This is a space for everyone working in primary education. Whether you're in the classroom, leading a school, or supporting learning this is your place to hear real, honest and relatable conversations about school life.
Originally hosted by Claire Riley for the first three seasons, Season 4 introduces new hosts Chris and Emma, bringing a fresh energy and plenty of staffroom-style chat.
Created in association with Classroom Secrets and proudly sponsored by them, the podcast is backed by research-informed, ready-to-use lesson content that supports adaptive teaching—helping you save time and focus on what matters most.
Grab a brew, pop your headphones in, and join us for a chat!
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Bringing Coaching Tools into the Classroom: Alice Westbury, education coach
Season 3 · Episode 24
Tuesday, April 26, 2022 • Duration 25:45
In this episode, I talk with Alice Westbury about bringing coaching tools and strategies into the classroom. Alice is an education coach who works primarily with young people but a lot of what she shares in this episode is so valuable to those who teach in primary settings.
In this episode, Alice shares:
Why she believes using coaching tools can help pupils in the classroom and beyond.
Why now is the time to start thinking about using coaching tools with pupils.
Real actionable tips teachers can use now to start implementing coaching tools in the classroom easily.
If you’d like to find out more about Alice, you can visit:
Healthy Eating in Schools Dan Parker, Chief Executive at Veg Power
Season 3 · Episode 14
Tuesday, January 25, 2022 • Duration 30:03
In this episode I chat with Dan Parker, the chief executive at Veg Power, about the upcoming Eat Them to Defeat Them campaign. Veg Power aim to get more children eating vegetables as a staggering 80% of children are not getting enough vegetables in their diets.
In this episode, Dan shares:
- What Veg Power and Eat Them to Defeat Them is.
- How the programme works in schools and the results he has seen from it.
- How schools can get involved.
If you’d like to find out more about Veg Power or the Eat Them to Defeat Them campaign, you can go to:
Heather Wright (Reading Rocks): How to make reading in your school ROCK!
Season 1 · Episode 12
Sunday, September 1, 2019 • Duration 01:00:24
In this episode, Claire meets with Heather Wright, a former teacher and founder of Reading Rocks, a project designed to develop the love of reading in children.
Heather talks about her teaching career and the opportunities she’s had, with the support of her school, to promote the love of reading. She explains the different strategies she has established within her school to assist parents and children develop this. Heather shares some advice on how teachers, schools and parents can develop the love of reading as well as explaining the importance of reading. She outlines the CPD training Reading Rocks offers and explains how reading should be approached in schools and in the classroom.
Heather and Claire explore the importance of reading and why it is the foundation for every child’s educational journey. They discuss some of the challenges schools and teachers may face with developing the love of reading as well as advice on how to overcome these.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Heather has been at the same school for 15 years and enjoys her role due to the district it belongs to and the challenges it faces.
She began her teaching career in Year 1 and moved on to teaching Key Stage 2. She was also the IT co-ordinator. After her maternity leave, Heather choose to work part-time and due to this she lost her TLR role.
As a part-time class teacher Heather’s headteacher saw the potential and creativity she had. With the support of her colleagues, they began reading research as they knew the impact reading for pleasure had on children’s future.
The ‘Year of Reading’ project started in 2014/15 as a whole school project to promote the love of reading within children. Children were exposed to various texts and reading materials to support them with their reading journey and ability.
One of the first campaigns within the project was ‘The Big Bedtime Read’ which is now well established and happens every year at her school.
When the idea was introduced to parents at the school, Heather anticipated around 30 parents, but to her surprise around 400 people gathered in the school field around the campfire, some in their pyjamas with a teddy and a book just simply reading.
Simon Hunt (Mr Hunt from the Front): Taking learning bigger than the classroom
Season 1 · Episode 11
Saturday, August 24, 2019 • Duration 01:09:11
In this episode, Claire meets with Simon Hunt, a Year 4 teacher at Tottington Primary School in Bury.
Alongside his teaching, Simon has developed his own website ‘Mr Hunt from the front’, and built online social media feeds, from where he offers advice, resources and CPD for teachers and schools.
Although arriving in teaching slightly later than normal, Simon has taught across all phases of Primary Education, and has worked in a variety of schools as a supply teacher and a permanent member of staff.
Simon talks with Claire about how sharing some resources on a Facebook page ‘took off’ and led to him reducing his teaching hours to offer CPD opportunities and work on a number of different projects with schools and other organisations such as HP and BT.
Discussing teaching in the classroom, Simon talks about the importance of giving children a purpose for their work, how beneficial it can be to take risks in teaching, and how technology can be incredibly useful if used well.
Simon shares exciting stories from his career including how a video of him ‘flossing’ went viral, and how a unit of work in class around the film ‘Blackfish’ eventually led to him taking a group of children to Brussels to deliver a petition to the European Parliament, attend a red-carpet film premiere, and take on representatives from SeaWorld in a question and answer session.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Never be afraid to take risks and give things a go. The best lessons and most valuable learning experiences can follow from activities where a bit of risk is involved. Being risk-averse can also inadvertently mean we put a ‘cap’ on where activities might go without considering what could actually be achieved. Taking risks does, of course, mean that things might go wrong or not work, but it’s worth remembering that usually a lot will go right.
Remember that teachers should be facilitators of learning. In an ideal lesson, teachers should be able take a ‘step back’ with the children doing the work. While teachers do still have a role teaching and helping to guide what happens in their lessons, with a little groundwork, children can usually confidently guide themselves in their learning more than we might think.
