Bored of the election- I voted for the record- so I’m writing about something else! I get annoyed. SOOOOOOOOO annoyed when there are articles talking about supporting girls for this about having it all, women who want child care, girls who aren’t career driven, women who need this, and women […]
Yearly archives: 2019
38 posts
I had my hair cut today. And I had lunch out. Then I came home and I played with my doglets, watched ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ and child the little dude. Then I tutored some awesome kids and made really yummy dinner (no-one has reported any adverse effects yet […]
I have just read two very different articles which could be interpreted as ‘pupil voice’. One, written by a teenager at the coalface of the exam system, is scathingly well-written, sharing her frustrations with the limitations of her school’s curriculum. The other, written by a teacher talks about the conflicts […]
I had a meeting this week in Wiltshire, with a commissioner from the council, a seminar as part of my AMBDA course with some Educational Psychologists from BANES and I’m in the middle of writing a book chapter on parents and schools working together to support dyslexic young people, mainly […]
Yesterday, I read a thread on a Facebook Group I’m part of asking about support strategies for a student who was trying to revise and retain information ready for their GCSEs. This is fairly run of the mill. That is, until it transpired that the student had only recently arrived […]
This week, on Wednesday I was part of a short film made for the BBC Teach webpages. It’s about workload and nothing I said in the filming was particularly controversial or shocking. Spoiler alert: I work longer than my contracted hours and I think all the people in the film […]
There is a lot in the news about climate change, young people striking for the future, and teachers and schools becomings sites of political activism. I’m on leave from school at the moment, until the end of the calendar year. It’s a really privileged position to be in; I get […]
I’m a teacher. I only work from 8.30-2.50 on the days I’m at school. I don’t prepare anything outside of school hours. I don’t do any work at the weekend. My CPD also always happens at school on site and within school hours. I don’t pay for my CPD; they […]
I am, at times, decidedly cynical about politicians and their edicts. I am essentially a left-winger but struggle to identify with Labour in its present guise. Generally I find myself grating against most things that come out of a large proportion of politicians’ mouths. However, I find myself agreeing with […]
Conference Season is upon us and I get to thinking about something I read in March 2012. I was travelling with my husband around South America. He’d just finished his PhD and I’d just finished an MA and it was a case of ‘then of never’. So, we got married […]
Success is subjective thing. One person’s trash is another’s treasure; one man’s meat is another’s poison; to each their own etc. There is a plethora of sayings that essentially say that some stuff is better for one person that it might be for another and that we don’t all have […]
Exam malpractice is a serious matter and any ‘Exams Officer’ or ‘SenCo’ knows that from reading the JCQ exam regulations or the Access Arrangements documentation from JCQ. Centres can lose their exam hosting status, people can lose their jobs and students can lose their entire suite of qualifications for breaches […]
The National Audit Office review of SEND provision in England has just come out and there are details of its findings outlined already. I don’t have very many polite words that would add to the current debate, suffice to say that there are no surprises: SEND Provision is an utter […]
I work part-time as a classroom teacher. I was a full-time teacher and SENCO but I’m not going to talk about full time teaching here, rather how I found a professional mish-mash of occupations that helps me to have a balanced working life. I have been full time and part-time […]
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. […]
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 […]