For the last four years, I have been developing a handbook for school leaders, compiling all the things that I have been reading and thinking about into one place. We need to know a great deal in o…

For those fortunate enough to work in a year group or department with multiple colleagues, the opportunities for collaboration – working together on common problems to achieve common goals &#…

Until recently, our model for pupil progress meetings was a termly conversation with a year group at a time. We’d use progress matrices that showed KS1 attainment against the most recent standardis…

We are seeking to raise and enhance the capacities of teachers while, at the same time, placing ever greater burdens on them. But the inconvenient fact is that the nation needs nearly 4 million...

As teachers we put all our effort into striving for children to learn the things that we think are valuable but we sometimes overcomplicate the systems that we use to make this happen. Deciding wha…

Note: to start with, we’ll use the terms teaching and learning policy and pedagogical framework interchangeably. Stick around to see how they diverge. What makes great teaching? Take a few mi…

The way CPD has been structured has been going through a quiet revolution over the last few years. If you think back 5 years or so it would have been highly likely that your CPD was a series of day…

Subject leadership should not be compartmentalised into the knowledge and actions of individual leaders. Much of the way of thinking advocated in this post involves shared knowledge and collective …

Keeping you up-to-date with the latest on education, including great teaching ideas and current issues in education.

The persistent challenges of curriculum design, assessment rationale and the complexity of school life continue to make the job both challenging and rewarding. Michael Tidd’s post then prompted me …

Reviewing our expectations of behaviour should be regular but planning for a full reopening in September provides the opportunity to design the culture that we want. This post is intended to be a g…

We all want to make a difference. Some of us live for that moment when children get the grades they deserve after several years of schooling. Some of us prefer the small breakthroughs that might se…

Listen to this episode from Thinking Deeply about Primary Education on Spotify. Episode 84: This week on Thinking Deeply about Primary Education, I'm joined by Christopher Such and Sarah Cottingham...

Twenty school leaders in a room with their SEF and development plan will probably yield twenty different approaches and twenty different proformas. And rightly so because each school has a unique c…