Congratulations to my husband’s mega boss. Very exciting for the whole trust that he’s recognised.

Excellent suggestion from Laura for using LLMs to make life easier. Another good use: Tell a LLM which cook books you like, what your household’s food quirks are, then ask for a weekly menu plan. Then ask it for a shopping list. Game changer!

Re-reading. I know how to rock the time between Christmas and New Year!

substack.com/@paulkirschn... feeling similarly. But then I am not being altruistic anymore either, even though I am not making money either. 🤔

It was so much fun helping behind the scenes with the demo team again this year for the Royal Institution of Great Britain Christmas Lectures. Launching tomorrow on BBC 4 and iPlayer 🚀 #ScienceIsEverywhere #BeCurious #Space #DrJoScience

A cool demo most schools can do, with existing kit 🙂 #iTeachPhysics #Science 🧪

A great tip I learnt from a VA friend last year was to make a list now of things you need to remember for next Christmas. Here's how.

How can you tell it’s Christmas? We are eating Celebrations out of a glass bowl and not the plastic red tub. Classy in our house.

Happy holidays! Probably my favorite stop-motion from the past few years. Really enjoyed creating this one.

This is what will bring us together on Bluesky. The exploits of Jeff and Elaine. 👏🎉

Christmas Eve walk in the woods.

This

Thinking about the GCSE science curriculum. And the A-level physics one. Is there room for stories, and if so how can they help understanding of abstract ideas? www.aft.org/ae/summer200...

Still can’t go on #onlyconnect as I still only have one interesting fact that can be used for an intro.

All the Christmas wrapping done. 🎁 Next year I am only buying things that have right angles in every corner.

Time to catch up with reading and podcast and I am enjoying this about ethical leadership. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/e...

Karen’s face 😂😂

Surely they could have done better than 5ive??

Going to miss Tess and Claudia a lot. #strictly

Oh Carlos ❤️ #strictly

This is very difficult #strictlycomedancing

Tess and Claudia’s last one 😭😭😭

Strictly come dancing: the final! 💃

We are watching Ray Donovan on Channel 4 player. Really enjoying it if you haven’t seen it. It’s not a PG though! Jon Voight as the dad is hilarious.

Tree is up. Term is over. Bring on Christmas.

Something I say to teachers a lot is that it helps to focus on what you can *change*. There are a lot of things we can't change in our settings (often connected to external factors like DfE policies) but something we can change is how we choose to respond to the children we work with.

Early bird tickets are live for the Transforming Leadership Conference 21 April 2026, 9:00 to 3:30 Birmingham Early bird £45 until 21 January 2026 Speakers include Baroness Mary Bousted, Simon Botten, and Gemma Gwillian, plus Heads Together with serving heads sharing real solutions.

This is hopeful and higher than I expected. I have heard good examples, so perhaps I should not be as surprised.

The Fenwick window is pretty good this year. Got to love A Christmas Carol!

Have just taken, and passed, the Safe and Effective use of AI in Education certification from the Chartered College. It uses the support materials produced by the DFE on the use of AI in schools. It's free, and well worth checking out. Access it here: chartered.college/safe-and-eff...

I haven’t read many blogs this half term. I need to put that right this holiday. I also want to write myself. It’s odd as I realise I know stuff that other people don’t. When I am on here I feel at a level with or below others. But meet people IRL and realise not everyone knows what I know!

Which is the best tier of Entry for GCSE maths predicted grades 5 students? EEF funded research. Two more days to complete this survey for maths HoD/KS4 maths leads. Prize draw for a voucher. shusls.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... Grateful for reposts @mathsjem.bsky.social @mathsimpact.bsky.social

Christmas Ident Calendar Day 15. BBC2's '2' stayed with Wallace & Gromit in 1995 to promote A Close Shave, which was watched by 10.62m on Christmas Eve. This presentation won a BAFTA for Best Graphic Design. Look out for the nod, the wink & the raised glass at the end.

Tuesday's TGT marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen. Discuss her writing and adaptations and continued influence today. Or discuss whether students were aware of who the lady was on their tenners. bit.ly/TutorGroupThink

Walking in the Upper Coquetdale today. Sorry if you are still at work.

How is a 4 day working week possible? When I was a full time teacher I had 3 ‘free periods’ a week. A day was 5 periods. I agree with not working more than 80%. That would help a lot.

Not been on here for months but someone on X said people were missing blogs. I am now writing on substack for anyone interested. My latest post is here. open.substack.com/pub/richardw...

Happy #NationalMousseDay Fun Factlets; 🍧 Mousse originated from 🇫🇷 in the 18th century & was originally a savoury dish. 🍧 Sweet mousses appeared in the second half of the 19th century. 🍧 The name ‘mousse’ translates to “foam” in French. 🍧 Mousse can be made either soft & fluffy or thick & creamy.

Argh. Microsoft and Apple the whole world spells sulfate with an f now.

Tomorrow and every day for the rest of the run up to #Christmas ... I'll be sharing my 24 FREE festive science activities - one for every day in advent over on insta, facebook and twitter #ScienceIsEverywhere #FestiveScience #BeCurious #DrJoScience or grab a sneak peek here 👇 bio.link/drjoscience

A brilliant post. Disciplinary literacy isn't a literacy specific to a discipline; it is universal literacy as manifested in a discipline. Etymology and morphology taught across disciplines provides a linguistic schema which aids access to all subjects. Prefixes and suffixes are cross-curricular.

I cannot believe what I am seeing on #strictly I can see why they wanted to include the instant dance.

Tree up at school!

This ⬇️

But on #onlyconnect - absolutely genius Fresh Prince question 😂

We’re a bit behind on our BBC two quiz night watching…. How did they not know that was the graduate? 😱

In case you missed it, & are interested. Thanks!

For many teachers, silence after a question is anxiety‑triggering. Action Bias means we’d rather “do something” than wait. That might be why wait times stay short. Read the four hidden reasons: https://www.innerdrive.co.uk/blog/why-teachers-rush-wait-times/