JL Dutaut | Schools Week

How to be an Outstanding Primary SENCO

Karen Ferguson discovers a book with plenty of practical advice for new SENCOs, and a healthy respect fo workload and wellbeing Any aspiring or newly appointed primary SENCO will benefit from the wealth of experience Jackie Ward has drawn on to write this book. It’s an easy-to-read and realistic “how to” guide that shows a […]

How UK independent schools should prepare for coronavirus disruption

Many Chinese pupils are set to go home to mainland China or Hong Kong for February half-term. Vicky Wilson sets out what all independent schools should be doing to prepare Pupils from China and Hong Kong make up the biggest single group of overseas students in the UK’s independent schools but the Foreign Office has […]

James Murphy’s top edu blogs of the week, 3 February 2020

Phonics, paperless pedagogy, curriculum, mental health and fleeing China are among guest blog reviewer James Murphy’s top picks of this week’s education topics The Grass is Not Greener @buckingham_j Disagreement about phonics once more rose to the surface in pedagogical circles this week. Like the Hydra, no matter how many times you cut off its […]

Time to pause Ofsted – here’s how

This year’s Headteachers’ Roundtable summit will question Ofsted’s legitimacy and efficacy. Stephen Tierney explains why we need to #PauseOfsted, and how to make it happen Some seventy per cent of inspectors are current practitioners. So what if we all said no? What if we chose to answer the call to beneficence differently? What would the […]

Young people’s views are a vital to solving the knife crime crisis

So much has been written and said about knife crime in recent months, yet so little of it has been from young people themselves, says Lisa Capper At Nacro we are increasingly concerned that young people – particularly those most at risk – have so little voice in the debate. That’s why we spoke to […]

School visit: future-ready Foxfield primary

Jess Staufenberg discovers a school that’s breaking the underperformance Catch 22, going beyond the model of School 21, and could be just what we need in 2020 Walking towards Foxfield Primary School in Woolwich, south-east London, feels a bit like approaching a small, rather beautiful airport. There’s an elevated runway with a spacious playground below […]

Teaching contraception without teaching conception fails young people

Looking ahead to compulsory relationships and sex education from September, fertility pioneer Professor Simon Fishel says improved fertility education would allow young people to plan for their futures Relationships and sex education (RSE) is finally having its moment. Overall teenage pregnancy rates are at their lowest since records began, comedy-drama Sex Education is trending on Netflix, […]

Ability grouping is potentially harmful but the alternatives are untested

England’s schools make more use of within-school “ability” grouping than those in other similar countries, yet there is no evidence that this practice results in better outcomes overall for students. In fact, the Education Endowment Foundation toolkit reviews the best evidence available from experimental studies and concludes that there is a small negative impact of […]

Relearning to Teach – Understanding the Principles of Great Teaching

SENDCo and assistant headteacher Rachel Rossiter discovers a book that does exactly the opposite of what it says on the cover, and she’s glad of it Someone tweeted recently that teachers go through two epiphanies in their careers: the first is when they grasp how to do this teaching thing, followed by another when they […]