CPD Picks of The Week

Are you struggling with differentiation?

This week our CPD Spotlight is on differentiation with some fantastic blogs to help you with the difficult task of making your lesson relevant to every child. Our free resources is one of the most popular download on TT and we’ve got some interesting education news from elsewhere on the web.

Top 5 blogs

1. *NEW* Time to be awkward – Does education need maverick teachers?
2. The 5 minute lesson plan – Success story!
3. *NEW* Research Myth 4: Left-Right Brain – Are you a left-brained dominant learner?
4. *NEW* The End of Average – Is our current examination system suitable for all students?
5. *NEW* 6 Tips For Improving Oracy – How do we make our classrooms hubs of high quality talk?

Resource of the week

The Resilience Assembly inspires students to be emotionally, physically and mentally resilient. In the assembly, students explore the meaning of resilience. They are offered definitions, school expectations and strategies for them to be able to self-regulate their own stress and adversity. It’s also one of our most popular blogs on the site.

CPD Spotlight: Differentiation

It’s not an easy job ensuring that every lesson you teach is appropriate for every child in your class. However, it’s really important that you ensure your most able students are challenged, your weaker ones can access the topic and that those who sometimes get lost under the ‘average’ label are also inspired and engaged. Here are our top blogs to help you differentiate in the classroom:

• 10 ‘Teach To The Top’ Differentiation Ideas
• Differentiation: What Works And Why
• We Need To Pop The Differentiation Bubble
• #1minCPD: Differentiation For Mastery
• Differentiation: Education For All Abilities

From elsewhere

• Poorer young people more likely to have career aspirations that don’t match their educational goals according to a new review of international evidence published today by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). The researchers found “teenagers who have a good understanding of what they need to do to achieve their career ambitions and who combined part-time work with full-time study do a lot better economically later in life than their peers. However, they found that teenagers from poorer homes are more likely to be uncertain about the qualifications they need to access their chosen career and get the skills they need.”
• The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published a number of new teaching resources and videos for helping KS2 children learn about piracy, patents and trademarks. See the website crackingideas.com
• Computer science expert Dr Patricia Davies warns that teaching children with iPads means they become disinterested in lessons without technology.
• New Education Secretary Damian Hinds unveils plans to drive up standards by supporting underperforming schools and increase opportunities in areas most in need. More than £45million awarded to successful multi-academy trusts to help tackle underperformance and improve schools in areas that lack capacity.
• The Welsh Government has announced a new campaign called ‘Take Time’ encouraging parents, carers and guardians to take time to talk, listen and play to help their child’s language development and communication skills.
• The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) published their report on the attainment gap with an analysis of the attainment gap in England on a range of measures, including 15 key lessons on closing the attainment gap from the EEF’s first six years.
• What do children want to be ‘when they grow up’? The Education and Employers report Drawing the Future tells us that children want to be You Tube stars. The survey of 20,000 primary school children (7-11 years) was undertaken in partnership with Tes, the National Association of Head Teachers, UCL Institute of Education and OECD Education and Skills. It asked them to draw a picture of the job they want to do when they grow up.
  This landmark report found that “the difference between children’s career aspirations from age seven to 17 are marginal, and too often based on gender stereotypes, socio-economic backgrounds and by TV, film and radio.”
  The report also found that children in developing countries often have more aspirational career ambitions than boys in the UK. The survey has significant implications for social mobility and gender equality. Find out more at Primary Futures.