" Oh this learning, what a thing it is"- The Taming of the Shrew, Act 1 Scene 2
As I started reading Sonia Thompson's Berger's An Ethic of Excellence in Action, this quotation really reasonated: It reminded me about how important it is to provide opportunities for crafting, drafting and redrafting in the classroom and reminded me how important it was to give learners the time and space to create something that they're … Continue reading The Power of Something Polished! Creative Writing
We are nearing the end of a challenging and taxing half term- we all know the score by now: the dark mornings and afternoons and the feeling that time, instead of being on our side, is actually our enemy. There's just never enough of it. For senior leaders, this pinch point is all too clear- … Continue reading ‘ I haven’t eaten today. I’ve got no time for lunch’ Senior Leader Wellbeing: Headsup4HTs Thinkpiece (Published October 2021)
6 Considerations for Classroom Teachers Discussing their Teaching If you’re one of the lucky ones, you’ll be teaching in a school where you have co-constructed a statement of intent for your department’s curriculum. In these departments, everybody teaching the subject is an equal stake-holder in the design of a curriculum that is best suited for … Continue reading Discussing Curriculum Intent and Implementation with Clarity
I'm sure our students can't wait for this school year to end, but I'm also sure it'll feel bittersweet for them -- they've had to contend with yo-yo schooling and a significant dose of uncertainty thrown into the mix. They've had the security of normality stripped from them, reduced contact with their closest friends, they've … Continue reading Models of Excellence- Creative Writing
We have just come to the end of our Virtual Transition Week for our 2021 cohort and we are happy to share our approach, to support schools completing similar events this year. Birmingham City Council made an announcement in late June and made the decision, due to rising cases of the Delta variant of COVID … Continue reading Transition 2021: Account of Practice
Having now worked for over 15 years in secondary education, I have come to realise how insular it is in danger of being. I often make generalisations to pupils about business leaders or entrepreneurs without fully understanding their working lives, their motivations, their modes of thinking and perhaps most importantly, their approaches to leadership. So, … Continue reading Book Review: The Magic of the Space Between- How a unique mentoring programme is transforming women’s leadership
When teaching skills of analysis and evaluation, it's quite useful to encourage students to analyse the effectiveness of their own work using some of the frameworks and structures we use to teach these skills. In one recent lesson with Year 10, we were looking at crime in Victorian literature ( this was to support them … Continue reading Using Reading Skills of Analysis and Evaluation to Help Students Plan Effective Creative Writing
Creating a physical space in school for staff to read, research and hone their craft is a great way to elevate the importance of continued professional learning. Around 2 years ago, I was fortunate enough to have been given a small budget by my headteacher and was given a space in the school to allocate … Continue reading A quick guide on how to create a Staff CPD Library and ‘Hot Desk’ Research Room
A couple of years ago, I stumbled across 'Post Secret' which is an ongoing community art project, created by Frank Warren. The project involves people posting their secrets anonymously on a homemade postcard. Selected secrets are then posted on the PostSecret website, or used for PostSecret's books or museum exhibits. One glance through the website or … Continue reading GCSE Creative Writing Exemplars: Post Secret ‘ I’m having difficulty coming to terms with my mediocrity’
If you’ve dared to read the comments on various news articles published over the past year, you’ll have no doubt seen some quite hurtful and unfounded comments about the integrity and practice of colleagues in the teaching profession during the pandemic. If you spent long enough scrolling through the comments, you would see how poor … Continue reading Staff CPD During and After COVID
The Learning Addict 