Sue Cowley
@Sue_Cowley
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Author, presenter, teacher, CPD/training. Help to run a preschool. Love gardening. She/her. Contact via my website.
Joined January 2013
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Just seen an article about how our children should give up their summer holidays to make up for 'lost learning'. How about the government give up their summer recess to make up for 'lost politics' first and we see how that goes?
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I don't understand the vitriol against teachers. Millions of people are on furlough and being paid 80% of their salary not to work. Teachers are still working and many worked through their holidays too. Why single them out?
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I've got a good idea. Why don't MPs set a good example by giving up their summer recess to make up for lost politics?
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I keep thinking about how the 'lost learning' thing is linked to the idea that learning = memorising a curriculum. Maybe children have been learning things, just not ones that appear on the curriculum?
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They need to stop showing socially distanced classrooms on TV news because that's not the reality of how it's going to be.
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Our kids have done the same number of days as in any other school year, just part of it at home. How would people feel if their employer cut two weeks of annual leave just because they had to WFH during lockdown?
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Hands up if you can't really concentrate on anything at the moment.
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Trying to get children to do stuff when they're not developmentally ready for it is not high expectations, it's a misunderstanding of child development.
#EYFS
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I am getting so angry on behalf of my teacher colleagues at the lies that are being spread about them not working. Teachers and heads have been working throughout lockdown, both at home and in schools.
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Everyone in my household thinks it's weird that I can smell when it's about to rain. Tell me I'm not the only one. 🌧🤷♀️
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I can't stop thinking about how the DfE should have asked schools to do the last week virtually because it could save lives by giving families and staff a longer period of isolation before Xmas. 😢
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Hands up if you're old enough to remember teaching in the days before tech and how we used to 'write around' a roller chalkboard! 😂🤷♀️
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Can't help but notice the irony that we spend the first 5 years desperate to get children to talk and then the next 11 apparently desperate to get them to be silent. 😉🙄
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'Hey kids we're really worried about your mental health.' 'Hey kids you're going to have to give up your summer holidays despite all that remote learning you did.' Yeah sure, that'll work. 🙄
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There has been this assumption that to 'get over' the initial part of the pandemic, we must focus on academic catch up. I suspect we are now seeing that it is actually the social and emotional impacts which need much more focus.
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I reckon this pandemic generation of children will go on to amaze us. (And even if I didn't that's what I'd be telling them because children live up to your expectations.) 😉😎
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Does anyone else keep pondering the idea of relocating to another country?
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If
#Ofsted
call I am genuinely going to say that unfortunately we're not allowing non essential visitors atm. Wonder what they will do about it but quite frankly I'm past caring.
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How about instead of trying to 'identify gaps' we applaud children and young people for what they have dealt with and ask them what extra things they learned while they were away? 🤷♀️
#remotelearning
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She's not going to resign, is she? We're going to be expected to put up with an ed sec who swears on camera and pretends not to know that the DfE just spent millions refurbishing its own offices. 😣🤦♀️
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I keep thinking about how it's women doing most of the work on home learning and men telling them how much learning has been 'lost' and what must be done about it. 🤷♀️
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You can't really urge young people to be mindful of social distancing when you've told them to go back to school and sit in classes of 30. 🤷♀️
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The DfE, Ofsted and the Children's Commissioner all demanding 100% attendance is verging on the comical. Have they not SEEN the amount of bugs doing the rounds atm?
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I have a theory that if you stand still in
#teaching
, doing the things you believe in, once every 20 years everyone will say that you are right.
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I would love to have the kid who did this in my class. 😂
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I'm sorry but me and the kid found this hilarious. School photos today. Kid refuses to remove mask because room is busy, so we now have a school photo with a mask on! As the kid says, 'record of the pandemic'.😂
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It's definitely not easy for children and young people but they're not 'lost'; they are temporarily at home with their parents. It really doesn't help them to constantly hear catastrophising from adults who should know better.
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Who else is old enough to remember the 1987 storm? I had just moved out of home. Feels like yesterday. How can it be almost 35 years ago? 😫🤷♀️
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There is no test you can do on a 4 year old that will give you a reliable measure of progress 7 years later.
#boycottbaseline
@educationgovuk
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My new book is out next Wednesday so I'm doing a giveaway to celebrate! RT to enter. Winner picked at random on publication day.
#EYFS
#MarkMaking
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Retweet if a student has ever accidentally called you 'mum' rather than miss/sir.
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My new book is out this week, so here's a competition to win a *free copy*! Retweet to enter. Winner picked at random on Friday.
