If you could give a gift to teachers, what would it be?
Revision and behaviour are on the agenda this week, as well as Ross Morrison McGill’s education wishes for Santa.
Top 5 blogs
- *NEW* Dear Santa – If you could give any Christmas present as a gift to teachers, what would you choose?
- The 5 Minute Lesson Plan – An old favourite and a planning must have
- *NEW* The Intervention Record – How can you support staff in leading an intervention?
- *NEW* Why Supply Agencies Are The New ‘Del Boys’ – Are supply agencies just wheelers and dealers?
- 26 Tips To Make Teacher Workload Manageable – How can you keep your workload manageable during the term?
Resource of the week
Our resource this week is part two of last week’s resource of the week, the Iceberg Analysis. Written by SEN and behaviour expert Dr Helen Woodley, The Intervention Record helps staff to be clear about the aims and outcomes of student intervention. Of the resource, Helen says “I have found this record to be really useful for helping staff leading interventions to be clear about not only what the aim of the whole intervention is, but also the outcome for each specific learner.”
Read the instructions for how to use the record here and download the template here.
CPD Spotlight: Revision
Even though Christmas is a time to relax and have fun, there are some students who will need to knuckle down and do some revision in the holidays. Here are two blogs with some great tips to help them self study more creatively.
From elsewhere
- Published by the EEF, three independent evaluations of randomised controlled trials suggest that providing light-touch support for teachers to engage with research is not an effective way to improve pupil outcomes. Find out more about the ‘Literacy Octopus‘.
- See the Commissioner Briefing by the Children’s Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield: Falling through the Gaps in Education which looks at the broader group of children who are not attending mainstream or special schools.
- Ofqual figures show 223,000 candidates were given 25% extra time to sit GCSEs and A-level exam papers in 2016-17 because of a special need.Grouping by ability is often “taken for granted” according to the authors of a new report “A Necessary Evil”? which looks at grouping in Early Years and Key Stage 1. They recommend,
Teachers should feel justified in questioning what they see as the damaging emotional and academic impact of grouping for young children, given the wide research to this effect.
- The government is asking people for their views on a green paper setting out measures to improve mental health support for children and young people. See Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision.
- England rises up the ranks in an international reading measure and is now 8th out of 50 countries. Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) tested over 300,000 10-year-olds across the world and shows the top two performers are the Russian Federation and Singapore. Although England has performed better than in 2011, it is still significantly below the Republic of Ireland, Finland, Poland and Northern Ireland. The improvements in England’s average score is largely attributable to increases in the average performance of boys and lower-performing pupils. Read more about What Makes a Good Reader and take a look at the findings.
- Do private schools damage our education system? Lord Foulkes of Cumnock thinks so.
