Some people can be excluded by what is meant to be inclusion. For neuro-diverse people our classrooms can be a ticking time bomb. The sounds, the smells, the expectations, the infrastructure, the movement, the unpredictability, the inflexibility. All of these can push people whose world view is that little bit […]
#edutwitter
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I’ve got my feet in many camps and my fingers in various pies and I am very lucky for it. This term so far, my focus has been in the special educational needs and disability (SEND) camp, with a finger firmly planted into the ‘climate change education’ pie. What I […]
This week I’ve been back at work and started new work and it’s all been bonkers. Being back in school after a while out. I had the Little Dude and was on mat leave. Monday saw me go to INSET at a setting I know well and have enjoyed volunteering […]
I’d have written sooner, but someone cut through the internet cable in our road and we’re waiting for it to be fixed- it’s been more than 2 weeks and so far Open Reach have not been forthcoming! Then my laptop fell on the floor and the screen is pretty darn […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
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. […]