Lee Parkinson (ICT with Mr P): Technology in the classroom
Season 1 · Episode 10
Saturday, August 17, 2019 • Duration 01:36:26
In this episode, Claire meets with Lee Parkinson also known as Mr P, a part-time teacher, entrepreneur, technology guru and trainer. Mr P starts by explaining how he started his teaching journey as well as juggling his home life with triplets and a stepson!
Mr P and Claire explore the importance of technology within education today. He discusses how schools can embed and incorporate technology within their curriculum and how this can support to reduce teacher’s workload.
They discuss the challenges schools face with funding, society, accountability, workload, curriculum, social media and pressures of delivering technology lessons. He explains the various CPD and INSET training he provides to teachers and schools with technology and computing as well as support on how this can be integrated into the curriculum on a day to day basis.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Mr P has been teaching for 12 years.
He explains how the headteacher at his school encouraged him to take leadership roles and advised him to take on PPA cover to enable him to broaden his experience across the Key Stages.
His headteacher encouraged him to develop his curriculum area, which at the time was ICT.
Mr P. explains how he progressed in his role as ICT co-ordinator and the challenges he faced with the lack of resources at his school.
He asked the school for better technology and bought a class set of iPads. He then worked with each year group for a half term and looked at how mobile technology can enhance learning.
He then started a school Twitter and Facebook page to help engage with pupils and the wider world. He saw a positive response from the social media accounts as there was lots of engagement from his audience.
Julian Woods recommended that he should start a teacher Twitter account.
He started sharing ‘How to’ videos and blog posts on the teacher page.
In 2012, he created a Facebook page and by the end of that academic year he was asked to do training sessions.
Alan Peat contacted Mr P because he was interested to bring someone on board who can look at technology. They both then worked together to build each other’s businesses and ideas.
Alison Philipson (AP Literacy): Reading, writing and spelling in schools
Season 1 · Episode 9
Saturday, August 10, 2019 • Duration 39:52
In this episode, Claire meets with Alison Philipson, an independent literacy consultant who works predominantly in Yorkshire and the North West of England. Alison discusses how she supports schools and teachers with their English teaching focusing on strategies to develop reading and writing - in particular, how schools can help children to improve with their spelling.
Claire talks with Alison about how she moved from working in a wide variety of different jobs - such as telephone sales, finance and advertising – to enjoying a volunteer role in her local school which ignited her interest in teaching. Alison discusses how becoming a Leading Literacy teacher led to her working for the Local Education Authority’s English department supporting schools and then, ultimately, leaving to create her own consultancy company.
Alison also reflects on aspects of other educational roles she has held such as being a moderator and assessment lead for the Local Authority. She shares her thoughts on these roles and gives some tips for schools and teachers based on her experiences.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Modelled, Shared and Guided writing. Modelling writing while children observe can be incredibly useful. Plumbers or electricians new to their jobs would initially learn by seeing more experienced people, and this is the same for children and writing. It is also useful as a way to model the best use of resources in the classroom such as Working Walls. However, it is also one of the more difficult aspects of teaching because teachers have to be good writers. This can be more difficult if it is not your passion.
Guided writing has fallen out of the spotlight Guided writing was quite a big aspect of teaching writing in the 2000's but seems to have taken a bit of a ‘back seat’ since. However, it can be very useful as it allows teachers to spend time focusing in more detail with groups or individuals about how to improve their work.
Children can’t learn to spell if they don’t practise. Spelling is a particular concern in a significant number of schools. But how often do children practise and apply their spelling knowledge? A ‘real world’ parallel would be putting up a tent: watching someone put a tent up a few times probably won’t help someone learn how to do it well. However, having a go putting a tent up, and then practising doing it regularly afterward will help the knowledge stick. It is the same with children’s spelling. Ten to fifteen minutes a day focusing on spelling is needed to allow knowledge to be regularly taught, applied and embedded.
James Holmes (Mark Mate/Dragon’s Den): The impact of marking on teacher workload
Season 1 · Episode 8
Saturday, August 3, 2019 • Duration 56:40
In this episode, Claire meets with James Holmes, owner and developer of MarkMate: a software-based marking system that enables teachers to significantly reduce the time they spend marking by enabling them to quickly give high-quality feedback on their pupils’ work.
Claire talks with James about his journey from starting out as a Year 1 teacher, through to working in Key Stages 2 and 3, and how the excessive demands on time for marking prompted James to develop his new system. James discusses how, without an I.T. background, he self-taught the programming skills he now has, and how his revolutionary new software featured on the BBC’s Dragons’ Den show.
James also discusses the wider implications of the current drive within schools to improve workloads by changing marking processes – including schools that are looking at removing it entirely.
In addition, James shares his thoughts on other ways he feels schools could improve workloads and work/life balance, the biggest changes he has seen in his time in education, and what the school system could look at to improve for the future.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
If you’re interested in it, anyone can learn programming skills. While technology – and in particular programming – can seem scary or confusing for those who do not have a background in the area, if you have the time and the drive to get into this field, there is a wealth of resources and support out there, and anyone can self-teach themselves.
Technology can enhance all kinds of things. Although there has been a big drive to give computing a higher profile in the classroom, it has started to take more of a backseat again. However, the benefits of teaching children about technology and programming go way beyond the computing curriculum. Children can pick up and develop a wide range of skills which can be applied much more widely and are not necessarily linked to technology, such as logical thinking and considered approaches to problem-solving.
