#TwitteratiChallenge

cherrylkd

On Wednesday 29th April @TeacherToolkit shared a new blog/challenge for the educators on Twitter. TT follows around 600 people and has the best part of 93,000 followers. Wow! He is clearly a very successful leader. Previously he shared his top 101 Great Teachers to Follow on Twitter. I was thrilled to be included in Ross’ top 100. I have never met him but have built up a relationship with him online and I count him as one of my trusted friends. Thank you Ross.

Here is @TeacherToolkit’s new #Twitteratichallenge

As you can see he has listed his top 5 go-to people who he ‘approaches in times of challenge and critique, or for verification and support.’ (@TT 2015).

I read the latest post and I have to say I am truly honoured to be included in Ross’ top 5 educators, his top 5 go-to people. Ross has many people to choose…

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Becoming a Specialist Leader of Education (SLE) #SLEchat #SLTChat

cherrylkd

Since being designated as a Specialist Leader of Education in November 2014 I have had two distinct reactions from people. From family, friends and also some people in education I’ve had ‘What’s an SLE’? From people who know what an SLE is and who know how much effort I put in to my role I’m being asked ‘Why on earth do you want to add more work to your already busy life for no extra money’? I thought I would answer both of these questions in one post. I apologise if you already know the first part of this, but please bear with me as I have a couple of questions at the end of the post.

An SLE is an outstanding (not my use of the word!) middle or senior leader with a particular area of knowledge who can help to develop the leadership in other schools. Currently there…

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Life has become much easier…

Mrsnutty's Blog

Yesterday something struck me. It struck me by how much easier life is getting. Let me explain.

We’ve been here over six months now. Initially we had no idea where to food shop, where to buy toiletries or house hold goods. We had no idea where to buy footwear or clothing and was thinking how on earth were we going to survive without our shipping. Birthday cards and presents, where to get them? Where to go for the doctors or dentist? How to get around? How to make ourselves understood with no Mandarin at all? How to make certain recipes like gravy with no gravy granules or stock cubes so how to make it from scratch? Everything here seemed to be one challenge after another. We had arrived quite a few days before other ‘newbies’ so we needed to find this out with little help and we needed to find…

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Response to the Workload Challenge

cherrylkd

Nicky Morgan launched the Teachers’ Workload Survey in October ’14 and promised to deliver a response in 6 weeks. Over 40,000 teachers responded to the survey, that’s a huge number of teachers who felt strongly enough about the issue to put pen to paper and speak out. I wrote my thoughts at the time in this post. I suggested nine things which I thought would relieve some of the pressure from teachers. I am pleased to see that several of my recommendations have been included.

The document arrived in my Head Teacher’s email in box yesterday morning at precisely the same time as I arrived in her office on an unrelated matter. We sat together and went through the response. Yes, we are that sad!

These are the main things which leapt out to us as we read through it.
1. Lesson planning.
2. Marking and reporting on pupils’ work.

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Primary colleagues: Strategies for stopping children from bickering?

Are exams killing our planet? (Spoiler: Yes)

This much I know about…the workload debate

johntomsett

I have been a teacher for 26 years, a Headteacher for 11 years and, at the age of 50, this much I know about the workload debate.

I’ve just completed a 63 hour week; by the time I get to Sunday bed time that figure will be 70 hours plus. I write that as a fact, not a complaint. From doing my bus duty to leading an eight hour strategy meeting with Headteacher colleagues to teaching Economics A level, I love my job.

None of us working in schools goes underground to dig coal. In relative terms, our working conditions are pretty good. We have long holidays. As Shakespeare said, working with young people, Physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh. Every day our teaching always has the potential to be joyous.

It’s a year this weekend since I wrote about how my job has impacted upon my relationship…

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A Positive Meeting with Tristram Hunt

cherrylkd

Yesterday I braved foul weather and an incredibly busy M6 to attend a meeting with Tristram Hunt, Shadow Education Secretary at his constituency office in Stoke-on-Trent. We were a small group of Edu-tweeters which I think helped to focus the conversation. Tim Taylor (@imagineinquiry) Debra Kidd (@debrakidd) Lee (one half of @thought-weavers) and myself were the attendees.

Prior to the meeting all I knew of Mr Hunt was his declaration that teachers should be urged to take a ‘Hippocratic Oath’ and also that there would be a teacher MOT every few years under his leadership. I was unimpressed by both of these suggestions so had crossed him off in my mind as a useful Education Secretary. When the opportunity came to meet him I jumped at it because I wanted to see what kind of a man could suggest these things.

We began by asking him his vision for education…

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The Hunt for a better Education!

thoughtweavers

Education is not for the faint hearted, decisions are all too often made for us and new initiatives are driven by ideology or some would say stupidity.

Last year David and I (@thought_weavers) were fortunate enough to be invited to the DfE for a meeting with Elizabeth Truss and her policy advisors to to discuss he new curriculum. We were also joined by a fantastic bunch of bloggers and together we debated the introduction of the new curriculum. I think it’s fair to say we came away from that meeting utterly bemused.

In the Summer of 2014 the group met with Michael Cladingbowl, the director for inspection reform at Ofsted – a very down to earth and honest character with a vision for Ofsted far removed from the opinions formed up and down the corridors in schools. We felt this was a more successful meeting and many of the new…

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