#differentiation
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There isn't a shortage of qualified teachers. There's a shortage of teachers willing to work within the system that
@educationgovuk
has created.
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Why are they talking on the news as though children will be socially distanced *inside* classrooms? Did I miss a bit where classrooms magically increased in size over the summer?
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Does it strike anyone else as weird that they've announced non essential shopping before visiting your family?
Coronavirus: All non-essential retail shops can reopen in England from 15 June, PM says
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The very fact that they're calling it a 'big bang' to fully reopen all schools at once should be enough of a clue that it's a bad idea. 🙄🤷♀️
@GavinWilliamson
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Something I often say to new teachers is that you need to figure out what your values are and stick to them. Stuff in education goes in cycles. If you stick to your values long enough, eventually people will say you were right all along. 😊
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I don't really understand why I'm not seeing the unions, the opposition and the children's commissioner all shouting about sending children back to school without mitigations. 🤷♀️
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I hate to state the obvious, but if we can't fully reopen because there's too much spread then why on earth aren't kids wearing masks in class? Isn't the data showing that this is where the spread happens? 🤦♀️
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In education if you hold tight to your values then about once every 15 years people will say you were right all along. 😉
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How on earth are teachers supposed to cope with teaching large classes in school at the same time as teaching everyone else at home? This I do not get.
@GavinWilliamson
@educationgovuk
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I actually think it's really insulting for children, parents and teachers to find out the government's plans in a puff piece in the Sunday Times. 🤷♀️
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Personally I think the pandemic shifted something in terms of people's feelings about school, learning and life generally and I don't honestly see it shifting back.
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You know you've touched a nerve when you get an actual reply to a tweet from Ofsted. 😉😂
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I'm not planning to post on here anymore but I just wanted to say thanks to all my lovely Twitter friends. It was great fun while it lasted. ❤🐦
Sending you all the very best of wishes and I hope to bump into you elsewhere sometime. 😘🤗
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Children don't need *more language interventions*, they need more opportunities to socialise, play and talk with peers and caregivers. The so-called 'gap' isn't really in words, it's in *experiences*.
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I feel very strongly that
@GavinWilliamson
should resign. Any honourable person who had made the mess he has made of the job would have walked by now.
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Just spent about 10 minutes trying to compose a coherent tweet about the whole back to school mess but tbh there are no words that can fully express my contempt for Gav and the DfE.
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We need parents and carers to make sensible judgements about whether their children are well enough to attend our settings. This also protects staff wellbeing. Please don't encourage the opposite.
@NickGibbUK
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My Yr.11 kid sensibly pointing out that we need kids and teachers not to be getting covid when exams are on, so we should be maximising precautions now. I swear my kid would do a better job than
@nadhimzahawi
.
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I don't know what other people think but given the levels of needs we're seeing atm I think the 'recovery plan' should have focused on social and emotional wellbeing not academic tutoring.
@educationgovuk
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If you ask me, it's more important to solve retention than recruitment. Teaching shouldn't be a leaky sieve. Children need stability.
@educationgovuk
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Hands up if you can remember having to go to the library when you needed to find something out.
#howoldismytimeline
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If the Tories make an extended school day compulsory my kid won't be doing it. End of. 🤷♀️
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If you're complaining about masks, why not complain about ties first? Those are way more uncomfortable and serve no observable health purpose. 👔😷🤷♀️
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The very fact that
@Ofstednews
is going around schools expecting 'business as usual', at a time of rapidly rising cases and teacher/student sickness, is completely bizarre. It's like they have no grip on reality anymore.
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Honestly I have never been so angry and disgusted by a government and I lived through Thatcher.
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There is a weird thing going on atm where people seem willing to demand higher standards of behaviour from children than from our actual government. 👀
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Huge danger in
@Ofstednews
inspectors assuming they know how much children have learned when it's a stranger quizzing them in a one off scenario. 👀
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I am amazed by how many people seem to want to speculate about when schools will open since I can barely think beyond the end of the current day.
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Does it strike anyone else as ironic that they've decided to send back the age group that *aren't actually in compulsory education yet*. 🙄
#EYFS
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I have a deeply embedded memory of every single one of these. 😊😍
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Ofsted claiming to have been blindsided by Williamson. Strongly suspect it's more about them being taken by surprise at all the emails of praise that flooded in yesterday.
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If you ask educators what young children need at the moment, and what they have missed (which I have), the answers are social interactions, physical activity, communication skills and emotional support. *Not more knowledge.*
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I'm absolutely intrigued by the idea that we can stop children making marks before they know all the letters
@Ofstednews
. Should we hide the pens? 🤷♀️🛑🖊
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Please, I beg of everyone ...
