Imagine you are an early years teacher. One day a member of the senior team comes to you and says that you need to teach science, which is becoming mandatory even in early years education. But how an earth should you teach science to 3 year olds?

Build it – but they won’t necessarily come. I love ‘Field of Dreams’. For those of you that don’t know the film, Kevin Costner plays Ray, an Iowa farmer who hears a mysterious voice in his cornfield saying, "If you build it, he will come." He interprets this as an instruction to build a baseball diamond (what else?) and, once it’s complete, he is visited by the ghosts ...

I am guessing many of us remember at least one teacher who really stood out from the others, someone who has made a real impact on our lives. I am often tempted to define a brilliant teacher as one who passes the thirty year test: when you catch up with them thirty years later, you want to go up and talk to them, because they made such a difference to ...

The novelist EM Forster exhorted us to “only connect”, and the poet John Donne observed that “no man is an island”. How can leaders at all levels in education make the most of the community around them, and use the power of collaboration to strengthen their leadership capacity? Whether you are a middle leader, a senior leader, a head, an executive head or a chair of governors, you can develop ...

It’s June 2018, and we’re due a teaching and learning observation week. Gauging the temperature in the staff room, after a hectic year, I felt that another round of observations from senior and middle leaders would have finished our teachers off! I wanted to boost morale, to create a feelgood factor in our last month. I wanted to encourage all to take risks in the classroom, to observe one-another, ...

Take a moment to think about an ideal school environment. You might imagine a calm, well-operating and friendly, happy school, where:  children feel welcome, safe and secure children arrive focused, enthused and ready to learn learning challenges are met with determination, optimism and self-belief there is a strong sense of teamwork in each class and across the school among staff and pupils alike children and staff take pride in ...

As I’ve only just dipped my toe into school leadership, I was surprised at just how difficult it has been this year. Simply managing your class, or leading a subject, is a full time, stressful job all year round. Throw the demands of leading a core subject - or the day-to-day demands of managing a school - into the mix, and ‘stressful’ doesn’t describe it. Thankfully, there’s ...

Most teachers will say that they are creative every day, citing how they respond to the dynamics of groups and situations which arise. However, it is good to have a reminder about the deliberate use of strategies to promote creative teaching / learning; refreshing our memories, or even meeting new options to give a creative boost to our classroom. Here are five you can use right away: 1. Creative peer feedback When ...

In March 2016 the Independent Teacher Workload Review Group completed their report entitled ‘Eliminating unnecessary workload around marking’. Since the publication of this report, I wonder how much has changed in schools across the country? How many senior leaders have read the report and those written by The Education Endowment Foundation, along with blogs and recommendations from people such as Ross ‘@TeacherToolkit’ McGill? In the report’s foreword, Dawn Copping wrote: “......

Whatever young people's educational journeys, as individuals they all have unique personal characteristics just like their physical fingerprints and DNA sequences. An exciting paradigm shift is taking place in education as approaches to teaching and learning become increasingly creative and student-centred, enabling all learners to develop and blossom in their own, special ways. Just as forensic investigators can identify an individual using DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) to create a genetic profile ...