Festival of Education: Adaptive Teaching with Sue Cowley

The tasks a teacher should undertake Sue Cowley’s session on adaptive teaching was immense. Before I even get to the content, I have to mention Sue herself. She spoke with such warmth, humili…

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Festival of Education: Adaptive Teaching with Sue Cowley

The tasks a teacher should undertake Sue Cowley's session on adaptive teaching was immense. Before I even get to the content, I have to mention Sue herself. She spoke with such warmth, humility and humour that the session felt more like a conversation than a lecture. Having taught across all age phases (and still spending time in classrooms), everything she shared was authentic and rooted in real experience.

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The Festival of Education:

The Serious Business of Play I wanted to get these musings out by the start of the week, but Mrs and Mr OfSted put that on pause! So one of the sessions that really challenged my thinking at the Fe…

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Festival of Education: What I’m Still Thinking About… Performance Isn’t Learning

There are always sessions at the Festival of Education that leave you with pages of notes. Then there are the ones that quietly reshape how you think about something you’ve taken for granted …

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What I’m Still Thinking About… Performance Isn’t Learning

There are always sessions at the Festival of Education that leave you with pages of notes. Then there are the ones that quietly reshape how you think about something you've taken for granted for years. For me, one of those sessions was Amarbeer Singh Gill's Why are students so bad at learning? The title is deliberately provocative, but as the session unfolded, it became clear that the real question wasn't about students at all.

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Festival of Education 2026

What I’m Still Thinking About… Teacher Decision-Making There are always sessions at the Festival of Education that leave you with pages of notes. Then there are the ones that leave you …

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Festival of Education 2026

What I'm Still Thinking About... Teacher Decision-Making There are always sessions at the Festival of Education that leave you with pages of notes. Then there are the ones that leave you with a single idea that refuses to go away. The talk was in the Big Orange Tent, hosted by Evidence Based Education For me, one of those ideas came from Adam Kholbeck's sessions on adaptive expertise.

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Why Dictation Needs to Get Slow, Mindful and Transient

Think dictation is a relic of the past? Discover how slowing the pace and using 'transient visualiser modelling' can supercharge your students' independent transcription, spelling, and handwriting skills

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Before the finish line: what you’ve built

It’s Summer. Do you feel it? ☀️ The summer term is officially here. Between the assessments and the busy corridors, there’s a quiet sense of readiness in our schools that wasn’t there in September. It’s not always "neat," and it doesn’t always show up on a spreadsheet, but the shifts are there: Routines that now feel normal. Students who are finally finding their feet. A sense of belonging that took months to build. The journey matters. Before the final rush takes over, take a moment to notice just how far your students - and you - have come. You’ve had a hand in every bit of that progress. Good luck for the weeks ahead! ☕️ #EduTwitter #SchoolLeadership #TeachingAndLearning #PrimaryEducation #SecondaryEducation #TeacherReflections #EdChat #FormativeAssessment #TeachersOfLinkedIn

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If Your PD Fits on a Page, It’s Probably Not Good Enough

Jenny Webb (@funkypedagogy) has got me thinking deeply about PD. There’s some myths in schools that improvement comes primarily from curriculum design, accountability structures or the latest initi…

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Talk First, Write Second

I’ve been inspired by a visit to a school in North Yorkshire. Working with some leaders we were discussing sentence composition, and they said “Think it. Say it. Write it. Read it.” So I got thinki…

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Talk First, Write Second

I’ve been inspired by a visit to a school in North Yorkshire. Working with some leaders we were discussing sentence composition, and they said “Think it. Say it. Write it. Read it.” So I got thinking, if there’s one thread that stitches writing together from Reception to Year 6, it’s talk. Not grand, performative talk, but the simple act of saying a sentence before trying to write it.

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Teachers Talk Connect 2026 | Teachers Talk Radio

The multi subject national event from TTR - Free for teachers!

ttradio.org

Handwriting: more than pretty books and pen licences

Master the Art of Handwriting: Transform motor skill into academic prowess with clear demonstrations and efficient practice sessions.

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New Year; Same Routines

The spring term always arrives with a particular kind of energy. Children return from the Christmas break a little taller, a little louder and often slightly out of rhythm. This isn’t a problem to …

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New Year; Same Routines

The spring term always arrives with a particular kind of energy. Children return from the Christmas break a little taller, a little louder and often slightly out of rhythm. This isn’t a problem to be solved; it’s simply part of the cycle. What matters is how quickly we help pupils rediscover the habits that make learning possible. This is where…

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Back to the Beat: Why the Basics Still Win

I was listening to an episode of the Beyond Good podcast with Femi Adeniran and Matt Findlay titled “My Daughter’s Drum Lessons” on the way to work this week. There are a number of points that are worth listening to in this pod, so please do give it a listen, here: What stood out to me, was the reflection that, almost by accident, a sizeable body of work has been built up.

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Less Is More: Rethinking How We Teach Writing in KS1

If you spend any time in a primary classroom, you’ll notice something curious about how we teach writing. By the end of Year 2, children have often been asked to produce stories, letters, instructions, fact-files, recounts, poems, posters, diaries and sometimes even play-scripts. The list is endless, and a little exhausting. So I ask: why do we teach so many genres so early on?

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Too Much on the Walls = Too Little in Their Heads?

Walk into many classrooms today and you’ll see walls bursting with posters, anchor charts, word walls, motivational quotes, and student masterpieces. I’ve been there myself - creating a map of Middle Earth when reading The Hobbit as a display board, and making a 3D display to entice children when creating writing inspired by ‘The Mysteries of Harris Burdick’ by Chris van Allsburg.

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