“This is about plunder and power.”

I am writing. Part 1. The tragedy of hidden schools, in hidden communities meganjanedixon.co.uk/2026/01/03/p...

This is absolutely brilliant from Leah! Listen in for a gem of wisdom every few minutes and examples of classroom application from ‘Opening Doors’ @juliesargent.bsky.social @lauraspargo.bsky.social @englishassociation.bsky.social @joshuaseigal.bsky.social @teresacremin.bsky.social

"Too often, KS3 is treated as a rehearsal for GCSEs rather than a stage with its own intellectual purpose." @marymyatt.bsky.social asks: Can we turn Key Stage 3 into the ambitious years? marymyatt.substack.com/p/can-we-tur...

I'm starting to get some *wonderful* messages about Making Change Stick now that school leaders have had the chance to read it 😍 Check out my pod chat with Ollie Lovell here: open.spotify.com/episode/1gxX... And check out the free taster course here: makingchangestick.co

just in case someone can let me have the link to importance of music notation - explicit teaching required (+ practice) implicit teaching then explicit + practice.

Oracy - tremendously important, particularly so since Covid. But puzzled that extent of v.poor reading, particularly in ie Islington didn't lead to more evidence-informed, inexpensive, targetted solutions.

@alexjquigley.bsky.social Great admirer of the clarity and detail of your writing but believe v. strongly in simplicity + economy. I don't like to use bluesky to promote personal decisions but I am campaigning to replace EEF mix of trad and progressive.

Wes Streeting with the help of Alan ‘got rich in private healthcare’ Milburn, his adviser, are proposing throwing far more public money to the private sector. We can all celebrate making Private Equity bosses much much richer whilst we suffer. This isn’t change, this is the Tories on steroids.

In July 2025, Gibb's impartiality was again questioned in an open letter from over 400 media figures to the BBC "we are concerned that individual w. close ties to Jewish Chronicle … has a say in the BBC's editorial decisions in any capacity, incl. decision not to broadcast Gaza. Implications huge.

The legislation is so ludicrous, even the police look embarrassed when called upon to enforce it. Hundreds of elderly people charged under anti-terrorism laws because of a cardboard sign.

So, this happened… thanks to @waterstones.bsky.social

No. 39 in my #FavePicturebooks25 is “Good Golden Sun” by @brendanwenzel.bsky.social A simple idea, tracing the sun’s journey becomes something brilliant. It shows how energy moves through the world and give everything life, and visually it zings. Great science. Fab stuff. #PicturebookPage

Once more for the weekend long read crowd 👇

Wonderful article from @alexjquigley.bsky.social (although #EEF has done brilliant work it has also included work of dubious/harmful worth and is massively expensive)

“We’re doing things that kind of go against what we [Holder/Obama] talked about...“we have to preserve our democracy if ultimately we’re going to heal it.” via Washington Post 22/10/2-25.

Sometimes Old Andrew' Education Battleground can feel out of kilter with the zeitgist but he can be one of the few voices analysing the situation- as here: The problem with interventions for mental health. 'Debates about what we should do can distract from debates about what we can do'

'For the entire time I’ve lived here, I believed that the strength of British identity and pride would withstand anything, that no gale could deter the journey forward. How naive I had been' https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ive-given-my-all-to-britain-teaching-education-now-im-told-i-may-not-belong-here/

Tech-investor Peter Thiel, best known for sponsoring J.D. Vance and co-founding Palantir, goes theology: “Over the past month, Thiel has hosted a series of 4 lectures on the downtown waterfront of San Francisco philosophizing about who the antichrist could be and warning that Armageddon is coming.“

Reported plans to introduce mandatory Year 8 reading tests are more popular with classroom teachers than heads, according to a new @teachertapp.bsky.social poll. 🔗 Read the full analysis: www.tes.com/magazine/new...

I watched the 1st meeting day of RFK Jr’s handpicked committee of vaccine advisors. It was utterly depressing. 1/

What is a knowledge-rich curriculum? In any event not just facts, not just math and reading, and not elitist. It is the strongest lever for equity. And thus ultimately a matter of social justice. #EduSky @timsurma.bsky.social, @danielmuijs.bsky.social

NEW: Man who wants Nobel Peace Prize creates Department of War.

Some more beautiful books here that arrived on my doorstep yesterday. @marymyatt.bsky.social . Perfect for animal classification and packed full of facts that could be used across school . My five year old loves them. #edutwitter #primaryreading #lovebooks

YES! So well articulated.

