Via The Independent: Donald Trump’s false claim that London ‘wants to go to Sharia law’ has been described as ‘appalling and bigoted’ by Mayor Sadiq Khan. The Muslim Council of Britain responded: “We pray for Mr Trump's health and wellbeing as his hallucinations seem to be getting worse by the day”

One of the things that continually irked me about the old Ofsted inspection framework, and is true in the new one too is an implied prioritisation of breadth of curriculum over literacy. In this one breadth of curriculum is the bullet point 1 and children being able to read is partway through 3.

Likely to be a very good use of £12 if you are struggling with behaviour.

I can only theorise that the new framework has been created for the benefit of companies wishing to sell more colour toner. it will be a nightmare for people who struggle to distinguish between different shades of green though. schoolsweek.co.uk/fewer-teache...

I know we don't speak of the 'bad place' here, but it is really worth talking about and thinking about what has happened to discourse on X/Twitter since the exodus of UK teachers from it.

I get that this is happening in the US, and the reasons for this happening are entirely obvious and don't need restating. But why on Earth would schools in Canada want to follow down this entirely repressive and anti-intellectual path?

Nigel Farage and the Reform Party’s Taliban Tax means sending hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money to an oppressive regime that British soldiers fought and died to defeat.

I think Trump is probably worse than Thatcher, Blair, Major or Johnson. And Enoch Powell was never PM, or likely to be.

A headteacher whose support base wants nothing more than to deport her pupils confidently faces the leopards.

The new approach to School 21 seems to be to run it like a normal school, but to rebrand common approaches used perfectly well in other schools. And so ends another radical rethinking of how to run a secondary school, not with a bang but with a whimper. Until the next one comes along...

1. "Yeah, Ben AI might well be awful but it's coming and we can't stop it so we have to find ways it works for us." No. Actually we don't. We could quite easily say AI is an age inappropriate and developmentally dangerous technology and schools should lock it out.

Lucy Connolly? Liz Truss' position is that it is an unreasonable infringement on freedom of speech to arrest someone who used their platform to tell rioters to set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers? Incitement to mass murder should be protected speech?

Economic headroom to reverse the decision on the Winter Fuel Allowance, but none to take children out of poverty. I get how that works in terms of election prospects, but I do not see how that works on a basic ethical level.

I'm pretty sure I've seen this policy launched repeatedly from different governments. It has always been pointless. It's very silly, but it's also an idea completely at odds with how we teach anything that matters. A curriculum without an end point is useless. Give us grit assessments!

Children can read a LOT, and devour text greedily. In #OpeningWorlds by Y6, pupils read c1000 words each lesson in history, geography & RE. How do we do this? Intentional sequencing: every single tricky word not in bold – scour, meandered, gesture... – has been taught thoroughly before in Y3, 4 or 5

The problem with almost all research in oracy is that it's trying to measure the impact of oracy using externalities that oracy may in fact have no meaningful impact on. But developing children's spoken language skills would be worthwhile even if doing so did not improve their ability to do maths.

Come and work with me in our fantastic department! Collaborative planning Everybody coached Great behaviour www.trinitylewisham.org.uk/Vacancies Maths Teacher ECT/MPS Inner London (£38,766 - £50,288) Fulltime and Permanent Required September 2025

How convenient then that it isn't worth anything.

Jesus literally had suicidal empathy. That was his whole thing. That's the story of Jesus.

I can't think of any other occasion in diplomatic history in which something like this has even been attempted. Embassies have some leeway to operate outside of the laws of the country in which they are based. I've never seen them try to dictate the laws of the country in which they are based.

So what is the pyramid metaphor, and why do I believe in it? It's worth saying that some of the objection to this is based on specific wording on tiers of this specific pyramid, and a lot seems to be based on the MAT this graphic is taken from. I'm going to comment on neither.

Amazing to see the glee with which this graphic is being misread by people who should be cleverer than this. Doing the right thing to avoid sanctions is pretty clearly positioned as less desirable than doing the right thing because you're internally motivated to do the right thing. Aim for the top.

How can we reliably and systematically measure the effect of an oracy strategy, and does it matter if we can't?

If you're an English teacher looking for a new challenge in September you might like to come and work in my team. We're a small and ambitious turnaround in Waltham Forest, seeing rapid improvement and looking for a DHoD to join us in taking the department to the top. www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy...

A big thing to take away from Jasmine's musing is that our RA data isn't always correct, it only becomes so when the reading age tests are taken seriously. You need to treat them like a big deal, and be ready to intervene quickly, if you intend them to be accurate.

