This is an entry that I’d not quite finished and didn’t get published. I thought I’d pop it out there anyway. I can’t remember exactly when it was, but I remember the day and it was fab! This week has been a funny old week, but in a lovely way. […]
helen
142 posts
I am going to preface this by saying that it is all based on my own personal opinion, experience and dogmas. I’m not citing research and do not claim to be a guru on the matter. Also, that the ideas in the heading are not mutually exclusive. You can have […]
It’s the week between A Level and GCSE results and students across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as internationally, are waiting for results of have got results that determine their next steps. It’s not an easy place for them all to be. I was out on Saturday night […]
This summer, for a gazillion reasons, none of which are bad or were unpredictable, me and the hubby are a bit skint. This is skint in the first-world problems kind of ball-park, so I will caveat this with the fact that I am writing from a position of privilege. We […]
So at first reading, the headline “Ban pushy parents from emailing teachers, says Ofsted” would suggest that Ofsted thinks that schools have the time or the resources to do so and that it is actually something that they’ve said. On further reading, it’s not that at all. I’m all for […]
… what I really really want is to have time. More time to spend with my students and my colleagues each day and each week so that I can make sure that I meet their needs, support their progress and build better relationships. As the end of the school year […]
I read this article this morning and I saw red. I saw really, really red and decided to write. I think it’s important I caveat this rant by saying that I agree with some of the sentiment behind the article: all teachers are teachers of SEN. However, conflating being a […]
I keep reading and I keep getting cross. I’d love to call the current state of affairs surrounding special needs provision in England a dog’s dinner but even my hounds metaphorically eat better than this state of affairs. There is no money. There is little to no provision for some […]
I don’t know if I count as an experienced teacher. I’ve been doing it in various forms for 12 years and I like to think that I’m in the right job. I think that one of the things that means I’m still a teacher is that I have been able […]
This time last year, I had just secured a new post at my current school after having made the decision to go part time as a teacher and do lots of other things alongside it. I had been SenCo at a lovely independent school in Wiltshire and had learned a […]
Reading about the next stage of academisation of English schools today sort of made me pull a bit of a grimace. I got a little bit cross and then facepalmed, because there just doesn’t seem anything new about the concepts being trundled out as though they are shiny new toy. […]
My mum worked for years in a secondary school in Warwickshire and she was the person in charge of putting together the timetable. She used to meet up with other timetablers from schools nearby, including a Deputy Head of the school I attended (I was quite a character at school, […]
APPG This time last week, I was in London getting ready to speak at an All Party Parliamentary Group for Dyslexia and Other Specific Learning Difficulties. It was a fantastic event and I really enjoyed my time there talking with policy makers, educators, professionals and those whose lived experiences have […]
I’ve never made it to a union conference yet and this year is no different. I always mean to but I just end up ill or with family for Easter at church. This year was an ill year and I have spent a huge amount of time feeling like death-warmed-up […]
I’ve read a really sensible article today in the Times Educational Supplement where a teacher writes about the opacity of how teachers understand ‘sensory’ as an adjective to describe learning, teaching and needs. ‘Sensory’ could be viewed as a bit of a buzz-word at present. As written in the article […]
I read an article in the Times Educational Supplement this morning about how to make schools better for kids with Autism. The article made some brilliant points and it got me to thinking about making the adjustments that are needed to support young people with autism in a mainstream setting. […]
This week there is such much guff going on in the world of Brexit and education and pretty much everything across the world that I decided to ignore it all and focus on my own little world. I’ve had enough of doom and gloom, so I thought I’d focus on […]
I was prompted to write this after reading that Andreas Schleicher of the OECD believes that the teaching of coding within the English curriculum will soon become obsolete. He likens the teaching of coding to the teaching of trigonometry. He believes that trig is taught only because it is applicable […]
I will preface this whole thing with the following: I don’t like reading, I rarely read for pleasure and tend to only read things for function rather than because I just ‘fancy a read’. For me as an individual, there are far easier and more attractive ways to take information […]
I read an article today where an Professor Barbara Oakley, an engineering professor, argues that research in education is not replicable and that much research in social science is at crisis point. The major cause of the crisis is that this research does not follow ‘the scientific method’. She describes […]
This is not an easy one to write. I read this article this afternoon and it made me sad, angry and a whole host of other emotions. Partly from personal experience of seeing some of the horrendous circumstances that some of my kids have ended up in and partly because […]
