I have been waiting for this - some really great people have worked on it and am hopeful it distils what we can place bets on. Summer reading taken care of - great timing

Life’s good

What a pleasure to meet @douglemov.bsky.social alongside @ashleymartin26.bsky.social and the East100 cohort. This man has had a bigger impact on my teaching practice than anyone else I could name. Ratio rules.

Have been out outish. On the way home the main discourse on the train is what is awaiting folks in their fridges. One man has lamented “an abundance and f cheese but no pickle”.

It’s not about more work It’s about planning the curriculum through a different lens. A new project Key Stage 3: The Ambitious Years I’ll be talking more on this webinar: Thurs 27 March 4-5pm, access with annual or group films.myattandco.com/programs/web...

I’m delighted Sir Hamid Patel has been elected Chairman of Ofsted. His track record speaks for itself. He also showed me immense kindness whilst surrounded by edu-greats on an DfE consultation group. He has emotional intelligence, empathy and sensitivity - all qualities valuable at Ofsted I reckon.

Really pleased to have launched this today at @ascl-uk.bsky.social. Please do share/engage - we're hoping to build a national resource which shares examples of good practice that exist in the system.

📈 Exclusive: School leaders have been confronted outside their homes, spat at and 'offered out' for fights as abuse from parents surges, a Schools Week investigation can reveal

“It is “conceptually problematic” for support for the mental health of a child with SEMH needs to be delivered only within an educational context and not a health context,”

The SW investigation might be the most important one they've ever run. It's an incredible piece of work and the results are truly shocking. Everyone should read it.

I’ve been digging into the quality of EHCPs, plans that parents are dragged through court sometimes to obtain, and that are bankrupting councils What’s actually in them? Are they good quality? Personalised? Include interventions backed by evidence? Are they fully funded? The answer often is no

Special investigation: Interventions lacking evidence, copy and paste plans, health and social care missing - Schools Week reveals how EHCPs are failing vulnerable children

📸 No one follows more etiquette rules than the Royal Family—but notice how King Charles didn’t make any smart-ass or demeaning comments about Zelensky’s attire today. Why? Because respect isn’t about clothes—it’s about character. And that’s something money can’t buy.

sometimes a picture tells a thousand words

Throughout my teaching career I was given bad advice about dyslexia, including... + Sit all dyslexic pupils at the front because they inevitably have issues with attention. + Teach them to recognise words as whole units rather than teaching them to decode. + Give them coloured overlays. Etc >>

Apparently Rachel is slightly pungent and sharp. Rude

“In everyday conversation we might talk about something being as ‘easy as one-two-three’. But for young children, learning to count isn’t so easy.” @juliangrenier.bsky.social explores two practices for developing children’s early understanding of numbers. Read more: eef.li/3wMtgw

I think we managed to fit a whole week of days into Wednesday.

Word of the day is ‘hibernacle’ (18th century): a hibernating animal’s winter retreat. I believe it works on a human level too.

BOOK GIVEAWAY!!! I'm not on social media a lot right now, working very hard on my new book, trying to get it done in less than 9 years this time! In the meantime, I'm giving away signed copies of all my books so far. Repost & follow to enter, & say which one you'd like - closes Dec 14! #KidLitUK

Enjoying working on review and retrieval with our teacher team. Pulling out thoughts around retrieval, strengths, weaknesses, opportunity and threats to good retrieval tasks after reading various perspectives. @profcoe.bsky.social @teacherhead.bsky.social @katejonesteach.bsky.social

#iteachmath Choral Count by 1/3 starting at 1/3 #maththinking

I couldn’t be happier or more grateful that our children’s future is in the hands and hearts of people like @ashleymartin26.bsky.social A very special week in the company of restless, kind and thoughtful school leaders.

Word of the Day is a true favourite, as some of you will know. Apricity (17th century) is the warmth of the sun on a winter’s day.

Early morning dog walk watching the sun rise. Peace.

Are we doing those old-school, meandering, ludicrous threads here? They were the best thing about ol’ Twitter. And, hoo boy, have I got one for you. Buckle up. We need to talk about Gromit. 🪡 🧵 🪡

Colin Farrell is fantastic in #ThePenguin & completely unrecognisable

The full report can be found here - www.suttontrust.com/our-research...

An important read and deeply felt by the sector.

Don't leave me alone in my confessional. Come share your curriculum sins. @clairestoneman.bsky.social @ensermark.bsky.social teachreal.wordpress.com/2024/11/15/c...

🧵THREAD🧵 After the release of the “Use of teaching assistants in schools” in September, I have spent the last few weeks reading, internalising and reflecting on what this research from the DfE essentially tells us (with strengths & developments needed)

Girls weekend away. Food, wine and chill.

Teams run by people who said they really, really wanted to be managers performed worse than those who were assigned to lead them by chance. Self-promoting types tended to be overconfident about their own abilities… they also tended to be men.’ www.economist.com/business/202...

I have been a teacher for 28 years (17 years as Headteacher) . For the first 20 years I never saw a child hit an adult in school. Now, as Exec HT & Head of Inclusion for my Trust, it’s commonplace. And yet this crisis seems to have gone unnoticed by policymakers.

It was a great privilege learning from @markmccourt.bsky.social yesterday in a preview of this day. If there are any spaces left for this I’d recommend you come and listen. Guaranteed to make you think deeply about primary maths education. @triciamoss.bsky.social @catherinelock.bsky.social

I am absolutely battered. But someone’s told me there are only four weeks to half term- and I’m happy because I thought there were five. Small wins.

Using Insight scatter plot to compare results of mock KS2 tests in autumn against final results to find reasonable predictor of expected standards. Here, 59/65 pupils scoring 93+ in autumn achieved EXS at end of year (73% of all pupils).

This is the first time I have spoken in public since retiring and my only CPD session of 2024. I would love to see you there if you are interested in raising attainment in primary mathematics. Huge thanks to DEMAT for hosting this day and being open to making it public and free for all to attend.

So does anyone else have questions about saluting magpies or is it just me? Like what happens if you salute one and then you spot the second … what then? Also - what if you’re saluting the wife?

This is going to be mega - I haven’t seen @markmccourt.bsky.social speak for a while so I am excited this is happening for FREE! Be there or be 🟨

Come and join us as we learn more about great maths teaching and how we can really improve our practice. An incredible one-off opportunity to whole day of Mark for free! We’d love to see you.

Calling all MAT CEOs, Directors of Education, and Directors of Mathematics with primaries. I would like to invite you to attend this full day of CPD at which I will describe how to significantly improve standards in primary mathematics. I’d love to see you there completemaths.com/elevate-math...

I'm a secondary maths teacher and I say the primary curriculum is too full of maths. There should be far more space to explore more broadly. We have plenty of time to cover enough maths if students arrive knowing the basics really well.

Six years ago, literally nobody asked me what my advice would be for new teachers starting in September. So I told them. And now, years later, still nobody has asked me. So here it is again 👇🏽 #uked #ukteaching #edusky

This one's long but I was having so much fun I just didn't want to stop. The supposed tech industry giant is almost hilariously inept at doing actual business stuff. www.unchartedblue.com/how-to-kill-...

What says teacher holiday more than batch cooking? Except the bolognese bag split as I was taking it to the freezer - on a rug, up the bookshelves, splashed a sofa. The dog is happy as evidenced by the bolognese paw prints around the house. 🤦‍♀️