It's not 'free', it's funded off the work of (mostly) women on minimum wage or less.
It's not 'childcare', it's early years education and care.
🙏
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I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of this narrative of children being 'behind'. We're most likely all 'behind' whatever random thing it was we had planned to achieve in the last 2 years. We're in a pandemic!
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Really fed up with hearing people on the radio saying 'everyone broke the rules'. No we didn't. Most of us have some self-discipline and respect for others. 👀
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Lost my uncle yesterday. My mum is really upset that she couldn't be with her brother before he died. Behind each of those numbers is someone's loved one.
#RIP
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Anyone who has ever hosted a birthday party for a toddler should understand why this early years ratio question is so pressing. 🤷♀️
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If
@educationgovuk
is serious about
#mentalhealth
they need to sort out CAMHS, not expect teachers to take on the job of medical professionals.
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Anyone else finding that their kids are really fatigued by the 'new normal' version of school? I have a feeling that it's the psychological stress as much as the physical experience of it.
#parenting
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I mean I have to say that this is pretty insulting in a majority female profession
@nadhimzahawi
. 🤷♀️
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I have a joke that I use when I'm working with teachers and it goes something like this ... 'Teaching is the only job where you nick stuff from your own home to take into work, rather than the other way around.' 😎
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With young people and teachers struggling with behaviour, maybe we need to consider whether there's a problem with the system not meeting people's needs, rather than pushing for ever tougher approaches? 🧵
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The idea that people are angry because they hate Cummings is strange. I don't give a stuff about Cummings, I'm angry because of the hypocrisy, the double standards and the lies. It's the breach of trust that is so painful. We were *not* in it together.
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You can't simultaneously believe that what happens in the early years is hugely important educationally and at the same time downgrade or even remove ratio requirements. It's that simple really.
@educationgovuk
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I'm stunned to see government claiming that lockdown began before it did. We were all there. My memory of the week leading up to 23 March is incredibly vivid because I was so desperate for them to call it and they kept delaying.
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Does anyone else feel like this country is literally falling apart at the seams?
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This idea of 100% attendance being achievable for all children, it's worth asking yourself if the government might start demanding that from adults too.
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If isolation is now only advisory, a parent could insist on sending in a child who has tested positive. How does
@educationgovuk
think staff, children and parents are going to feel about that? I'm really not here for this buck passing nonsense.
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Children are not adults and they should certainly not be doing a longer working week than many of us. They need time to relax and play. It's not difficult this stuff. 🤷♀️
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In our house we keep talking about how we don't really understand this country anymore. Anyone else feel the same?
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I could watch this all night. ❤
this is a baby secure in relationship: reaches out for
#connection
, knowing it will be given.. then smiles; you can almost see all the mirror neurons firing ❤️❤️Carrying children encourages
#earlyrelationships
; being able to see faces & engage
#carryingmatters
#buildahappybrain
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Given that it's still technically the 'Easter holidays' is it okay to let your kids slob around in their bedrooms all day? Asking for a friend etc. 🙄
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'Composition tasks' and 'dictation activities'. Just listen to yourselves
@Ofstednews
. They're four years old. 🤷♀️😐
#EYFS
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You wouldn't demand '100% attendance' from adults regardless of context so why on earth would you demand it from children? Sound bites make for terrible policies.
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Some very worrying stuff on Twitter tonight so I'm just going to leave this here.
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I'm sorry folks this is absolutely ridiculous. We're in a cost of living crisis!
Holderness Academy has defended placing a child in isolation for wearing the supermarket version, insisting parents were made aware of the policy in June.
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Harvesting sunflower seeds. Just look the patterns in this!
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Folks, if we're putting six year olds 'in detention' for being excited about their birthdays then maybe we need to have a word with ourselves?
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Given that 75% of teachers are female, I just cannot get past the fact that the DfE repeatedly picks 'expert panels' made up mostly of men. Why don't the people on these panels speak up?
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Imagine how out of touch you have to be, to write to schools on the last day of term, not about a pay settlement, or about pausing Ofsted, but about the govt's latest bigoted dog whistle. Honestly I give up!
@GillianKeegan
I am deeply concerned about reports of inappropriate RSHE lessons. Our urgent review will look at how the subject should be taught, protecting children and reassuring parents.
I have also written to schools to remind them of their duty to show parents materials used in lessons.
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There are loads of parents who feel really grateful to their children's teachers atm. Please don't let government PR make you doubt that.
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Can someone please tell government that if people "move to a better paid job" we won't have an early years workforce left to care for their children. Honestly the lack of joined up thinking is mind boggling. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
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