Exposure of ideas will help get them ‘out there’. For any teachers (or entrepreneurs in any field) who have developed a revolutionary idea, it can be really hard to get your idea to ‘take off’. Getting your idea out there and showcased can make a huge difference.
Becky Lambton (Itchy Robot): School Websites are a Window for the World
Season 1 · Episode 7
Saturday, July 27, 2019 • Duration 25:35
In this Teachers’ Podcast episode, Claire meets with Becky Lambton, the present Commercial Director at iTCHYROBOT. Becky’s background and experience lies within strategic marketing; having graduated in marketing and spending several years in the commercial world honing her skills, she later joined iTCHYROBOT in 2014 where she was tasked with helping grow and develop the business. iTCHYROBOT’s main goal at this point was to help businesses improve their processes or efficiencies by utilising their websites to their fullest potential.
Becky notes that it was during this same year (2014) when iTCHYROBOT ended up working with their first school, subsequently creating their first school’s website. It was at this point where she experienced ‘a lightbulb moment’ and concluded that the benefits that businesses gained from improving their communications for commercial usage would also prove to be extremely beneficial to the educational sector.
Since iTCHYROBOT’s website, the company has grown massively and have gone on to develop a web platform on top of school websites in order to help improve overall efficiency in the school environment.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Tips for schools: How to make your website stand out from others. A school website should be reflective of the entire school, for example, the school’s values. Many existing school websites tend to be more template based, with the same, generic information located on the school’s home page. A school’s website is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate what makes it unique and should bring focus on the celebration that is happening ‘inside’ of it. Ultimately, it should be a ‘showcase’ or a ‘window to your school’; parents and the larger community may never get the opportunity to see the amazing things an insider does, so it is important to make these things apparent.
Statutory Publishing and the influence of this on websites. When schools first started creating websites, it was purely done in order to publish statutory information (a checklist of regulations given to schools by the Department of Education). This includes a variety of things such as how Pupil Premium and Sport Premium Funding is spent, Governance Information, Curriculum Content and OFSTED reports. It is important that a school website is viewed more than just a means of publishing statutory documentation, and more as a platform in which schools can promote themselves. For example, by using the information from Statutory Publishing, things such as key quotes from OFSTED reports can be used to help promote a school and their values. Statutory Publishing, therefore, needs to ‘look exciting’ in order to encourage visitors on the website to ‘want to find out more.
Liz Davison (Thornton Primary School): Headship in an Academy and the Effect of Budgets
Season 1 · Episode 6
Friday, July 26, 2019 • Duration 53:46
In this episode, Claire chats with Elizabeth Davison, Headteacher at Thornton Primary School in Bradford, about her journey through education and teaching, and the challenges of leading a large primary school in a time of austerity and financial pressure. School leaders and teachers across the country are regularly reporting how they are finding it increasingly difficult to run their schools and classrooms effectively with dwindling budgets, but also alongside ever-increasing accountability.
Elizabeth shares her perceptions on these issues and discusses how she is leading her school in a challenging educational climate so that it continues to provide a good education for the pupils while keeping morale up, and maintaining a life/work balance for all staff.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Make the most of any leadership experience you can get. While being mindful of how much you take on, if you have your sights set on being a future leader, any experiences of leadership you can get can be valuable and useful opportunities.
Academy funding is, essentially, very similar to Local Authority funding. The differences in the amount the school receives will generally be negligible. What makes the biggest difference is the effectiveness of the support a school gets from its Academy Trust for the share of the funding they take.
Insufficient school funding is causing significant issues. With staffing costs being the greatest expense for a school, that is generally where savings will end up being made for most schools who are facing serious funding concerns. A lack of staff will, ultimately, negatively impact the pupils in a school in a number of ways. The expectations of OfSTED and of those in charge of education have not changed and have arguably been raised, which leaves schools facing an uphill struggle to maintain standards despite having to lose the very people who help to make the standards achievable.
More pupils than ever are in need of support, but some will lose out. With schools losing staff and local services being cut, tough decisions are having to be made about which pupils can be supported effectively, or, more worryingly, at all. Where support is not legally required to be given, and there is no capacity to provide it due to lack of funding, schools might have very few options left to them.
Despite working at a school with a high percentage of Pupil Premium (PP) children and low parental involvement, Heather and her team were able to create an environment where reading was promoted and celebrated for parents and children.
Heather and her team contacted the local rabbit rescue centre and welcomed ‘Bug Bunnies’. Children in Key Stage 1 then read to the rabbits.
Throughout that academic year, Heather used social media as a platform to promote the work she was doing in her school. She also used this medium to contact and interact with authors and illustrators.
Heather held her first reading conference with an audience of 150 people. She held another conference due to high demand and this allowed the opportunity for schools and teachers to share their hard work.
These two conferences ran through the school’s administration but now the conferences are delivered by Reading Rocks and take place across the country.
To support children with reading and help them develop the love of reading, Heather suggests that we should read to children and find our own passion for reading and share that with the children. Young children’s interest should be linked to the text that they are reading or is being read to them. She suggests that girls and boys should not be classed as two separate groups. What is done for the girls should be done for the boys.
Books should be for all and everyone should be included.
She tried to incorporate STEM to develop the love of reading.
Heather suggests that we should reduce the pressure of reading i.e. not saying “we are sitting down to read rather” normalising and making it feel natural.
Children need to build a familiarity with the books they read.
