
An Ethic of Excellence
How do you embed excellence into schools’ everyday practices, not as an incidental or an accident, but as an actual ethic?
Whilst most educators are familiar with Austin’s Butterfly and the principles of improvement through critique towards excellence, fewer are aware of the foundations of that approach are Ron Berger’s Ethic of Excellence.
- June 28, 2022 9:00 am·

Best Bets for Improving Writing Stamina
Evidence from the EEF (May 2022) shows that Covid-related disruption has caused learning loss in children. There is some evidence that the writing outcomes for primary-aged and Year 7 children were lower than expected compared to previous year groups (Christodoulou, 2021, 2022). One of the common issues is that writing stamina has been heavily impacted.
- June 23, 2022 9:00 am·

The Principles of Effective Practice in Teaching Reading: Questioning the Author – Part 5
The point of Questioning the Author is to get children to grapple with an author’s ideas and, if necessary, to challenge an author’s intended meaning in an effort to build understanding.
- May 26, 2022 11:31 am·

The Principles of Effective Practice in Teaching Reading: Addressing barriers in Early Reading – Part 4
Take a moment to think about the children in your class or school. Which children still do not have good word recognition? Which of the barriers that I have outlined so far do you think might be holding them back?
- May 12, 2022 11:30 am·

The Principles of Effective Practice in Teaching Reading: Group Guided Reading in KS1 – Part 3
Whilst for some children, working with a teacher 1:1 might improve reading accuracy and fluency, this isn’t always possible; therefore, often we arrange children into groups for reading practice.
- April 28, 2022 9:29 am·

Foundations of Good Practice for Teaching Assistants – Summer 2022
This course will ensure that Teaching Assistants are equipped with the knowledge, skills and strategies which are required to support Quality First Teaching and enable pupils to get back on track.
- March 22, 2022 10:17 am·

Subject Expertise in Primary Series
In their evidence review published in June 2020, Evidence Based Education (EBE) and Cambridge Assessment International Education looked at the efficacy of teacher CPD in relation to student outcomes. They particularly focussed on the question, “What are the best bets for teachers to invest time and effort in if they want their students to learn more?”
- March 9, 2022 10:42 am·

The Principles of Effective Practice in Teaching Reading: Reading Fluency – Part 2
Developing reading fluency is an essential skill for children, as the ability to read fluently not only develops confidence and reading stamina, but it also supports comprehension. If we read a text too slowly, it is difficult to keep track of what it is about.
- March 4, 2022 12:00 pm·