Quality teaching with an iPad? Surely not!

I have sat on this blog for some time, wondering if it needs posting and also wondering, as I often do, whether it will invite criticism. But I steer away from that sometimes too easily, and this time I have to say something. A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across a tweet that was …

Birth in a Pandemic

I cast my mind back to early September 2019. I’d had an exciting couple of weeks sharing our news with our family and now it was time to make sure leaders at my school knew I was expecting our first baby. Excitement, nerves and anticipation set in as I began to navigate whole class teaching …

The Insufficiency of PPA

I am becoming more and more convinced, as I learn and grow as a teacher, that 10% ‘planning, preparation and assessment’ time each week is utterly insufficient for sustained high quality teaching. Take a lesson in maths for example. I am maths lead in my school and, as a result, think more deeply and read …

A Beginner’s Guide to #EduTwitter

Welcome to #EduTwitter! This is arguably the best ongoing CPD you will receive in education, and all from the comfort of your own sofa! It can seem vast and confusing to begin with (that’s certainly how I felt!) but with a few handy tips I hope to dissipate some of the smoke and mirrors and …

Please Don’t Ignore Technology

The use of technology in schools can be truly polarising. Some say classroom tech is yet another 'fad', which will diminish in popularity like the 5-part-lesson-plan, marking using two stars and a wish or the mini whiteboard (yes, I'm aware these are still popular in many classrooms). And yet we use technology for almost everything. …

Tips for Technological Dinosaurs

The internet is awash with advice about technology for teachers. I for one have just joined an exciting network of techie educators called ‘Apple Distinguished Educators’ who are pushing forwards with innovative ways to maximise learning through tech. What happens, though, to those who aren’t so-called ‘digital natives’ from 'Gen X or Y' or whatever …

A Gift from Me to You

I have mentored student teachers for the last three years and in amidst all the 'how to teach' advice I try to give, often the most valuable advice can be the in-the-moment tips and tricks that only experience can teach you. A while ago I asked EduTwitter to help me out with their best advice, …

Going it Alone

In a world of dwindling numbers of adults in primary classrooms, how can we make sure that learning happens, even when it's just you and 30 children? I am one of the lucky ones; I have a wonderful LSA who is shared between our two UKS2 classes, however being a small school, she is often …

Creating a Classroom Culture

“I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or …

No tick-boxes: Reflections from the front line

I will be honest. I struggled with teaching this class writing in September. The reasons for this were manifold; behaviour took a while to settle as we got used to new routines, I taught above them for a bit - the new teacher thing of readjusting to the children being a year younger, and of …

“Just a minute”

As I move along in my development as a teacher, it seems that at times I am wired to notice different things and as a result, to change. Sometimes it's simply something as simple as 'opening a window keeps the children more awake', however some things are much more subtle. While training to be a …

Summer Musings

I sit here during the wonderfully long summer holidays, my mind wandering between ideas about all the things I could get done, and the guilt of not having any energy with which to complete them. It has begun: the endless photos of Pinterest-worthy displays and resources, all of which, I am sure, have taken hours …