Heather believes that the ‘love of reading’ cannot be taught, but the love of reading can be nurtured by modelling and preserving with it.
Reading corners – they must be used. Children should be given the opportunity to use them. They key is to having good books. The books must be valuable for them to have an impact.
The teacher’s attitude and approach towards reading can influence a child’s approach towards reading. It should be portrayed in a positive light, reading sessions and reading corners should be positively promoted in order for children to develop the love of reading.
Picture books for STEM links – Rosie Revere, Izzy Gizmo.
Support for classes with a lower reading ability can have books read to them but children need to develop their own fluency, stamina and involvement of reading. If the book has been read to them, they could then re-read it to develop fluency.
Most important reading skill: the skill of decoding. Solid decoding skills are essential to get to the rich fruit of comprehension. It is paramount that the enjoyment and engagement of reading runs alongside the skill of decoding.
Heather recommends that there should be an established time each day so there is a rhythm and routine where children know what is expected.
Non-fiction Friday – throughout the week children read fiction books at a designated time but on a Friday, everyone reads a non-fiction text.
Heather states that children should be given the time to read, it should be valued, it should take place every day at the same time so children can expect it and look forward to it.
Children must have the tools for this i.e. making sure they have the stamina, fluency and decoding skills.
Heather understands the budget restraints schools face.
Heather suggests having two designated reading times where the teacher is reading aloud to the children. They can take place in the morning and afternoon but she emphasis that they must take place every day during school hours.
Children should be encouraged to choose their own reading book but school staff (teachers or support staff) should guide them.
Whole class VS small group guided reading sessions – Heather suggest there is no right or wrong, it’s about what works best for you. Personally, Heather likes whole class guided reading for Key Stage 2. She believes teachers can effectively challenge the children by sharing a good quality text.
Tips for reading for pleasure at home – build the want and desire within the children. Parental engagement – bring the school community together and ensure they value it by using the resources that are available to them, for example a public library.
Reading Rocks Conference – 2 types of CPD events and it includes 3/4 keynote speakers, authors, education speakers and 2 workshops slots.
3 biggest changes in education – paperwork, pressure from OFSTED, teachers communicating via social media.
Education in the next 10 years – revolution where teachers are and the profession is valued. The art and craft of teaching should be valued. Trusting practitioners who know what they are doing.
BEST MOMENTS
“If you cut them, they are like a stick of rock and the district runs right through them.”
“It was the best year of my teaching career. I think it always will be.”
“The overarching aim of the project was to drench the children in all things reading.”
“We had about 400 people in the field.”
“Don’t treat them as two separate groups.”
“If we polarise them, by saying those books are for the boys and those books are for the girls we are doing them a disservice.”
“You need to relate back to your own experience of reading.”
“Reading is the key to everything in the curriculum.”
“If children cannot read then they can’t access Science, Geography or other areas of the curriculum.”
“You have to know your books, but you also have to know your children.”
“They experience that endorphin; they experience that lovely bit of reading.”
“Learning is not linear.”
“It will click at different times with different children when they can access longer books.”
“Reading is the film inside your head that’s why it is better than telly.”
“There’s a special relationship between you and the author. Your version of that book is different to somebody else’s version of that.”
“There is nothing wrong with over reading and using picture books.”
“The sooner you can allow children to be choosing their own content the better quality reading you will get.”
“Wherever it is, make it sacrosanct.”
“We need to talk to them about what it feels like when a book is right for you.”
“The list never ends. It is absolutely okay to drop one of those spinning plates.”
Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide.
Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff.
Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend.
The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.
There are no limits to where lessons can take you. By allowing children to take more of a lead with their learning, a lesson’s direction can go in an infinite, and exciting, number of ways. It can be surprising and enlightening to see where children can take the direction of a lesson and what learning opportunities present themselves.
Teaching children how to be resilient, to think critically and how to analyse arguments are incredibly valuable skills in the modern world. With almost constant social media exposure and pervasive factually incorrect reporting, giving children the skills to critically analyse what they are told and be resilient enough to deal with negativity is crucial. While there are many valid reasons for us to be wary of, and keep a watchful eye on, use of social media, it should not be something to shy away from using as it does offer many opportunities both through opening up teaching and learning points, but also for building links with other individuals or organisations who can offer valuable opportunities.
Work with a purpose. Keeping the work that children do purposeful and valid will be a powerful motivator for them to continually do their best. Writing to or messaging real people or companies (in particular authors) who can look at the children’s work, give interviews or write back to the class will give the children a reason for their work and encourage them to put their best into tasks knowing that the result might be seen by others outside the school.
Learn from mistakes. Things do go wrong or just don’t work as intended – particularly where risks are taken. Teachers can be especially self-critical, but we need to learn to be ok with it when this happens. Even things that go wrong are learning opportunities and, as long as you’re learning, it’s worth it.
Tap into creative writing by allowing children to write for themselves. It can help to promote interest in writing where children can experiment with language and can write for themselves without worrying about it being assessed and marked. Having their own ‘draft’ book or ‘jotter’ just to have a go at writing whatever they want can take the pressure away from feeling like they should only write if it is going to be their best.
Use technology wisely. Technology in the classroom can be incredibly useful and can really enhance learning. However, it shouldn’t just be used for the sake of it or because it’s there. Tablet computers which are just used day-in-day-out for internet research are not making the best use of that technology. Likewise, loading 60 apps onto a tablet that people don’t know how to make the best use of will likely go unused.
BEST MOMENTS “It’s great because I get four days in class which is still the favourite part of my week.”
