Get off Twitter. There’s no excuse anymore.

Leave X to the bigots and the perverts and the trolls. www.bbc.com/news/article...

This from @markgoodrich.bsky.social, is one of the only reasons I've found where I wish I were still on twitter - so I could share it to encourage others to leave open.substack.com/pub/markgood...

This summer I was asked by a family to take a photograph of them using one of their phones. Never felt a mix of pride and panic.

I know #DuvetKnowItsChristmas is fun and raises money for charity but it also gets me emotional. Like, it's so important for us to be with our loved ones that we will sleep on kitchen floors and also those bonds are strong enough for us to say "oh you're ok with the broken camp bed, yes?" ♥️

If you're looking for something to watch with feel-good Christmassy vibes, you could do worse than try Christmas in a Day youtu.be/Od1WIDxl44Y?...

Jeffrey Epstein & David Walliams leading all the bulletins but Kemi Badenoch knows that only men from ‘different cultures’ pose a threat to women.

Today was the last day of term for many teachers and education staff, but we’re still here to support you over the holidays 🤗 Our free, confidential helpline will remain open 24/7. 📞 Call us, we’ll listen - 08000 562 561

Credit to @isaacashe.bsky.social for the marvellous description of the homeowner who "went to have a gander" in this story from the BBC www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Panda.

Baker Day

It strikes me that there are phrases we use which can help date a teacher, much like Yugoslavia or South Sudan might date a map. Not just (the many) things that have gone by the wayside, but those whose names have just changed *NQT *Form 7 day *Using & Applying (Ma1/Sc1) Any more?

Not a serious country. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Best part of 3 weeks to respond to a complaint - and they do it with a few sentences that basically say, "tough - try the live chat". And no way to reply. I feel so much for people who actually need their pensions sorting. It must be horrendous.

New blog…. Headship: The Reality of Sitting in the Chair samstrickland384843542.wordpress.com/2025/12/12/h...

That's one way to ruin your Christmas dinner

I love articles like this. "Hmm... Y6 children in 2025 only read as well as those in 2017. I wonder what could explain this?" "Could it be the impact of a global pandemic shutting schools during their infant years? "No no, it just proves my existing views." theconversation.com/englands-syn...

'Mum' on BBC iPlayer is absolutely tremendous telly. Funny, sad and tender, it's an hilariously brilliant observation of the frailties and emotional fragility of families. How had it passed me by, and why don't more people know about it!? Grateful thanks to @michaelt1979.bsky.social for recommending

Being a British parent is so weird bc you're actually worried about paying the sky high rent/mortgage & getting GP appointments but the entire press keeps telling you you're worried there's a trans person or immigrant nearby & the vat on Eton means there'll only be two skiing holidays this year

Happy Christmas Tree Day to all those celebrating today. May your loft ladder hold steady and your boxes stay strong.

I keep seeing it described as the *inaugural* FIFA peace prize. Surely they'll never do it again? Or if they did, surely no right thinking peace-seeker would accept it?

Me when I’ve unloaded the dishwasher yet again.

"You can do anything ... grab 'em by the Antarctic. You can do anything."

It's starting to feel like we live inside an episode of The Day Today

The Nobel committee have just launched a football prize and made Diana Ross their first recipient.

Well, I, for one, am hugely shocked by this. Imagine capita cutting corners and screwing something up. Again.

New blog post. Ideologically driven approach to SEND fails to help "neurodiverse" pupils open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

51 minutes to get through to someone on the Teachers Pensions live chat... Then the conversation closed because I didn't respond within 60 seconds!

We’ve been supporting the education sector for over 145 years and understand the challenges you face. Talk to us, we exist to support you 💙 📞 Our helpline is open 24/7 on 08000 562 561

This clip from the marvellous Two Doors Down is becoming the soundtrack to my life in education lately...

It's alright though - we've got AI targets now, so that should solve that issue. 🙄 www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

@teachertapp.bsky.social Could you ask primaries how many minutes before the official start of their school day their doors are opened? The government keeps talking about 30 minutes a day free childcare, but I suspect many schools already offer 10-15 minutes just as part of their routine start

Even if we had the budget to pay for all this staff (we don’t) , we don’t have a big enough space to sit everyone down- lunch is already served in sittings. Presumably we’d have to use classrooms. In which case, when are we meant to prepare for , our actual core business, education?

The Covid inquiry’s findings are shocking but unsurprising now, so the main thing it left me thinking is that without a vaccine we wd’ve been utterly screwed. & if you worked round the clock to make a thing that saved millions of lives globally, to see that legacy trashed by anti-vaxxers…

This has been my worry all along with the breakfast club nonsense. You can talk about funding all you like, the long and the short of it is that school leaders end up with another job on the list, another extension to their working day, and the job becomes ever harder... And this is from DfE advice!

Hard to know what's the most outdated thing here: the mention of CD-ROMs, the loose Spice Girls reference, or the hideous "Books for Boys" splash.

I'm becoming really worried about our SENCOs. I think their job is becoming systemically impossible. They're being ground down by impossible workloads and now huge numbers of complaints, which makes it all but impossible for them to be strategic. I'm worried we're going to lose them,

The Home Secretary says "we have become the destination of choice in Europe, clearly visible to every people smuggler and would-be illegal migrant across the world" That is a factually untrue claim: the Home Office shows that the UK is fifth, getting 1/10 claims, while Germany gets 1/5 claims

I stand by this. And I think time has proven me right.

This doesn't make sense, does it? How can the median be higher than the upper quartile?

Says it all. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Recently-retired people: does the Antiques Roadshow theme eventually cease to trigger a deep reaction?

My guess is that the "research" will show that it's a marvellous idea .. and also that within a decade the school will have abandoned it as a failure. Possibly sooner if they main proponent of it leaves. www.bbc.com/news/article...

"No headteacher should ever have to consider the impact on the figures of accepting a pupil onto the school’s role - but a new target will inevitably make it a consideration." @michaelt1979.bsky.social on the AI attendance targets www.tes.com/magazine/ana...

I reckon easily half of difficult conversations with families about attendance include a parent saying "you only care about your figures". I'm sure this'll help no end 🙄 Such a massive misunderstanding of the issue.

Trump wants to destroy the BBC and take our money. And Nigel Farage is egging him on. All true patriots should tell them both: hands off our BBC.

The reaction to the Panorama edit has been nothing short of hysterical. Yes the BBC has some impartiality problems. But its biggest isn't the one you think. New piece from me. open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...

‘Where’s your fucking poppy?’

So, first skim reading of the curriculum and assessment review and despite several mentions of the need not to increase volume... There are plenty of examples of adding new content and I can only find one of removing anything - and that's GPS where the caveat is increasing the stakes of the test

Hugely disappointing that we seem to be stuck with the dreadful principle of the teacher assessment frameworks and moderation farce.