Aidan Severs
@aidansevers.bsky.social
I'm an education consultant empowering leaders and teachers to enhance their curriculum and pedagogy in order to enrich pupil's lives. www.aidansevers.com Here on Bluesky to be my whole self though...
If you’re deep in SATs prep and counting down the days, this might be worth a read. A reminder to find the good bits — something we probably all need on a Friday evening. Anna SATs Season: Finding the Good Bits open.substack.com/pub/theeduca...
SATs Season: Finding the Good Bits
A Slice of Everyday Primary Leadership
open.substack.com
www.aidansevers.com/post/ks2-con... KS2 Continuous Provision, Flexible Lesson Design and Learning Sequences
KS2 Continuous Provision, Flexible Lesson Design and Learning Sequences
If you've not read anything I've written previously on these subjects, you can catch up here:KS2 Continuous ProvisionFlexible Lesson DesignLearning SequencesAnd now you're up to speed, you might be wo...
aidansevers.com
Solving the Problem of Progress & Independence in KS2 Continuous Provision www.aidansevers.com/post/solving... If you’re implementing continuous provision in KS2, you likely want genuinely independent pupils & w ork that clearly shows progress and quality. But what happens when you don't get it?
Solving the Problem... of Progress and Independence in KS2 Continuous Provision
If you’re implementing continuous provision in KS2, you likely want two things: • Pupils who are genuinely independent • Work that clearly shows progress and quality But what happens when those two ...
aidansevers.com
Teaching Reading: A Sequence To Ensure Whole Text Comprehension www.aidansevers.com/post/teachin... After a recent conversation with a former colleague who told me that the 6 lesson sequence we developed is still being used successfully in my last school, I decided to blog about it...
Teaching Reading: A Sequence To Ensure Whole Text Comprehension
I've noticed an uptick in people downloading Year 6 SATs resources, and if your thoughts are turning to KS2 SATs then you might want to have a little explore of the resources I've got available to hel...
aidansevers.com
Improving Outcomes By Digging Down Deep into the Data www.aidansevers.com/post/improvi... Improving Outcomes: A Clear Priority Matthew and Leona had one clear priority on their Self Evaluation Form: to improve their combined score at the end of KS2. They ran an excellent school...
Improving Outcomes By Digging Down Deep into the Data
Improving Outcomes: A Clear PriorityMatthew and Leona had one clear priority on their Self Evaluation Form: to improve their combined score at the end of KS2. They ran an excellent school, and had don...
aidansevers.com
How To Tell Your School's Story: The 4Cs and The 4 Time Periods www.aidansevers.com/post/how-to-... Someone walks into your school - an Ofsted inpector, say - and you pray that they see all the good that you know exists. You worry that they won't get it...
How To Tell Your School's Story: The 4Cs and The 4 Time Periods
Someone walks into your school - an Ofsted inpector, say - and you pray that they see all the good that you know exists. You worry that they won't get it. That they will have no clue about all the har...
aidansevers.com
Meeting The Needs Of All Pupils Using Continuous Provision in KS2 www.aidansevers.com/post/meeting... Can Early Years-inspired practice help us meet the needs of all pupils in later phases? TLDR: Yes. Implementing a version of Continuous Provision in KS 1 & 2 can help us to teach inclusively...
Meeting The Needs Of All Pupils Using Continuous Provision in KS2
Can Early Years-inspired practice help us meet the needs of all pupils in later phases?TLDR: Yes.Implementing a version of Continuous Provision in Key Stages 1 and 2 (and who knows? perhaps beyond) ca...
aidansevers.com
www.aidansevers.com/post/solving...
Solving the Problem... of Progress and Independence in KS2 Continuous Provision
This morning I had a call with an assistant head/class teacher who I worked with in the summer (you can read her glowing testimonial here). Back one very hot and sunny day, I spent a day with her at h...
aidansevers.com
New on my blog: In Praise Of The Unit Overview (Or Why You Should Develop Yours) www.aidansevers.com/post/in-prai...
In Praise Of The Unit Overview (Or Why You Should Develop Yours)
When I started teaching we had three kinds of plans (of course it was three - 3-part lessons, 3-way differentiation - we loved a good three): LTPs, MTPs and STPs (or lesson plans).I'm not sure how muc...
aidansevers.com
Curriculum For All: What Schools Need To Know About What The Curriculum Review And The New Ofsted Framework Say About Inclusion www.aidansevers.com/post/curricu...
Curriculum For All: What Schools Need To Know About What The Curriculum Review And The New Ofsted Framework Say About Inclusion
The key thing you need to be aware of with regards to the final report from the government-commissioned Curriculum and Assessment Review is right there in the title: Building a world-class curriculum ...
aidansevers.com
This free lesson plan from @aidansevers.bsky.social helps children to notice changes that have occurred in their locality, and to understand why those changes have taken place. They’ll also develop their fieldwork and mapping skills…
Change over time – Discover your school's place in history
Use this free lesson plan to explore how your school and local area have changed over time, using maps, digital tools and fieldwork...
teachwire.net
I wrote this in May and it's still true now. Especially true now. www.aidansevers.com/post/reducin... I have always believed the National Curriculum where it says 'There is time and space in the school day and in each week, term and year to range beyond the national curriculum specifications.’
Reducing the Volume of Content in the Primary Curriculum - You Can Do It Now!