“When I do CPD sessions for example, or when I go into schools, everything I talk about that works, I can say I know it works because I did it last week or I did it the week before. I think teachers relate to that because I’m still in the classroom, I’m still in touch with what’s going on.”
“I’m glad I took that risk. If I hadn’t have done I wouldn’t have known about these other things that could have happened. I would have still loved it in my class, I’d still have been in class full-time but I wouldn’t have had these opportunities that I’ve had. I love teaching. I think it’s the best job in the world and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“It was the best lesson I’ve ever done. I literally just stood in the corner while the children had a full-on debate and discussion with a scientist - someone that’s been on TV.”
“That saying ‘whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’... schools should have the opposite effect. Whatever happens in the classroom should go out of the classroom. That really explains what I’m about. By giving children the tools to look at both sides of an argument and make their own viewpoints, it’s just a skill to have no matter what you look at.”
“Sometimes things don’t always go well, but I think you learn just as much from those things that don’t go well as something that does.”
“A lot of the children say they want to be a YouTuber [when they’re older]. That’s one of the number one things. As a teacher you can either just ignore that or you can tap into it a little bit. When we do poetry we always record it because poetry is supposed to be performed. Whenever we do lessons we record it and put it on YouTube.”
Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide.
Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff.
Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend.
The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.
Mr P goes on to explain that he learnt a lot about the business side from Alan. They continued to work together and wrote a few books together.
He continued providing CPD training in schools and shared blogs on his pages. He continued to see the success of this and began to create more videos including comical and light-hearted videos of life as a teacher.
The growth and success of his blogs and pages was increasingly rapidly.
He explains the advantages of social media and the support it provides to teachers. It opens the world for teachers to communicate and discuss issues that they be having as well as the opportunity to seek advice from each other.
Nonetheless, he mentions the undesirable aspect of social media as people can be negative online.
It is important that the curriculum is meaningful and purposeful for your school and pupils.
Although Mr P has been working with developing technology within schools for the past 5 years, he doesn’t think it has moved forward as much as he would have liked it to.
The main focus of his training is getting teachers to look at ways they can use technology and helping them to use it more efficiently. He would like technology to be used more creatively but this requires a big culture change as well as the time for teachers to develop and understand this.
He believes schools don’t utilise technology enough to justify the cost.
He narrates that a school has saved up to £10,000 in two years, by using ideas from the technology training which has ultimately reduced paperwork, printing and teachers’ time outside of the classroom.
He believes there should be a lot more education and coverage on technology particularly social media.
He believes there is a taboo around social media for schools, whereby teachers believe they cannot discuss or talk about social media with children as this may encourage them to use it. He disagrees with this as he believes we need to prepare our children as it is part of the world they are growing up into.
He suggests that teachers should raise awareness of social media amongst children as well as help them to understand it. He suggests that this does not ultimately encourage children to use it.
Mr P has moved his CPD online on to his website (see valuable resources for website link).
Teachers and schools can subscribe to his website where he offers support and training on app tutorials, looking at ways at how apps can enhance the whole curriculum etc.
It is not a resource website; it is a CPD website for teachers to access and understand how to use technology more effectively.
He explains that teachers need to move away from using technology as a consumer i.e. browse the internet, watch videos, read e-books etc.
We need to move from being consumers to creators where we can create videos, designing e-books etc. This allows us to go from engaging to empowering.
Mr P focuses on children using technology to create and where this can be adapted in different ways.
Book creator – an app that allows children to create their own e-book, embed video, pictures, auto-draw option. This app can be used for any topics across the curriculum.
We focus on the what, not the why! Children need not only to be taught the what, they must be taught the why. The application of the skill is vital to ensure children develop a deeper understanding of the programme/context.
Focus of a skill should be seen in context, whether that be in technology or within writing, mathematics or other areas of the curriculum.
Technology should not replace what we are using rather it should enhance what we are using.
Mr Ps social media handle has now become a hobby where he can engage with his followers.
Mr P narrates a lesson he delivered to a Year 4 class where he filtered and edited his selfie on an app. He explains the changes he made to the image. He then explains the discussion the class had about why people do it and why people shouldn’t do it. Details about this lesson are on Mr P’s Facebook page.
For most of the working week he travels to deliver training, CPD and INSET days to different schools. At the end of the week, he continues his role as a part-time teacher.
He now offers a year group cluster training whereby schools can cluster up with local schools, book him for 7 days and receive training for each year group over the course of the 7 days.
Mr P would recommend the following computing schemes: Barefoot Computing, Mr P’s website will also have resources available, Code it, Hour of Code, Code.org, Digital-Literacy, National Online Safety (see Valuable Resources for website links).
The computing lessons that Mr P delivers in his schools focuses on the Computer Science (decoding, programming etc).
The Digital Literacy objectives are covered with the rest of the curriculum. This work is then published on the school’s social media page which demonstrates how to be a positive, responsible digital learner in a purposeful way.
One thing in education Mr P disagrees with is the accountability in schools. He suggests that is due to the society we live in and the ‘blame culture’.
Leadership should let go of the accountability. Schools focus should move away from books and book scrutinies. This creates a mentality for teachers where they are led to believe it is all about the books and it also narrows the curriculum.
The book scrutiny at Mr Ps schools is called a ‘Learning Review’. They look at the books and Seesaw app on the iPads. He states that Seesaw has the biggest impact on workload at his school because it works as a digital exercise book for children.
