michaelfordham.bsky.social
Headteacher of Thetford Academy (UK). Trustee of Diocese of Ely MAT. Interested in history, school music, and educational philosophy. All views my own.
427 posts
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We're currently neck-deep in Asterix
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English translations of this series exist and the stories are absolutely great. I think the beaver is renamed Harvey in English.
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Quentin Blake’s books are all great.
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A classic and rightly so
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Lots of sentimentalism
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Good books in rhyme. Used from about 18 months up but still being read at 4/5.
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The six year old got into this series and obviously the three year old wanted to listen in. Makes for a longer bed time story but very good for a train journey.
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Barnett and Klassen books are weirdly funny for both adults and younger children
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Really great
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Books that make you go gooey inside.
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Fun and environmentally conscious
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Similar vibes from these two.
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We have his books mostly in German but they’re all English in the original and they’re all great.
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Big fan of Benjie Davies.
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Grabbing a few favourites off the shelf (ours are now 7 and 4 but all of these were being used from 2 up to about 5). First up is an absolute favourite.
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Glad you enjoyed it - but I’m not surprised!
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My own (non empirical) take on it is here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
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One of the challenges is that we invariably end up using proxies for subject specialism, but these proxies are not particularly useful, particularly outside more hierarchical subjects. I think the key for me would be an ongoing immersion in the subject, but that's almost impossible to measure.
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Basilica Cistern an absolute must. Really spectacular.
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Reynolds Empire of Liberty?
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I've not been involved so couldn't possibly comment. But I kind of think that is what unions exist to do: collect views of members, agree on a common position, and then negotiate based on that. I'd be interested to see where NEU or NASUWT fall at the moment on flexibility vs fixed hours debate.
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Isn't that what the unions do through collective bargaining?
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There's a statutory entitlement to a break!
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It means we lose the ability to justify long school holidays by saying "but we work in the holidays"! But on balance I think fixed hours would create a healthier profession and encourage more meaningful conversations about workload.
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Essentially the question becomes whether teachers would like to trade the flexibility for when they work for clarity about how much they work.
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I think most academies follow something broadly similar to Burgundy Book. Personally I think a move to defined hours would be a good thing, but it would almost certainly mean more directed time than 1265 hours. For example, 8am-4pm (-30 min lunch) for 39 weeks a year (i.e. 195 days) is 1462.5 hours.
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We are entering a critical 5th year. Our first year of GCSEs for our founding cohort. We are hiring across all depts as we look to scale up and expand our work. Check us out!
arksoane.org/jobs/vacancies
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"“Leaders continually monitor the progress of their pupil premium strategy and make helpful and proactive adaptations, as appropriate"
Define 'continually'. Annually? Monthly? Weekly? Daily? Hourly?
Or should we take that literally? "Can you watch the PP strategy for me? I'm busting for a wee!"
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I wouldn't waste your time trying to understand it.
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Inclined to deploy Hanlon’s Razor here…
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It was Christine’s!
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That may be a fair criticism of current framework, but I don’t think the issue with the new proposal is fundamentally about its level of ambition: it’s that it is based on a premise about criterion-based assessment that has repeatedly been shown to be flawed.
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Which is better?
"Teachers have the expertise and knowledge to make well-judged adaptations to overcome barriers to learning"
OR
"Appropriate and well-judged adaptations help pupils to overcome the most significant barriers to learning"
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I would probably start here. Fundamentally, the proposal has been written by a team that do not understand the issues with descriptor-based assessment.
bsky.app/profile/mich...
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@counsellc.bsky.social got us to play that game with the History NC levels as trainees. That was 2006. Why do we never learn?
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Agincourt is also not in the English National Curriculum for History.
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What was even better was that we’ve been working with the Britten Sinfonia for a year now and several of their musicians have been in school working with students. Seeing their orchestral friends on a big stage playing for thousands makes it all so much more real.