Monthly update

January 2025

January 30, 2025

Sensible stuff, no quick fixes

Dear colleague

Here are some links that I hope you find helpful:

I’ve had several conversations recently about the tricky business of assessment! In primary there have been lots of questions about making judgements about how pupils are getting on in the foundation subjects. So, I’ve run a series of assessment webinars which will be available shortly on The Teachers’ Collection with a paid subscription.

For Key Stage 3, I’ll be running two webinars live and recorded, on Myatt & Co on Thursday 6th February 4-5pm and Wednesday 12th February 4-5pm. If you’d like to join the webinars and access the recordings, they are part of the annual subscription to Myatt & Co. If you or your school don’t already have an annual subscription, it’s easy to sign up here and you also get access to the popular subject networks, and ongoing professional development. £150/free trial. You can register here for the first session on Thursday 6th February 4pm.

There’s a free flash webinar with Alex Fairlamb and Rachel Ball Wednesday 5th February at 4pm. They have just published a brilliant book on Scaffolding, so this will be well worth a watch! You can register here.

David Goodwin from the Harbour Learning Trust has produced some great research summaries, supporting special educational needs in mainstream, via the Education Endowment Foundation, very helpful for ongoing CPD.

For primary colleagues looking to know more about the importance of chronology in history, it’s well worth checking out Stuart Tiffany’s whole staff webinars. His session will focus on how we teach chronology and why he advocates for this way based on research and classroom experience. You can contact Stuart here.

There’s also great support for secondary colleagues teaching English. LitDrive holds brilliant events across the country as well as online, more details here.

There are some interesting books that have been published recently and which have really informed my thinking and practice:

First up: Unfinished Business The life and legacy of Sir Tim Brighouse - a tribute and a call to action It’s a wonderful collection of essays on the impact of Tim’s work and how we might build on it for the future. (Disclosure: I contributed a chapter!)

‘Punk Leadership’ by Keziah Featherstone is one of the most grounded leaders I know. She’s also very funny and her she offers a fresh perspective on how to navigate the complexities of the education system while staying true to your values and vision.

Feedback: Strategies to support teacher workload and improve pupil progress Kate Jones has packed this book with really accessible research and strategies that not only make a difference to workload but make learning better for our young people.

Embedding oracy properly, no quick fixes!

Finding My Voice is a light touch, high impact personal development and oracy approach for the whole school.

It’s been developed by Rachel Higginson, Emmanuel Awoyelu, Christian Foley and me. More info on the programmes here.

Finally, I’ve had the chance to look at Aristotal. It’s a remarkable coaching programme powered by AI. Worth checking out the testimonials on the page, I think it’s a game-changer!

If you think there’s someone who would appreciate this update, you can forward the link here.

Until next time

Mary