Children can log in to Seesaw by scanning a QR code and evidence their learning using the app. This opportunity allows children to evidence their learning online which embeds the Digital Literacy skills.
Mr P’s number app that he would recommend is Seesaw. Tutorials on his website (see link in Valuable Resources) are available.
Mr P recommends that schools should buy every member of staff/teacher an iPad and for the first year they should solely focus on exploring and using the iPad to understand how they can use this within their teaching. How can it help them with their planning? How can it be mirrored to the board? How can the work be evidenced through Seesaw?
Written text is an integral part of technology. All ideas must be written down for them to be developed and progressed into any form of technology.
He believes that the reason why teachers are leaving the profession is due to workload. Workload is directly linked to wellbeing and because schools are not managing their workload effectively the wellbeing aspect has turned into a token gesture.
If the labelling culture from OFTSED was taken away it would be a game changer.
The three biggest changes he has seen in education; change in government, change in curriculum and focus on accountability.
He would like education to be funded sufficiently, trust should be given back to teachers, get rid of OFSTED and technology should be used more effectively.
BEST MOMENTS
“I am so grateful for the support both him (Alan Peat) and Julian gave me in those early days. It was just incredible.”
“No matter wherever you are teaching in the world, there’s that universal life as a teacher that we can appreciate and have a laugh at. If we didn’t laugh, we would cry.”
“I am contracted to work to one day a week but if I am free, I’ll go in and help out wherever I can.”
“As teachers we only see the problem within our own school, we can lose sight and not appreciate how could we have got it in certain ways.”
“The curriculum is so unique to your school in lots of ways. One school’s curriculum is going to very different from your school.”
“Funding is the biggest reason why schools don’t make as much out of technology at the minute.”
“The Great Hack on Netflix is a must watch.”
“Data now is more expensive than oil.”
“You cannot be creative without knowledge.”
“If we don’t give children the opportunity to create and apply that knowledge creatively, what’s the point?”
“SATS isn’t assessment.”
“My must haves would be a TA.”
“Education is a political ball game.”
“Technology is not an overnight thing.”
“Don’t call them book looks because that winds me up, how you have got to make everything rhyme in education.”
“If it doesn’t have a direct impact on the kid’s learning, stop doing it.”
“Vlogging is such a powerful tool, we don’t utilise it enough.”
“Writing is the starting point to absolutely everything.”
“Writing is so incredibly important, but we can now use the technology to go a step further with the writing.”
“The only universal way to in which we can improve teachers’ wellbeing is to give them time.”
“Stop the faff, stop the nonsense.”
“OFSTED don’t raise standards. OFSTED check standards to their own subjective views.”
“Social media has an impact on teaching.”
“Technology is all about balance and making the right choices with it.”
Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide.
Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff.
Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend.
The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.
For key assessments, don’t be hesitant to use the strategies you can. For assessed and moderated pieces of work, while children can’t ask the teacher for help, there are things they can do. Seeking support from each other, passing books around to share ideas and using spelling banks are all examples of pupils being independent learners which are permitted.
Spelling has a big impact on assessments. Children can have the most fantastic and creative ideas, and can be great writers, but their assessments will not reflect this if they are poor at spelling. Schools starting a regular focus on spelling lower down in school can really help to make a difference by the end of the key stages.
The number one area for CPD in writing should be supporting teachers to develop themselves as writers. It is really hard to be a good writer while modelling ‘on the spot’ for children. Teachers are generally natural readers, but very few teachers write for pleasure and can find it difficult.
Writing alongside children in lessons can be powerful. Having a go at writing what you expect the children to write alongside them can be really useful to compare and look at the positives in all pieces and enable children to see how you have approached different aspects of the work.
Giving the children time to practise is important. The new curriculum has been good for promoting a focus on the consolidation of learning. With the significant number of things teachers need to fit into a term, it can be easy to end up cramming lessons in and squeezing out the time children could use to just ‘have a go’ at putting into practice what they have learned. Children do need time to broaden their understanding of what they cover and embed their learning.
The curriculum now is much less subjective than it was before. The statements in the curriculum are what makes a child age-related. It is not best-fit as it once was. A key problem which teachers voice is how best to judge writing for Years 1, 3, 4 and 5, which can be tricky as the main focus of assessments is aimed at Years 2 and 6. A good knowledge of the statements for their year-group is what teachers need, and there are resources (see https://apliteracy.com/) available to help with this.
BEST MOMENTS
“I don’t ever consider myself as having left teaching because that’s why I’m here today: because of my love and passion for it.”
“It is awful having to say to a teacher, ‘Yes, they’ve got great ideas, the punctuation is there, the grammar – fantastic – but the spelling’s not there.”
“Teachers get reading more because most teachers are readers – we read for pleasure, so we get it. Whereas we write lists, we plan, we might write WAGOLLS, but we don’t write for pleasure. We don’t practise. We don’t do it day in day out.”
“I often ask on my courses ‘who writes for pleasure’? Very, very, very few people put their hands up.”
“It’s all about the pace of learning, not the pace of teaching.”
“I would never say, ‘Throw all that out and just do it my way.’ Keep what works and adapt it to work even better.”
“I have really missed working with children… but I do love what I’m doing. I try to think of the all the teachers I work with, all of their children as my children.”
“I do fervently believe that [the work/life balance] comes from within a school: the philosophy and the trust of the leadership team with the teachers.”
“I go into schools where [staff well-being] really is a top priority and that’s absolutely brilliant, especially for new teachers who haven’t got the experience to know what’s important and prioritise.”
