Ideas, Practices & Personal Insights

KidGuard Resources on Technology & Online Safety

A set of tools for keeping your family safe online and teaching your children how to become better digital citizens. KidGuard’s mission is to educate and bring awareness to parents about what they need to know about online safety for their children. Here’s a list of guides all about protecting children while using the internet and technology, a great read for parents and educators alike.

Breaking down barriers to coding

Whilst we know that the skills associated with computational thinking are vital for today’s children to flourish in the 21st Century workplace, the practicalities of teaching coding during school hours can sometimes be perceived as a challenge. There is often a misconception that incorporating workshops and lessons that will instill the important skills associated with computational thinking will take a lot of work. But, with simple techniques, we know ...

Why the education sector must address security in the rush to digitise

Last year huge investment was made in the education industry, with almost two-thirds (64%) of education employees reporting investment in digital technologies. This, according to government statistics, equates to more than £900m.

How to Use Chatbots in Education

A chatbot is an "artificial intelligence (AI) program that simulates interactive human conversation by using key pre-calculated user phrases and auditory or text-based signals" (technopedia.com). Businesses throughout the United Kingdom and elsewhere are rapidly adopting chatbots to support their business. Vodafone, the well known phone company, has a chatbot to help people learn about which phone plans best fit their needs, for example. But what about using chatbots ...

Curriculum-Led Financial Planning: An Innovative Solution for a Time of Challenging Budgets

The vast majority of school leaders will be familiar with the balancing act of reducing costs while still ensuring that we provide the highest possible quality of education to our students. In the 20 years I have spent working in the education sector – first as a teacher and then as a headteacher, before becoming the Chief Executive of the Thinking Schools Academy Trust – this challenge has been a key focus for ...

Tackling the mental health challenge in schools

In recent years we’ve seen a positive shift in attitudes towards mental health. It’s being talked about by everyone from the royal family to Justin Bieber: little by little, the taboo is being broken.

How would you define a brilliant teacher?

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 ...

Music and creativity back in the Ofsted spotlight

Ofsted is currently consulting on its proposed new inspection framework – the draft was published on 16th January with the consultation running until 5th April. The draft framework includes some strong indications that music and creativity will be firmly back on the radar of Ofsted inspectors from September this year. If schools want to achieve Good or Outstanding ratings, they are going to have to teach the full curriculum, right ...

TE(i)AM - Is covert complaining damaging your school’s progress?

Is covert complaining damaging your school’s progress? How could something that feels so good ever be bad?

How schools and teachers can embrace online learning

I still find it hard to believe that the internet as we know it today was only created around 30 years ago in the 1990’s. It was only much later than this date did it start to become mainstream, with my own first experience of it in 1996 - and that was only at school. This is because it was still really expensive for your average person to have at home, our ...

How to bridge the gap in language teaching between primary and secondary

I used to teach French and German at secondary level. Then I had children of my own. When I went back to teaching, my career had morphed into a version of itself where the people I taught had runny noses, could not stay on their seats for an entire lesson because they had too many important things to say to you/show you/sing about and because they expected to ...

The CPD opportunity your school might be missing out on

When we think of innovation in schools, we usually imagine a new piece of equipment, a new software programme that will change the way we deliver a subject, or track progress, measure attainment, something tangible that comes with a price tag. But actually, innovation is just about doing things differently; it's thinking about how and why we do what we do and trying out a way of doing it differently ...