Teacher-Blogger Request 2019

Could you be the next blogger for Teacher Toolkit?

Ross Morrison McGill started blogging in 2001, and through a mixture of life-changing events, started writing content on Teacher Toolkit almost 10 years ago over here on Blogger in 2010 (don’t laugh!); he soon moved over to WordPress in 2012 and coded the TT website as you see it today.

After writing 1,000+ blogs Ross opened up Teacher Toolkit to other teachers in January 2017 and two years later, we have 75 teacher-bloggers; two teachers are now published authors! Here are 5 reasons why it’s a good idea:

1. Established Voice

The TT website offers one teaching blog per day and has become a collective voice for the profession. We proofread everything before publication, protecting new teacher-writers from the ‘grammar police’ as much as possible, offering them a huge platform to be seen by our 250,000+ followers.

2. Influence

Very senior people in U.K. education read this site – people in very high places – which is all very flattering, but to keep this engagement flowing, we will ensure support with writing and deal with any social media feedback from readers. There is nothing to be nervous about; we can publish your views and teaching ideas anonymously if needed.

3. Getting Technical

Only three years ago, this website was operating on a ‘bog-standard £99 per year annual licence’ to use a WordPress.com site and had a unique website .me domain name. As the website has grown, sharing one blog post to over 200,000 followers generated a large ‘surge’ of clicks and made this website crash. It’s a great problem to have, but having large social media audiences requires much love and attention.

It has taken 8 years to develop the backbone of this site into a blog-come-professional website that you see today – to ensure there is no downtime (that means, to stop it from crashing!); money and extra support has been required from a small group of people. It was a decision Ross made in 2013/14 to start taking the website seriously after a huge spike in traffic. As the team has grown, we’ve been working hard on our values and vision and any income made on the website ensures content remains free for teachers, forever.

4. Worldwide Reach

Our website had 1.9 million readers last year!

TT has reached all echelons of the education sector; from the Department for Education, OfSTED, think tanks, schools and school leaders to thousands of teachers and parents. Many blogs have flopped, but some have trended on social media, shaped policy and dialogue – even the start of national conferences. The reach is beyond imaginable. Over time, because many ‘eyes and ears’ are reading grassroots opinion on this site, many companies have wanted their resources and logos on our site too. This was something that was somewhat trial and error at the beginning but has now become a full-time feature of this site which helps fund the website and any technical support that is needed.

5. Write for TT?

We now have an established team and a core group of writers, with over 75 teachers from most sectors of the profession – although there are other voices to be heard. Our content is viewed by over 180,000 people each month and we have surpassed 8.5 million views (over 1.9 million views in 200 countries over the last 12 months). Our long-term goal is to see TT offer a platform of opinion and resources for teachers, but also parents and students.

Why not consider writing for us in 2019?

If you want to be part of our grand plans, then all you need to do is give TeacherToolkit a ‘shout out’ by clicking the image above, then send an email using this address.