This last week has been somewhat bonkers and, if the news is to be believed, the world is doomed and we’re all going to die a slow, painful Brexit-induced death. I am so sick of the ineptitude and sheet petulance of our ‘great’ leaders that I want to talk about […]
There is a problem in schools and in Local Authorities. Well, it’s probably quite easy to see that there are far many problems, not just one. But here, I will be more specific. The particular problem that I’m referring to is that of Special Educational Needs funding. It started to […]
2018 was a funny old year. I finished 2017 and moved into 2018 as a Dr rather than a Mrs and that was quite a big change. I graduated my PhD and was picked up at the University of Bath Winter Ceremony as quite an out-of-the-ordinary Phd-er. I did it […]
Entirely my own quite confused and unclear views here… I’ve worked in private school and mainstream, maintained school and I have had awesome highs and crippling lows in both. I’m currently in a medium-sized LA maintained school in the South-West of England and I love it passionately. What I have […]
There have been a few threads this week that I’ve followed and contributed to relating to teacher’s well-being. One of the catalysts for the discussions on twitter was an article from the Daily Mail, in which a school is described as giving its staff a day off timetable to use […]
The Times Educational Supplement reported this week that primary school teachers are suffering significant levels of distress as a result of their jobs. This is at the same time that teachers are also viewed as one of the most trusted professions. There is a disjoint and it is something that […]
Are teachers respected in the UK? Would my mum be proud of me if I decided to become a teacher? Spoiler alert… my Mum would be proud of whatever I do, as long as I’m the best I can be. Barber- be the best; plumber- be the best; bank robber- […]
I am in a very privileged position, in that I genuinely love my job. I have flexibility because of the different things I do around my classroom-based time and I am eternally grateful for that. I realise that there are significant numbers of people who are not in that position. […]
This is quite a close-to-the-core kind of post, where things that tie into my professional and academic knowledge to my own experiences of learning and education meet. I grew up in Leamington Spa and went to a really blooming good comprehensive school in Warwick, where I was supported by great […]
I spend Tuesday morning each week volunteering in a lovely school near my house, where I work with young learners who find literacy tricky and who may need a bit of extra mentoring time. I’m really lucky that the school has so thoroughly embraced me and welcomed me into the […]
Despite it being Tuesday and currently not raining (although it is distinctly grim outside), today, I mainly have a face like a wet Monday morning. I have spent much of the weekend asleep and feeling horrible with nasty migraine, something I have had since I was a young one and […]
This week has been a funny old week, but in a lovely way. I’ve been running around like a airborne insect with a cobalt-posterior and that does tend to be how I navigate life. Mr Dr Ross has been away so that doglets and I have been making the most […]
This week, I have been emailing back and forth with a colleague I met at a conference recently. We are hoping to raise funding to fund a trip where we will work together to train teachers to support young learners with special needs. One of the questions I was asked […]
Usually I write on Wednesdays, as I’m not at in school. I didn’t manage it this Wednesday, as the day ended up being a little bit bonkers and I wound up running out of evening. I was slightly disappointed with myself for missing my own, self-appointed schedule. However, I am really […]
I mean REALLY see them for who and what they are? Today, I was going to write about how two thirds of secondary schools can’t find maths teachers after reading about it. Then I was going to link to another article where Professor Jo Boaler discusses primary teachers’ experiences of […]
My PhD focussed on supporting young people with dyslexia and explored how they understood themselves through their relationship with their dyslexia. On one hand, I found that young people could frame their dyslexia positively and that is didn’t need to impact their access to learning and pr ogress negatively. ON […]
One of the broad ideas I touched on in my PhD thesis (you can read it here, should you so wish!) was how individuals’ understanding of themselves internally affected how they interacted with others and ultimately, their identity in a social setting. In that context, I looked at young people’s dyslexia. […]
It’s taken me a while to work my brain through the 2018 GCSE results and their fall-out. In my last duty as Head of Learning Support, I duly attended school and, having cycled 8 miles to get there was met with some lovely families, incredibly happy students and some really […]
I’ve just come back from spending a week in Naples, somewhere that’s been on the bucket list for quite a while, and it was fantastic. I realised that I actually can speak reasonable Italian to make myself understood and also to mock my long-suffering and kind husband with hotel staff. […]
On 26th July, the Department for Education released its annual SEND statistics. The figures appear fairly unsurprising: pupils with SEN make up a slightly larger proportion of the January 2018 (14.6 %) cohort than was the case in January 2017 (14.4). While only a small proportional increase, the actual figure was 31,960. There has been […]
In the last two weeks, I have finished working at the school where I have been working for the last four years, been offered a place to undertake specialist dyslexia teacher training, presented some of my PhD work at an international conference in Wales and organised working with a local […]