One of the most eye-opening experiences of working with thousands of teachers is the nuance between classrooms within one school.
Coherence, not compliance
On my travels, it is clear that our English schools face unique challenges compared to other jurisdictions.
To avoid unnecessary attrition, it is essential that coherence is communicated rather than compliance.
However, this is not easy to achieve in some schools.
Education should always include time to improve pupil communication as it is a vital life skill. Academic achievements alone are not enough for future success.
Teachers already understand that effective communication is essential and are well-positioned to help develop these skills in pupils. In this guide, we will share some ideas that can help improve pupil communication in your school.
Over the last few years, there has been an enormous paradigm shift on how observations can add value to improving teaching. The movement from grading observations to using them as a tool for development is crucial to ensuring feedback has a positive effect.
However, one of the barriers to optimising the observation process is the lack of training for school leaders to get the most out of observations.
Budget restraints often mean schools are reducing the size of their senior leadership teams, which inevitably pushes additional responsibilities down onto middle leaders.
Middle leaders have a key role in influencing the standard of education within a school that is laid out in the new EIF
Your middle leaders are likely to be made up of the head of departments by subject or key stages. These colleagues should come together as a middle leadership team that can drive the school’s vision and improvement plan forward.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has long been the subject of discussions across many sectors, debating the benefits versus the negative repercussions.
AI is currently in the news due to the launch of apps like Lensa, which transform photos using AI into digital artwork, causing controversy over copyright and the impact on digital artists.
But what about AI in the classroom?
Replacing teachers with AI may still feel like a dystopian nightmare, but there are some platforms available right now that use AI in a way that can enhance or disrupt learning, depending on your point of view.
Most teachers will be aware of schemas and how they operate as patterns of learning that eventually form into concepts. But what about priming?
Priming is defined as the triggers that are associated with memories to help them be accessed.
For example, if you are asked about a time from your past, you will associate it with certain smells, music, sounds, and feelings. It’s not something we do consciously; instead, it happens at a synaptic level.
So what does priming mean for teachers when they want their students to recall learning?
Ofsted highlighted cultural capital in 2019 as an essential aspect of a child’s personal development. Based on Bourdieu’s studies in social mobility, it is seen in education as a way of creating well-rounded citizens of the future.
Schools have since developed unique ways of offering enrichment activities to support their pupils in growing cultural capital, but now with a cost of living crisis, it seems harder for schools to find room in their budgets for these extracurricular experiences.
Your ability to manage challenging behaviour in the classroom is one of the keys to success.
It’s important to remember that those pupils who present the most challenge are usually the ones who are crying out for support.
Here are some ideas that will help teachers looking for guidance when faced with challenging behaviour.
Teachers are usually reflective on their practice and one subject that comes up time and time again is whether a traditional or progressive approach leads to better outcomes for pupils.
Pupils’ use of mobile phones in schools has created a surprisingly polarised debate.
According to The Independent, smartphone usage has increased, with nearly half of five to ten-year-olds owning their own phone. Once children are in secondary, you would be hard pushed to find anyone without one.
The question for schools is how to safeguard mobile phone use alongside any disruption.
