CPD Picks of The Week

Reading time: 3 minutes

Looking for some light CPD reading?

The social media illusion… and the reality, tutor time planning and a spotlight on the importance of RELAXING feature in this week’s picks!

Top 5 blogs of the week

1. *NEW* The Social Media Illusion vs Teacher Mental Health – How can teachers talk more openly about their mental health?
2. The 5 Minute Lesson Plan – An old favourite and planning must have.
3. *NEW* #1MinCPD: Beating Interruptions: What can you do to help pupils stay on task after an interruption?
4. Live Marking – Feedback in Schools – Does live-marking have a place in the classroom? If so, how can it be managed and what impact can it have?
5. *NEW* 10 Tops For Creating Classroom Rules – How do we create rules to benefit the whole school?

Resource of the week

This week we feature one of our resources from our very popular #5min series – the 5 minute Tutor Group plan. If you took on a new tutor group this term, you’re now almost a half term into teaching them. How’s it going? Maybe you feel like you’ve got to know them well and you’re building a good rapport. Maybe you think you’d like to try and make more of the time you have with them each day and do a bit of planning for next term?

Take a read of 10 Great Form Tutor Tips and then use the 5 minute plan below to get some ideas on paper.

CPD Spotlight: Wellbeing

In the lead up to any school holidays we like to take the opportunity to remind TT readers to take some time out and not think about work. Even though half term is just one week, take a read of these blogs to get inspired to relax!

• 10 Tips For Teachers Relaxing Over The Holidays
• Recharge Your Teaching Batteries
• It’s Time To Take A Break
• Workaholic Teachers
• It’s Time To Combat Teacher Burnout
• Reward: Lost Mojo
• 10 Ways To Keep Well
• #1minCPD: Do Nothing!

From elsewhere

• According to a new report by the Sutton Trust, there is a big disparity between pupil take-up of extra-curricular activities and what teachers say their school is offering – pupils are missing out on life skills. Life Skills makes 7 key recommendations including,

Schools should focus on ensuring a wider range of their pupils develop a broad array of non-academic skills, through both classroom strategies and extra-curricular enrichment activities such as debating, cultural visits and volunteering. There should be a particular focus on increasing take-up by those from a disadvantaged background.

• Best remembered for introducing the national curriculum in 1988, former education secretary Lord Baker, says that we have a skills crisis and we need to end the outdated snobbery towards technical education and make it available much earlier.
• A new partnership between the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) will provide up to £2.5m to test the impact of different cultural learning strategies in English schools and early years settings. They are looking for 400 schools to take part in the randomised control trials in different parts of England.
• A campaign by the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), which objects to the ‘glamorisation of war’ through the sale of red poppies, has been promoted by the National Education Union (NEU), Britain’s largest teaching union. The PPU exhibited for the first time at this year’s National Union of Teachers (NUT) conference. They have been accused of “indoctrinating” children with plans to sell white poppies in schools ahead of Remembrance Sunday next month.
• The Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) say that some smartwatches designed for children have security flaws that make them vulnerable to hackers which meant strangers could track children as they moved, or make a child appear to be in a completely different location.

 

• More than half of British parents agree that primary schools play an important role in preparing children for financial challenges in later life, according to new research commissioned by Experian. They have developed the Values, Money and Me programme to offer teachers and families a variety of learning opportunities and free resources to help young people develop their attitudes and values around money, as well as their financial knowledge and abilities.