Back in 2021, our curriculum was topic-based, creative and our children enjoyed it. As an approach, it had served us well, but we had begun to sense it had taken us as far as it could. In a topic-based model, the subject is often a servant to the theme. You start with "The Rainforest" or "The Victorians" and build activities around it. It looks coh...
EdBlogs
Headteachers across the country are now under considerable pressure to ensure our pupils catch up on their academic learning, while of course making sure their emotional and social needs are also met.Physical activity and PE can sometimes be forgotten amid this pressure.It shouldn't be. In fact, our school is proof that when everything in a school ...
A report from the Education Select Committee, published in May 2017, criticised assessment in primary schools, saying its close link to school accountability is creating a "high-stakes" system that is harming teaching and learning. The group of cross-party MPs confirmed what many primary school teachers have been saying for a long time: that the ne...
My varied teaching career so far has seen me teach two- and three-year-olds in a bilingual nursery setting, and secondary English and humanities in an international school. This latter placement was what I really enjoyed doing, and where I spent the majority of my career so far. Despite imperfections with the school (and no school is perfect), I re...
What is it? The belief that smaller class sizes mean better results for pupils. It's an idea that has huge support among parents, who (understandably) follow the logic that if there are fewer pupils in class, their child will get more attention and be more likely to succeed. The public are quick to jump on the bandwagon too. In his book, Davi...