“If you feel valued, and that you are important, you are going to learn and get to where you need to be.”
Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide.
Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff.
Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend.
The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.
Teachers are being given more trust now than they have for quite a while. While teachers might say that it still feels as though there is a significant hill yet to climb, schools do seem to be giving more scope for trying things out in the classroom, even if it doesn’t end up working. A big difference now is that an increasing number of educational leaders will listen to those ‘on the ground’ about what works and what doesn’t, and what could work.
Engaging pupils with marking, and making feedback as personalised and specific as possible, can encourage and motivate pupils. Marking with little or no engagement by pupils is not time well spent for teachers. Having a system which allows teachers to give useful, personalised and worthwhile feedback, and then allowing pupils time to do something with it, will see gains in learning. Pupils will be much more motivated to improve their work where they feel that it has been valued, and where they can see a benefit to following up on comments and suggestions.
There could be a danger that ‘no marking’ policies might end up working to the detriment of pupil progress. Although there is definitely a place for on-the-spot verbal feedback, classroom conversations and one-to-one discussions about work, it is really hard for teachers to do this effectively with a significant number of pupils and for these approaches to have the desired impact. Teachers do work very hard to move children on, but there is a concern that ‘no marking’ policies might end up reducing pupils’ engagement with their work where they feel it is not valued or worthy of effort. James believes that MarkMate helps maintain a ‘conversational’ feel to marking which keeps pupils engaged, but also keeps teachers’ workloads to a minimum.
School budgets are tight but, when looking for solutions, how are priorities balanced against money being spent? Decisions in schools will, particularly at the moment, always come back to money. While it can feel easier to dismiss ideas or possible solutions on the basis of cost, if something will demonstrably improve an aspect of the school, it can be worth additional consideration because the long-term benefits could well outweigh the cost.
There are parallels between the skills teachers use and those needed in the business world. For any teachers wanting to make a leap into the commercial sector, many of the processes and skills that they regularly use in school can be really helpful: starting with desired outcomes and planning ‘backwards’ to achieve them, being target-orientated, and having good organisational skills are all very useful in a business environment.
BEST MOMENTS
“The students felt like their teacher was talking to them when they were reading [the marking comments] because it was almost conversational.”
“When I was marking books, I knew what I wanted to say, but I would condense it as much as possible to fit it onto that piece of paper.”
“Schools work in different ways and you don’t want to up-heave everything and change everyone’s systems. One personal bugbear… from when I was a teacher was the frustration with schools and higher-level bodies to allow change in policies if there’s something that has a positive impact.”
“From personal experience, I’m hearing a lot at the moment from schools about going down the ‘no marking’ policies. On the surface of it it’s a fantastic approach for work/life balance and teacher retention and it’s a real positive step that people are listening. But for me there was always huge value in the marking I was doing because of the way I delivered it and the way I allowed the students to respond to that marking.”
“[MarkMate] helps with that evidence… Anyone can pick that book up - supply teacher, TA, LSA can pick that book up - and see exactly what’s happened in the last week, in the last month… If you’re going away from written feedback, how is that going to be passed on to other adults? You don’t want to be going in an repeating the same things.”
“There’s a huge emphasis at the moment on teacher retention and work/life balance and well-being which should have been there from day one. It’s not a new concept.” “I’m so grateful that I got into teaching… for so many different reasons. I've taken so much away from that even down to the way that you meet new people and talk to new people.”
“I wouldn’t be here doing this if I didn’t honestly know that it makes marking quicker… I had that light-bulb moment when I marked my first set of books. A set of English books would have normally would have taken me 2 or 3 hours, and even my feedback then would not have been not that great quality if I’m being honest with myself. And then when I marked with [MarkMate] it was 41 minutes.”
“You love teaching for being in the classroom and for working with those students and having that impact however big or however small. What I don’t love is all the other stuff that goes along with it. There was a real turning point when my daughter was born and I was spending more time on other people’s children than I was on my child.”
Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide.
Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff.
Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend.
The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.
Exciting developments for iTCHYROBOT and schools in the future. iTCHYROBOT have set themselves an ambitious goal for the future; to be the sole solution for communication, engagement and compliance for schools in the UK and beyond. The reasoning for this specific goal is that currently, schools are using a variety of different applications, communication tools and platforms to meet a range of different needs. iTCHYROBOT aims to integrate these systems, where possible, in order to create a single solution on one single platform, thereby solving multiple needs all at once.
What this means for schools and staff workload. A school website should almost act as a ‘bespoke service’ where it looks at how the school runs and how it communicates. By providing this, the workload of staff should also, hopefully, lighten. For example, instead of inputting the same information multiple times across different platforms, it can be uploaded once and then automatically outputted to where it needs to be shown. This can already be a particularly difficult thing within businesses and schools; by having the website act as a ‘central point within a school for all communications’ overall efficiency and communication should improve dramatically.
A school website is only as good as the content on it. A school website needs to be a whole school approach where everybody is supporting it and views it with the same value, including senior leaders, teachers, pupils and parents. There are various elements to the running of a website and an emphasis on ‘shared responsibility’ is a necessity. This does not necessarily mean creating more work for staff members but emphasise that the website should be a central point where everybody will both contribute to and benefit from.
