I’m on the “coronacoaster”: one minute I’m up and the next I’m down – it’s an emotional rollercoaster. Most of the time, I feel like it’s all fine and we are just in a new normal, but in the blink of an eye, I’m flying by the seat of my pants, heading down with the […]
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Head of Biology Amelia Kyriakides discusses the ways in which her department has adapted to home learning and how the strategies they’ve developed will continue to benefit her GCSE cohorts on their return to school. For many of us, adapting for home learning meant rapidly rethinking lesson planning. Quick decisions needed to be made based […]
Read more I think if there’s something that the partial school closures have taught me it’s about the aspects of the job that I take for granted. It’s easy to forget the enjoyment of actually being in the classroom, especially on really busy days with back to back lessons. There’s even something to be said about being […]
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Teachers have had to respond to the challenge of the school closures due to COVID-19. Just as we are getting used to a ‘new normal,’ we are having to adapt to the uncertainty and difficulty of the recovery period. Despite our best efforts to deliver our existing curricula, its impact will be greatly variable for […]
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Award-winning children’s author Christopher Edge shares strategies for talking to children about their reading Books can help children and young adults to make sense of the world, provide an escape from it and maybe, one day, inspire them to build a better one, so in these strange times, making space for reading in their lives […]
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While the lockdown could potentially be a perfect time to brush up on grammar, worksheets can be rather dry and uninspiring. Try these activities with lower KS3 to get them engaging with grammar. 1. Adjective treasure hunt Pupils conduct a treasure hunt where they have to collect items from around the house which embody particular […]
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Anhydrous, exothermic, fullerene, isomerase, medulla, monomers, ribosomes, titration, xylem… How many of these words do you know? For a scientist – or even a knowledgeable GCSE science student, no less – this list of complex words will trigger a wealth of background knowledge. For many pupils, however, the same list of words would likely provoke […]
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I’ve been reflecting on reflection, meta-reflection I think it’s called. In particular, the nature of reflection in both professional and personal contexts – my own and those of the trainee teachers I’m working with. They are required as part of their course to keep a journal throughout their PGCE year, recording regular written reflections every […]
Read more RE is a living subject; it lives in the people and concepts and practices that exist in this country and beyond, and in order for our students to fully engage in what RE is all about, they need to experience and understand RE as a ‘living thing’. Well, herein lies the problem. Many teachers are […]
Read moreLast week I was leading a session at York university entitled native speaker orientation. I was trying to explain to the students from France, Germany and Spain who have just started their teacher training here the differences in the various types of schools in the UK. Of course, this involved looking at how we have […]
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