What 30 things should you never say in the classroom?
In our last CPD Picks of The Week until 2018, we include some of the most popular blogs ever published on the site, encourage you to Talk-Up a Teacher and provide you with some Christmas reads!
Top 5 Blogs
- 30 Things You Should Never Say In The Classroom – This is a short blog about teaching and learning and the things teachers should never be heard saying in the classroom.
- The Coasting Teacher – How do you spot a ‘coasting’ teacher and how can you support them?
- *NEW* 10 Highlights From My Education Travels – What are your teaching highlights from the term / year?
- 20 Years Of Educational Fads – Over the past 20 years, what do you think teachers have wasted their time doing most?
- We Need To Pop The Differentiation Bubble! – Can teachers actually meet the needs of all their students?
Resource of the Week
As most schools have now closed for Christmas, instead of sharing a resource with you this week, we want to instead encourage you to give a gift to a colleague! Our most recent instalment of the increasingly-popular #1MinCPD series celebrated the season of good cheer, kindness, love (and eating) by encouraging you to Talk-Up A Teacher! Writer Hanna Beech laments:
“Giving recognition can become an alien action in schools – we are, because of the nature of our roles, used to giving constructive feedback and working towards ‘next steps’ all the time.”
She urges teachers to recognise the action of a colleague as it will boost their motivation and wellbeing – it will make you feel good too! So, this month, why don’t you give a colleague the gift of recognition by talking them up? Give them a social media ‘shout-out’ recognising something they’ve done really well in school this year. Tag a colleague on Twitter or Facebook and Talk-Up A Teacher today!
CPD Spotlight of the Week: Christmas
Here are some Christmas-themed blogs for you to enjoy as you wind down and relax.
- The 12 Plays of Christmas
- Dear Santa
- Dear Mrs. Claus
- ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas, When All Through The School.
From elsewhere
- NAHT has published new guidance to help schools become places where all staff can thrive and feel confident to be authentic about who they are.
- Follow the French? Should we ban all mobile phones from all schools? Or is banning mobile phones ‘old school’ and ill-informed? Research shows that banning is ineffective and banning anything turns it into an underground activity. Thierry Karsenti, a professor at the University of Montreal and the Canada Research Chair on information and communication technologies in education says teachers should help students learn how to manage technology and social media habits.
- The DfE publish Longitudinal evaluation of the Mathematics Teacher Exchange: China-England Third interim report.
- Political correspondent Daniel Hewitt reports for ITV and finds schools with washing machines to wash uniforms, where teachers charge parents’ phones who’ve no electricity and give coats, shoes and food to pupils. Watch @DanielHewittITV ‘s full report investigating child poverty in North West England here.
- Are out-of-school-time (OST) programmes worth it? See what Jennifer McCombs and colleagues from the RAND Corporation said after reviewing meta-analyses and large-scale, rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations of after-school and summer programmes here.
- Are you one of the the Top 50 Finalists in the Global Teacher Prize 2018? Meet the teachers shaping the minds of the next generation. Representing the the UK are Rachel Cramer, Tuesday Humby, Eartha Pond and Andria Zafirakou.
- Read Amanda Spielman’s first Annual Report as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector here.
- Research from Durham University’s Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring, led by Professor Peter Tymms, say that primary schools should ensure Reception classes are taught by their very best teachers. Professor Tymms says “There should be a focus on the placement of high-quality teachers to ensure that all children experience an effective first year of school”.
- England has one of the world’s largest gaps between highest and lowest performers in primary maths according to the new report English Education: world class in primary?
Next week, we’ll be logging off for Christmas – we encourage you to do the same! Everything you read from this point onwards is automated, it’s still us, but we are enjoying our families too.
Enjoy the break and we’ll be back in 2018!