Experience with using iTCHYROBOT in the past is not needed. When starting out with a website with iTCHYROBOT, advise and support will be given. Web statistics is also something that is offered by iTCHYROBOT which tracks the number of hits on different pages on the website. For example, if the Statutory pages are the most frequently visited in a short span of time, there is even an opportunity to pre-empt visits from certain individuals. The use of statistics and ‘hits’ could also be used to encourage pupils to get involved with the website; pupils could be encouraged to run small campaigns to see who can get the most ‘hits’ on a page, which could even be integrated with the curriculum by linking it to statistics in Maths.
A school website should be used properly, effectively and bring real value. iTCHYROBOT supports schools with advice, marketing and communication strategies (both internally and externally). It is noted how various elements on websites are often missed, e.g. the admission pages for perspective parents. Limited information is often a key issue which may deter potential new starters. Similarly, staff pages and vacancy options are often left out, which means school could lose out on key visitors such as potential new recruits.
Schools are moving ever closer towards a business model with the implementation of academies. Learning from people from the business sector has never been more important due to the dramatic change in how schools are run. It is imperative that those in the education sector utilise the lessons from business professionals and experts. Ultimately, a school website is more than just complying with one market, it should serve a variety of different people where the information provided is useful to all visitors. Artificial intelligence, virtual schools and digitisation has enabled more people to access education in more ways than ever before so the information on a website should be both important and vital to visitors.
BEST MOMENTS
“In 2014, we worked with our first school and did our first school website, and something sort of, I don’t know, a light bulb sort of turned on and thought ‘well, we’re doing all of this to improve efficiencies and adding value and improving communications for commercials, this is really what the education sector and schools need to start doing as well.”
“Since our first website, we work now, grown massively and we have developed a web platform on top of the school website so schools can do the parents’ evening online, there’s lots of integration with management information systems, to improve efficiency in the school environment.”
“…for me, it’s all about making the school website reflective of your school. I think a lot of the school websites that we do see tend to be more template based, they’ve got the same things on the home page. I think a school website is a really good opportunity for you to celebrate why your school is unite, the difference in your school and it should be a celebration of everything inside the school...”
“…back when schools first started with school websites, it was purely for that purpose – to publish statutory information on the website… a checklist of regulations that have been given to schools by the DfE that they’ve got to publish on their websites…”
“…you do go onto a school website and it looks exactly like that statutory content, where for me, don’t just publish your OFSTED report, identify key quotes from your OFTSED report and say what OFSTED found unique about your school, again, to fit with your school values and that celebration of your school that you’re trying to portray on your school website…”
“…what we’re trying to achieve from our product is to enable people to enable something once and automatically output that information to where it needs to either be published or to be shown, to stop you from suffering.”
“…run a competition to see who can get the most hits on the school website, integrate curriculum within it, your maths curriculum, anything to look at statistics and analyse the usage of the website! Encourage them to sort of run little campaigns to try and encourage use and visits to the website.”
“…there’s a lot of talk about people leaving education, but education is still a fanatic industry… but there’s never anything on the school website either about how they support their staff. If you go on any business sites, there’s a careers section and it’s got… investors in people and the benefits and I never see anything like that. One of the key visitors that will come to your school website are potential new recruits…”
“A school website is more than just compliance for one market. You’ve got lots of different people looking at the website and you’ve got to have something that is going to be useful to them.”
“I always ask the question, well, ‘Do they know that it exists?’, ‘How do you communicate with them?’, ‘Do you tell them that you’re putting your newsletters on the website?’, ‘Is it easy to find?’, ‘Is your website easy to navigate?’.”
“If you’re going to use you’re website as a communication tool, first and foremost, is it on every single letter than your sending out to your parents?”
“To me, it’s all about those unsung heroes… I go into schools and obviously speak to them about their vision and values and thing like that, and they always a have a really nice story to tell… the teachers will take time off out of their own school holiday time to go into the school because some of the children still need that place to go and that support… inspiration wise, it’s those people who are making that difference.”
Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide.
Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff.
Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend.
The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.
School staff are key. Keeping the school functioning as effectively as possible and providing a good education for the pupils depends entirely on the staff you have. Where staff have been lost, those who remain are picking up the workloads which are no longer being covered, and schools are increasingly relying on the hard work, effort and goodwill of these people.
As a leader, do what you can to make the life/work balance manageable. Teachers are, generally, very committed to their schools, and will usually ‘just work harder’ to cover lost staff or increased workloads. But even the little things leaders can do will help. Reducing unnecessary workloads wherever possible can make a significant difference: only collecting data when absolutely needed, reduced marking, paperwork and admin, time off where convenient and motivating CPD experiences.
Be led by the interests of the children. To engage a class, you have to be passionate about the subject you are teaching; but that isn’t usually enough on its own. Teachers have to find a way to stir that enthusiasm in their children or make their subject relevant and closely linked to the interests of the children.
BEST MOMENTS “I felt that I really was sort of 'in the deep end' if you like. And again, it was something that I really relished. I don't look back and think, 'oh, that was dreadful', I look back really fondly. They were very exciting times, you know.”
“The workload for staff has increased in line with the dwindling budgets.”
“While schools are returning budgets that are in surplus, the government has a stronger argument to say everything's okay. But what they don't see are all the cuts that we're having to make and all the choices that we're having to make and the impact that it's having on the children.”
“Staff will, just, they're so committed, they will not let the children down.”
“If I can look back and think that I have tried my best for the children, for the staff, then I'll be happy.”
“We can't employ more staff and we just have to manage, and we are managing really, really well, but I do worry about the future.”
Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide.
Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff.
Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend.
The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.
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