JL Dutaut | Schools Week

What does an inspectorate do when it can’t inspect?

Six weeks after lockdown and the sudden end of inspections, and five weeks after Ofsted mooted a mass redeployment of staff, JL Dutaut finds out what the inspectors have been up to It’s now six weeks since “business as usual” came to an abrupt end for Ofsted. Yet just last week, chief inspector Amanda Spielman […]

Profile: Ruth Davies

The new president of the NAHT reveals her trajectory, from a childhood home that prized education through three primary jobs in which her flair for radical innovation became clear After an hour talking to Ruth Davies, whose new role as president of the NAHT starts today, the overwhelming impression I’m left with is she could […]

Julia Skinner’s top edu blogs of the week, 4 May 2020

Compassion, leading change, meeting communities’ needs, balance and flexibility are Julia Skinner’s top picks of the education topics this week Leading with compassion @vawells1 This post from Vikki Wells is so timely with the negative media coverage on schools from a couple of prominent people from the past of English education. The work that is […]

Teaching Walk-Thrus: Five-Step Guides to Instructional Coaching

Reviewer Diana Detterick detects an unfortunate bias, but it’s not enough to stop this book becoming her go-to reference title for solving educational problems Cognitive Load Theory. Dual Code Theory. Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction. How do I connect all of these concepts, and many others, to use in my classroom? If you have ever pondered […]

How should schools support transitions this summer and beyond?

Primary-to-secondary transition faces new challenges as a result of the Covid crisis but recent research can help ensure schools make the best of it. Ellie Mulcahy explains Research suggests that most children anticipate transitions in positive terms and successfully navigate them. However, the primary to secondary school transition nonetheless presents a variety of challenges, many […]

A week in the life of Jo Southby

As her schools prepare to launch Oak Academy resources amid new routines and new challenges, Jo Southby opens up her lockdown diary

Building on this ‘mindful pause’ for education

Whatever is in store for education post lockdown, we can be sure that the foundational skills of mindfulness will continue to be as invaluable as ever, say the authors of a new strategy document The interruption of our normal life has made us all acutely aware of the significance of emotional and social needs. It […]

Warming the cold spots of alternative provision

A new report on the state of alternative provision makes for some dire reading but there’s plenty of evidence it doesn’t have to be that way, writes Cath Murray When you want to sell a story about excluded children into the mainstream media, it has to be about how dire their outcomes, or awful the […]

Our new report must inform the roadmap to reopening

A new report from the Chartered College of Teaching has gathered evidence from around the world and must inform any decision about how schools are reopened, writes Alison Peacock The widespread closures of schools to all but children of key workers and vulnerable children are unprecedented and the impact on our pupils, teachers and schools […]