A former cabinet minister has said the UK government is “digging itself into a hole” over Palestine Action and fellow Labour peers and MPs were regretting voting to ban the group. www.theguardian.com/politics/202... #wato

DDoLL (Development Disorders of Language and Literature) has been forced to close (technical reasons that are too costly to put right, I understand). Greg Ashman 'Filling the Pail' etc + Substack contributor is setting up a network to continue invaluable support - join via Google.

And, Rachel, I'm still looking for the book that contained your brilliant short Stig of the Dump passage/analysis for SEN. Can you help? Looking forward to your next moves and whip-sharp humour if/when you're writing/posting again

2024 was - by some distance - the most expensive election in British history Labour really needs to act to take money out of politics, before it’s too late

Catholic Church said a parish priest and several others were injured after an Israeli strike hit a Gaza church. The priest, Fr. Gabriel Romanelli, was very close with the late Pope Francis and the two spoke often during the war in Gaza. apnews.com/article/gaza...

Advice from Washington Post today. 'When the price isn’t listed, I ask. So should you.'

A taster...

Reading should be a pleasure in each subject. So build it in, don't bolt it on. Let the scholarship used to design the lessons ooze through, in its cadences, rhythms & latent questions. And climb in thro well-crafted text: don't introduce knowledge as tidy, generalised facts. Publication in June...

Trump's hand-picked Supreme Court is allowing him to eviscerate the Constitution as we know it. We cannot stay silent. #ResistTrump

New in PN: A corrupted Supreme Court sinks to new lows "When future historians grapple with how Trump managed to so quickly and so thoroughly dismantle American democracy, the role of the Roberts Court cannot be overstated."

6:05 am. Hour 21 of fighting this awful tax scam. Been up all night, but not going to give up anytime soon. The health care of 17 million Americans is too important not to fight for.

Until we get to grips with why the implications of this horrific selection and the confusion and influence the discredited APEd has on gov. policy we just continue to be complacent with current gov. policy.

🎙️ Episode 2 of Chalk Dust is out now! In this episode, I sit down with the incredible Manisha Gazula—principal of Marsden Road Public School—alongside my co-host Rebecca Birch, to dive into the real, on-the-ground strategies shaping early literacy instruction.

I received a copy a couple of days ago. It's exceptionally helpful - ideas that could easily be adapted to enable creation of evidence-informed training schools in UK etc.

Very informative, very depressing. Basically, autocracies work (ie, don’t fall or don’t have to resort to full on mass oppression) for as long as their populations feel better off and safer under them. That will be the big challenge for right-wing, democratic backsliders in Europe and the US.

This is the freight train almost no one has noticed coming down the tracks. Wage stagnation, expensive housing, smaller private pensions are going to be a terrible combination.

New post. Difficult conversations about Special Educational Needs. "What are the potential benefits? What are the risks? bennewmark.wordpress.com/2025/06/24/d...

This is exactly what I’ve been trying to get across in response to Ben’s post. With good intentions, everything but the kitchen sink (excuse the flippancy of the colloquialism, but…) can get thrown at a child. We can’t just try things on a whim. Careful and thoughtful discussions needed.

Photo of the Day. Credit to Palestinian photographer, Saeed Jaras. Posting this here because hardly any mainstream media outlets will publish it. An ongoing genocide silenced. #Gaza

Aside from perhaps helping shoot down Iranian missiles it's very hard to see how the UK could even be useful in an Israeli/US operation on Iran's nuclear sites. We have about five planes and none of the necessary munitions.

Jamie Oliver appeals to APEd Committee:Marcus Fysh.Chair & Registered Contact.Conservative. Lord Knight VC.Labour. Andrew Lewer. VC James Sunderland. VC Jonathan Gullis.VC Nicholas Dakin.VC Jack Lopresti. VC Andrea Jenkyns.CHAIR. Not accountable.Deliberately confused with legit.accountable committee

VIDEO DEMO: Counting syllables in spoken words helps learners with many reading and writing tasks. In an introduction to a Spelling for Life lesson on doubling final consonants, Lyn decided to do a quick syllable counting review with the class. youtu.be/X1a6fn8kDn4

A Teacher Shares His Transformative Experience of Unstoppable Learning open.substack.com/pub/unstoppa...

"Systematic phonics... is affordable, replicable and deliverable across thousands of state schools.... That matters. In education, if it doesn’t scale, it doesn’t work."

🥳 The ‘holy grail’ of reading inventions that was birthed in NZ & exported to the world has finally been dumped. Now the way is clear for children to receive scientifically-based instruction & stop being instructional casualties. H/T @kathyrastle.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....