The school I’m currently working in recently went through key stage change and it was a bigger culture change than I think anyone anticipated. It’s a bit like having been trained to handle twenty sloths and then being given thirty two puppies… Time and energy were ploughed into creating new buildings and safe spaces for […]
Tag: #keeplovingteaching
If You See Behaviour Management As a Battle Ground, You May Win The Battle But You’ve Already Lost The War
Behaviour Management: Is There A Way To Practically Apply The Principles of Respect and Relationship? In writing my last blog post, I realised that respect and relationship as foundations for behaviour management might sound like some sort of impractical pixie dust solution for helping lessons to fly. I really don’t think that they are. They’re […]
Stop Working, Get Out and Do Something! School Will Survive…
When was the last time that you: Went out and saw a movie during the week? Took an entire evening off without staying late for a meeting or working once you’d put the kids to bed? Binge read a book in an evening? Spontaneously just went out for a meal? Went to see a play […]
Idealistic, but not Ideal.
Idealistic, yes. That I definitely am. Ideal, I am not. One of the greatest drawbacks of teaching is that we are never done. Nothing is ever done perfectly. When my family are working their nine to fives or their shifts, I am either in school or working from home. When they can measure their performance […]
How Can We Stop Students Writing About Bob, Steve and Bill?
Narrative writing 101 today involved some teaching of planning (story mountains aplenty) and some modelling of how to turn said plan into an actual narrative worthy of an AQA GCSE examiner. Then I unleashed my class of budding writers on the world, or at least on the task. Or at least, I asked them politely if […]
How Can We Set Decent Purposeful Cover & Ensure It Gets Done?
Setting cover can be a real pain! Either you’re, in some sense, being expected to be in two places at once. Or you’re sick. Either way, it can feel somewhat futile if you doubt that the work will being done, perhaps more so if you’re home struggling through a migraine or the like and are […]
Observations: Surviving & Succeeding
I don’t know about you but observations still fill me with dread, causing those cold sweats and stomach clenches. Like most teachers, I really want to do my job well. I really do. But I do not like to be judged. With a classroom full of teenagers, no matter how difficult or stroppy, I know […]
Teacher Sick Day Guilt
While curled up in bed, headachy, full of flu and fed up, I was overwhelmed by one particular feeling. GUILT. There I was, a cold-filled lurgy monster and having to sleep for a couple of hours after popping downstairs to get a drink, but all I could think was: I should be in school. Bear […]
We All Need To Be/Have Kind Colleagues
Schools are hives of activity. From the roughest, inner city school to the most prestigious, private establishment, expectations of teachers are often crushingly high. Our expectations of ourselves are the starting point but we also experience pressure from: head teachers, management teams, department heads, other teachers, other staff, parents and our students. Teaching is an […]
If It’s Not Literature, Why Bother?
Whilst most English teachers have a passion for Literature, it is a smaller number of the fleet for whom non-fiction floats their boat. When faced with the wonder that is ‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’ or the challenges of ‘The Color Purple’, non-fiction can feel like a slog or feel a little dry. So why […]