Have you been following the news about the government's curriculum and assessment review?Is it putting a hold on your primary curriculum development as you wait to see what they say?You can be doing s...
aidansevers.com
Right, government response read, and blog post updated, now with the even catchier title of: What Primary Schools Need To Know From The Curriculum And Assessment Review (Updated Based On Government's Response) URL is still the same: www.aidansevers.com/post/what-pr...
What Primary Schools Need To Know From The Curriculum And Assessment Review (Updated Based On Government's Response)
The only Curriculum and Assessment Review headline that really matters is this: It's c200 pages of suggestions FOR THE GOVERNMENT, not for you, your school, your trust or your educational organisat...
aidansevers.com
New blog post: What Primary Schools Need* To Know From The Curriculum And Assessment Review www.aidansevers.com/post/what-pr... *cheeky use of need - in a way you don't need to know it at all, but you might find it interesting and informative for the distant future.
What Primary Schools Need To Know From The Curriculum And Assessment Review
The only Curriculum and Assessment Review headline that really matters is this: It's c200 pages of suggestions FOR THE GOVERNMENT, not for you, your school, your trust or your educational organisat...
aidansevers.com
The only Curriculum and Assessment Review headline that matters: It's c200 pages of suggestions FOR THE GOVERNMENT, not for you, your school, your trust or your educational organisation. We've seen government-commissioned reports wholly ignored in the past so don't read this and think it's gospel.
I've been back on my blogging game since the summer holidays finished. Here's my latest post, in praise of the humble intent statement (which you don't actually need but is very useful): www.aidansevers.com/post/why-you...
Why You Don't Need An Intent Statement (But Why It Is Actually Useful To Have One)
Why don't you need an intent subject for your subject's curriculum? Because no one says you have to, not even Ofsted... However, whilst ‘intent statements’ aren’t a necessity they can help curriculum ...
aidansevers.com
How are your pupils' word hoards coming along? Which words have you been teaching? How explicitly have you been teaching them? What if you've focused on the wrong ones? This week's post takes a look at why prioritising tier 2 words might be the way forward: www.aidansevers.com/post/why-we-...
Why We Should Prioritise The Teaching Of Tier 2 Words
Tier 2 words are a really important part of academic language, even at primary level - assuming children will learn all the correct meanings of these words without them being explicitly taught them is...
aidansevers.com
Send this to someone who is developing their curriculum and/or doing work around vocabulary teaching: How To Select Key Vocabulary For Your Subject's Curriculum www.aidansevers.com/post/how-to-...
How To Select Key Vocabulary For Your Subject's Curriculum
Words are the building blocks of all learning. If we don't know what individual words mean, we won't understand the meaning of the phrases and sentences that they make up. Whether we read or hear info...
aidansevers.com
New blog post: www.aidansevers.com/post/one-thi... Do you agree? Disagree? What happens in your school?
One Thing Your Curriculum Documentation Doesn't Need (Unless You Also Provide Lesson Plans)
Garbled title aside, this blog post is a very simple one. And the message is this:You don't need to mandate pedagogical choices.You don't need to spend your curriculum-writing time on telling teachers...
aidansevers.com
I wrote a poem Probably been done before I still wrote it though
The primary days are over! All three at secondary school for at least a year.
Northern boy in London after kicking off the new school year doing some challenge in maths training for a lovely group of school staff. Let's see what 25-26 holds! Good start ♥️
Send this to a teacher who loves spending their summer in school: www.aidansevers.com/post/what-sh...
What Should You Do To Get Your New Classroom Ready?
Summer's nearly here and you might be itching to get into your new classroom to spruce it up. But what should you spend your time on?
aidansevers.com
Hot off the press, end-of-term reading: KS2 Continuous Provision: Gradual Release of Responsibility The next part of my series on how schools might implement continuous provision in key stage 2, based on my experience of having done it. www.aidansevers.com/post/ks2-con...
KS2 Continuous Provision: Gradual Release of Responsibility
No two weeks are quite the same when you're implementing continuous provision in key stage 2... Crucially there is a gradual release of responsbility which provides the necessary support for pupils to...
aidansevers.com
Schools are thinking around their current assessment processes and looking towards what might be next and better... Here's a few ideas: www.aidansevers.com/blog/categor...
Assessment
aidansevers.com
It’s KS2 results day tomorrow. If anyone has any questions about accountability measures, which pupils are included and which ones aren’t, and how things are calculated, please do ask. I’ll be around all day.
New blog post! One of the key challenges when designing and delivering continuous provision to any age group, but particularly in KS2, is ensuring that there is curriculum coverage. Here I explain how this can be managed: www.aidansevers.com/post/ks2-con...
KS2 Continuous Provision: Ensuring Curriculum Coverage
One of the key challenges when designing and delivering continuous provision to any age group, but particularly in KS2, is ensuring that there is curriculum coverage. By delivering masterclasses, sett...
aidansevers.com
Haven't even shared last week's blog post either. Here I am, writing stuff and just hoping that people happen to google that thing... www.aidansevers.com/post/replaci...
Replacing Onerous Primary Assessment with Better Monitoring and Evaluation (Part 2)
In the first blog post in this series, I posed the following question:"What can subject leaders and school leaders do to replace onerous primary assessment practices with better monitoring and evaluat...
aidansevers.com