Right-wingers really really want you to forget this distinction. They want you to join them in separating the good people (who deserve rights) from the bad people (who don't). They are incapable of imagining moral universalism. They regret the Enlightenment. They are this country's worst people.

If Starmer is successful then it has to be a case for removing the 10% tariff from every nation hit by it; including the nations with no people whatsoever, and the nation whose only population is US servicemen on an air base.

To the world: We are fighting back. Our movement has been silenced by the media here—but we are not backing down. This is what our streets looked like across multiple cities. Tomorrow, there will be more of us! Raise a glass to freedom. —With love, Your American allies.

Good grief, can we desist with this nonsense. Barring convicted criminals from holding office - especially criminals convicted of abuses of power - is just basic civic sense. The option of not stealing taxpayers' money was right there. www.economist.com/leaders/2025...

'Europe is not only home to our traditional allies; it is an enviable zone of democracy, wealth and prosperity with which it benefits us to have good relations, and from which we can sometimes learn' Snyder on the new US imperialism open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...

Supporting schools and headteachers is a new look for Fazackerley, but one still delivered with her famous lack of nuance.

This time of year is notorious for #ITT begininng teachers hitting a brick wall and finding everything completely overwhelming and wanting to give up. Please read this if this sounds like you or your #mentee. #TeacherMentor #TeacherEducation #UKTeaching #UKEd #Mentor #TeacherTraining

Anyone have any idea what the 'non-monetary tariffs' that make it almost impossible for America to sell cars in Europe are? Was he talking about safety and environmental regulations, or just the fact that European consumers don't like American cars?

Bill is handed to him with the explanation: 'We expect it to generate $100bn in tariff revenue' Trump:'I think ultimately we will see between $600bn and $1 trillion in a relatively short period meaning a year from now'

"A rompingly good read" <<< I will take that, thank you. Do judge for yourself by reading my @schoolsweek.bsky.social column - schoolsweek.co.uk/can-ofsted-l...

Large mainstream secondary schools do a great job for the vast majority of students, but it is still the case that some students will need support from outside the school to be included, and for some the large mainstream school will never meet their needs. Broadening provision is vital for those.

If you’re an ambitious Science, History, or Languages teacher and want to take the next step in your career by becoming a ML in one of the most exciting school improvement journeys around, then get in touch.

Why might we not see impact in schools when leaders work tirelessly to improve them? Are they in a Doom Loop? Spot poor practice, leap to conclusions, launch a new initiative without build up and see poor results - then repeat. Leaders must build momentum towards clear goals.

Watching the vile Islamophobia spewed forth from X against Hamid Patel spill over into the Telegraph in real time is sickening. He's one of the country's finest school leaders and we are lucky to have him. The normalisation of this hate is awful and we all need to fight back.

If you're implementing a new idea in your school and it doesn't clearly lead to more learning, you're wasting time. We went this way with "engaging" lessons, group work, marking, target grades and more. We are now going this way, once again, but with AI.

A past exam paper for GCSE English Language Paper 1 (AQA) that includes guidance for each task www.douglaswise.co.uk/blog/gcse-en... 📖

Great thread, really disappointed I missed this talk

One highlight from @researchedbrum.bsky.social was a discussion with Bundred ( @danielbundred.bsky.social ) around the potential effective use of targeted intervention in “turnaround” schools in America. Also, the frank discussion of the challenges he’s faced in his current school and department.

Latest from us - will AI keep getting better? Features a cool new Comparative Judgement task where you get to judge which predictions about the future are more likely. substack.nomoremarking.com/p/will-ai-ke...

America will never recover from the shame it has brought upon itself this week.

It was genuinely brilliant to see Christina today and to be able to get her input and insight on school improvement. The colleague she brought along was excellent company, and I look forward to her rocking up next year in minibus with a dozen of her teachers.

The man, the myth, the legend @danielbundred.bsky.social delivering his brilliant talk on turn arounds and middle leadership. Really useful for us at Trinity as we keep pushing our boulder up the mountain @joshvallance.bsky.social #rEDbrum

What a super day at #rEDBrum. @clairestoneman.bsky.social is a legend 👊

Absolutely brilliant day at @researchedbrum.bsky.social , hugely grateful to @clairestoneman.bsky.social and her team and students for hosting us.

Yeah I think this is right. The point isn't really to make teaching more like medicine but to stop using medical methods as justifications for what we do. But med lens is helpful to show how often interventions fail on their own terms. And also regardless of framing theg have to do good!