Exams! It doesn't seem like that long ago that I wrote a blog about mock exams1. Many schools now have multiple mock phases, some even starting in year 10, but now, finally, with the actual GCSE exams in full swing, the end is here. Sounds ominous doesn't it? The end is here. The end is nigh. The…

Parents! Ah, parents! Who'd be one? It's about the only thing in adult life you don't need a license or test to do. Just about anyone can be a parent1, but does that mean everyone should be? That's not for me to decide2, but if you are going to be a parent, you should at least try to, you know, …

Recruit! Retain! This time of year is a difficult time for teachers and students. The sun has started shining1, but students are about to do their exams and you are out of time2. It happens like this every year. You start counting down to the exams, comfortably in double figures of lessons then…

Absence And we're back! Did you miss it? The thirty seconds you got to catch up with your work buddies? The rush of thirty (or more) faces looking at you, waiting for you to fill them with your knowledge and expertise? The feeling of panic when you see the queue at the photocopier? Relax, it's the…

Holiday! Oh thank God for that! Right now you are probably too exhausted to celebrate the achievement of making it through another term, but you should. Switch your laptop off. If you're a particularly keen1 member of staff, remove all work email from your phone: no notifications, no sneaky…

The Manosphere What a shit title. The Manosphere. What the hell does that even mean? The world of men? Hasn't it always been a man's world? When I sat down to write this today, I'm fresh off watching the acclaimed documentary 'Into The Manosphere' by Louis Theroux. It's advertised as an expose of…

The Memory Shades: Watkins gives us ghosts, guilt, and giant worms. A slow burn that earns its explosive finale. Sci-fi horror that remembers the people matter most. @davewatkins.bsky.social gnofhorror.com/the-memory-s...

Parental Involvement There's two weeks to go until the Easter holidays, and it seems everyone I meet in schools is on their knees. I talked about burnout a couple of weeks ago1, and given it's now later in the term, the burnout is in danger of turning into long term sickness due to stress. Nice…

The Easiest Place To Be In A Classroom Frequent readers of this blog will know that a major part of my new role is to coach teachers and work with them to improve practice. I am not arrogant enough to think I know everything about teaching1, but I do believe watching others teach is a sure fire…

Interviews It's that time of year when we start thinking about possibly moving schools and looking for a new job or challenge. Teachers usually have to give half a term's notice before resigning and the job market starts to ramp up from now, ready for next September. It has been over twenty years…

Burnout You've been back a week since half term! A whole week at work after a whole week off - you must be flying high, right? Energy levels at the highest they've been since September, lessons going brilliantly, students finally accepting you and their behaviour is impeccable, right? Wrong. So,…

Every Second Counts Doesn't it? The average human lives for around 2,240,543,592 seconds, which a mind-bogginly large number. The average UK student spend 117,000 seconds per week in school, or 56,160,000 seconds over an education from 5 to 16 years old. Huge numbers that lack meaning, much like…

Consistency A word has been bandied about in education over the last few years, and I think it's one that has been much misunderstood - by everyone from support staff, students, parents, teachers and most of all, of course, SLT. Consistency. Nicked from Memedroid. Possibly my new favourite…

To phone or not to phone… In England this week, the government have announced new guidance suggesting that all mobile phones should be banned during the school day and teachers should be encouraged not to use theirs in front of students. I have some views on this, so here we go. A recent study1 of…

Mistakes, mishaps and mayhem If you are a frequent reader of this blog, you'll know I work with other teachers helping improve classroom practice amongst other things. Occasionally a few of these teachers will look at me like I know all the answers, and the simple truth is I do not, and never…

Parents evening 2 What's this? Another post about parents evening? Well, yes, there's more than one in a year you know... There is a particular hell to the parents evening at this time of year. Why oh why is it now? Returning after Christmas always feels tough, as the Christmas holiday is not…

And we’re back! Yep, it's January which only means one thing: back to work. With any luck, the first day this term was an interminable inset day, where you can perhaps play back to work bingo and get all the important questions out of the way. How many times did you hear any of this: How was your…

It's finally Christmas! Or at least, it's the end of the school term... david-watkins.com/2025/12/19/s... #education #school #teaching #learning #coulddobetter

So here it is… Merry Christmas - you made it! Definitely time for a beverage of your choice1. So, how was the last week for you? Did you have to keep students engaged up to today? Did you decorate your classroom? Give out Christmas cards to everyone in your tutor group2? Play carols during tutor…

One week to go… Yeah, it is, really. No, no come back.... One week of the longest term in the school year left. The Autumn term is usually fifteen weeks long, which is unfeasibly1 huge. For year 11 and 13, they are halfway through the year. Unbelievable. The summer term can also be as long, but…

Interesting questions Full disclosure: this wasn't going to be this week's topic, but something happened yesterday. I am luck enough to work with teachers to try and improve their practice, and work with small groups of students. Yesterday, a cool, enthusiastic teacher asked me a very important…

Now I've stopped teaching, I've been blogging about my memories and thoughts over the last 30+ years at the chalkface. I'd love more eyes on it! david-watkins.com/could-do-bet... #education #redundancy #teaching

Post Mock Blues By now the year 11 (and possibly year 13) mocks are over, or very nearly over and so our focus turns to more important things - namely, how the hell are we going to improve these results? This is a fundamental problem with teaching and I have no clue how to solve it. We need…

OFSTED Is there a word1 more likely to cause stress and panic amongst teachers than OFSTED? We get a phone call, up to 48 hours before arrival and then they're in, looking at everything and anything they want. Then they disapper, and providing everything is okay, they disappear for three years.…

Parents’ Evening You are now most likely entering the time of year where everyone's favourite evening of the school calendar happens1. Yep, it's time for the first parents' evening of the year! People do though.... Parents evening should be a time for you to give feedback to parents as to how…

It’s mock time! At some point in the next couple of weeks, or possibly already, year 11 will start their first round of mocks. Before I go any further, I should say the majority of my experience was in a 11-16 school, so if you also have year 12/13 mocks then I feel for you, and particularly your…

Half Term. It's the holidays. What the fuck1 are you doing reading an education blog? Get outside, play with your kids, read a book, watch a film, do something else. Look! It's outside! Until next time.

