way So after two weeks of being at my new school I have already had two full days of…
Marking and feedback Revisiting old posts: marking and feedback 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN SEPTEMBER 2018 There has been a sudden surge over the past few weeks of teachers discussing their marking load and seemingly giving up a huge amount of…
International teaching Revisiting old posts: So you want to teach internationally? 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN JANUARY 2019 I get lots of DMs asking me about teaching internationally. Some people simply want to know how I went about getting my job whilst others…
Curriculum Revisiting old posts: rebuilding the curriculum 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN FEBRUARY 2019 When I joined my last school, it was inadequate. Over three years, the staff worked relentlessly hard to move that judgement to the good judgement…
Reading Revisiting old posts: The merit of an epic 28 Feb 202128 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN MARCH 2019 I am an avid reader and have been since a young age thanks to my dad who encouraged me to read regularly. Every year I…
Assessment… Revisiting old posts: learning intentions and success criteria 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN APRIL 2019 Visible Learning Feedback Last term, my wonderful school sent me to the Visible Learning conference in Edinburgh. It was an absolute privilege to be able…
Homework… Revisiting old posts: To flip or not to flip, that is the question. 28 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN AUGUST 2019 Never one to shy away from discussion, I have been pondering the recent Twitter response to a small-scale study on flipped learning. This in turn…
Homework Revisiting old posts: KS3 homework: minimal effort, maximum gain 28 Feb 202128 Feb 2021 POSTED ORIGINALLY IN SEPTEMBER 2019 There has been much debate recently about homework. For me, homework is an integral part of the educational offering we make. If we don’t set…
