With all the talk of a “catch-up curriculum”, what is my priority upon our return to in-person learning? Keeping great geography at the heart of my lessons. While I don’t want students to dismiss the past two months of learning as ‘irrelevant’, I also want to be mindful that some of the content covered simply […]
Read more
Lionel Bolton, Head of English, Languages and Humanities, Oxford University Press Read the report What have we discovered? Our new report, Bridging the Word Gap at Transition, builds on our previous report from 3 years ago, Why Closing the Word Gap Matters. In that first report we highlighted that nearly half of the children in Year 1 and […]
Read more
Provided nothing changes between now and then, we are all due back into school in September. How that will look practically will vary from school to school as we all figure out how to make routines that work in our unique settings given the constraints imposed upon us for public health. Jemma Sherwood shares a […]
Read more
Jemma Sherwood offers advice for the transition from Year 10 to Year 11 in September. As we look to have all year groups back in September, we are well aware that one of the groups who are most likely to be worried about the year ahead will be Year 10. So far, we know that […]
Read more It is coming up to the end of the school year and my thoughts are now starting to turn to the transition arrangements for the new Year 12s. Many questions are occupying my thoughts. How will they respond to being back in the classroom after so long? Will the extended break have had an impact […]
Read moreCraig Barton looks at how both teachers and students will need time and patience in order to make the transition back into the classroom. Speaking of “unprecedented times” has become something of a cliché. And yet I know of no other phrase to better describe the period from when schools first closed because of the […]
Read more
Libby Ahluwalia shares preparation strategies for students in lockdown who are moving from GCSE to A Level Religious Studies next term Coronavirus is presenting a lot of difficulties and uncertainties for everyone, including those of you who are moving on from Year 11 and planning to begin studying for A levels next term. Many of […]
Read more
In my opinion Key Stage Three is the most important time in secondary school and the time when we can have the biggest influence on students. It’s a time where we can have a significant impact both academically and socially. I even put this to Twitter and Twitter agreed: 50% of people shared this view! […]
Read more
Transition Days and reading In my previous blog I outlined our motivations for becoming a Reading School. We were clear why we wanted to do it and the impact we really hoped we would have. We just needed to think of a hook; a way to get the students to buy in to the new […]
Read more
Many of the Government’s statements about assessment under the National Curriculum 2014 have stressed that, with the exception of the national, statutory arrangements (e.g. tests and teacher assessment at the end of Key Stages 1 and 2 and the Phonics Screening Check) each school should determine its own assessment policy and practice. Here’s a typical […]
Read more