CPD Picks of The Week


Reading time: 2

Holly Gardner

Holly Gardner is TT Editor, as well as a Freelance Publisher. She has been working with @TeacherToolkit for over 6 years - since she published his first book in her role as Senior Commissioning Editor at Bloomsbury Publishing. Since then, she left her day job,...
Read more about Holly Gardner

Are teachers too fragile to teach?

This week our spotlight is on Mental Health as we feel strongly about supporting educators to reflect on their wellbeing, as well as providing teachers with resources to help support children to talk about their mental health.

Top 5 blogs

  1. 6 Tips For Delivering Amazing Assemblies – What makes a great assembly?
  2. 10 ‘Teach To The Top’ Differentiation Ideas – How do you plan for differentiation in lessons? And how can you cater for every student?
  3. Are Teachers Too Fragile To Teach? – Why has resilience and wellbeing been dumped onto teachers?
  4. How To Use The Feedback Box To Improve Performance – How do you provide feedback to students or teachers?
  5. 10 ICT Pieces of Equipment For Every Classroom – If money was no option, what 10 ICT tools would you use in your classroom?

Resource of the week

This week our feature resource is the Workload and Wellbeing checklist. It is a document for every headteacher working in a school or college; a self-evaluation without the hassle of reams and reams of paperwork, with the aim of doing a wellbeing health check of your school.

Either complete this yourself, or if you are brave enough, hand out the 2-page document to every member of your leadership team to self-reflect on what decisions you make as a school and its impact on teacher workload.

Read the full blog here and download the resource to get started.

School Workload and Wellbeing Health Check by @TeacherToolkitCPD Spotlight: Mental Health

Look after your mental health and ensure you are practising self-care techniques Review your mental health

  1. 10 Tips For Looking After Your Mental Health
  2. How To Talk About Your Mental Health
  3. How To Improve Our Student’s Mental Health
  4. #1MinCPD: Knowing Feelings
  5. The Social Media Illusion vs. Teacher Mental Health
  6. Calmer Children: 10 Mindfulness Ideas

Education news from elsewhere

  1. Sir David Norgrove, Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, has written to education secretary Damian Hinds to raise “serious concerns about the Department for Education’s presentation and use of statistics.” In the letter he says,
    “I seek your reassurance that the Department remains committed to the principles and practices defined in the statutory Code of Practice for Statistics. In particular, I urge the Department to involve analysts closely in the development of its communications, to ensure that data are properly presented in a way that does not mislead.”
    According to the Open University Business School (OUBS)’s dedicated research centre and the True Potential Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance, a fifth of parents with children aged six to 16 avoid their child’s maths homework as working with numbers scares them.
  2. Ofsted have developed a new electronic evidence gathering (EEG) tool “to make the collection and sharing of inspection evidence much more efficient.”
  3. Arachnologists say that the closure of four London schools following the discovery of Noble false widow spiders is insane and a “complete overreaction”.
  4. A survey by Families Online has found that many parents have sabotaged their child’s friendship with another child because they do not like their parents.
  5. Plan International UK have found that one in three girls in the UK has been sexually harassed in public when wearing school uniform. “It’s not a compliment. It’s not part of growing up.” Join their campaign 

On the podcast last week, Ross Morrison McGill interviews Jenny Fogarty, and they discuss what a typical day is like working in the largest school of public health in the UK and how teachers can transition into academic teaching. Listen now and remember you can now subscribe on iTunes!


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