You made it! It's half term! One half term down, five to go. No, wait, come back, don't go cry in the corner... Have a beverage of your choice - you've earned it. When we reached this particular half term, my overriding feeling was always relief. This one is always a monster. We go from the light…

Inspirational? A few years ago, there was an advertising campaign which had celebrities naming a teacher who had inspired them. I can't remember much about it1, apart from Bob Hoskins growling someone's name. There's also a video on YouTube of Ian Wright meeting his former teacher guaranteed to…

Bad teachers? Nope, not the Cameron Diaz film, which I admit I found pretty funny, although I am easily pleased1. The reason for all the lesson observations and performance management shenanigans is down to bad teachers. Nothing improves a blog like a random picture of Cameron Diaz2. In an earlier…

Now I've stopped teaching, I've been blogging about my memories and thoughts over the last 30+ years at the chalkface. I'd love more eyes on it! david-watkins.com/could-do-bet... #education #redundancy #teaching

In between reviewing new books, I am making an effort to review books that "fell by the wayside" thanks to my depression over the years. Today it is The Original's Rage by @davewatkins.bsky.social The final part of his excellent werewolf trilogy. gnofhorror.com/the-original... 💙📚🩸

Lesson Observations Following on from last week's musings on Perfomarmance Management, let's take a look at the other bit to PM - having a lesson observed. Lesson observations are weird. They are undoubtedly nerve wracking, but they shouldn't be. See, the problem is teachers work in isolation most…

Performance Management (PM) Ah, is there any other two word phrase designed to invoke a mixture of fear, disgust and feelings of inadequacy in a teacher than ‘performance management’? The process involves looking at your performance (clues in the name!) over the past academic year. It is meant to…

Performance Management (PM) Ah, is there any other two word phrase designed to invoke a mixture of fear, disgust and feelings of inadequacy in a teacher than 'performance management'? The process involves looking at your performance (clues in the name!) over the past academic year. It is meant to…

The grind starts… So I had some feedback from people1 reading this and as a result, I'll do less footnotes this week, promise. Okay, with that out of the way, let's get on with the grind. You've been back in school three weeks. What's that? No, really, you have. The summer seems a lifetime ago…

Open Evening and other shenanigans Ah open evening - one of the highlights of the academic year1. Children come to look around 'big school' and get excied about the range of activities teachers have cobbled together to show them. These activities are designed to get the children to be students, so…

The first week A school year starts something like this: Day one: 9am start (earlier if you're really unlucky). You've just had the worst night of sleep you've had in the last six weeks, possibly ever. You turn up early, because you want to set a good impression1. The staff room/hall/wherever…

Last Days No, this isn't a review of the splendid Adam Nevill book... Today is my last day at a place I have worked since January 2005. I have taught for 31 years, so two thirds of my career has been in one place. To say today has be emotional would be an understatement of biblical proportions.…

Top Book Picks for 2024: A Reader’s Review Better late than never, right? The endless cheese fog has lifted and I'm gearing up to returning to work tomorrow - the same day my eldest leaves us to return to university. Normal life will resume, which is depressing enough, and I'm doing dry-ish…

Some book post Cold Eternity, the latest SciFi Horror from S.A. Barnes and @torbooks.bsky.social And The Way Up is Death, complete with my review quote from @danhanks.bsky.social and @angryrobotbooks.bsky.social

Looking for some online horror workshops? Or even group feedback sessions? Then Fears of the Dark this Feb and March has you covered… www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/fears-of-t...

I guess this means the algorithm is working, or perhaps its Amazon's way to say 'dude, stop obsessively checking your book'... #horror #werewolf #trilogy #amreading

Shadow of the Hidden has now made it onto 3 different people's favourite reads of 2024 lists. Blimey! Honoured! Here's the latest from the mighty @davewatkins.bsky.social david-watkins.com/2025/01/05/t... #BookSky #HorrorBooks 📚😱

Top Book Picks for 2024: A Reader’s Review Better late than never, right? The endless cheese fog has lifted and I'm gearing up to returning to work tomorrow - the same day my eldest leaves us to return to university. Normal life will resume, which is depressing enough, and I'm doing dry-ish…

One month later and no response, and I still can't open the app on my galaxy 22 ultra. Anyone want to help @support.bsky.team?

@nighttidemag.bsky.social look back at 2008's Pontypool and find a very different kind of zombie film, and @davewatkins.bsky.social sits down with @horrortree.bsky.social to answer the #SpookySix interview questions. Happy reading, friends! 🎄🦌☠️

I did an interview with The Horror Tree and Willow Croft. Fun was had, even if Willow seems to actually like spiders, which is, well, wrong. horrortree.com/the-spooky-s...

I did an interview with The Horror Tree and Willow Croft. Fun was had, even if Willow seems to actually like spiders, which is, well, wrong. horrortree.com/the-spooky-s...

There is no power on earth for authors like word of mouth. Especially with the death of Twitter, so many of us have lost huge chunks of our reach. So please, if you love a book, tell your friends and talk it up on your social media. No voice is too small, every single word counts. And thank you!