Cass & Anna - The Educakers

For some people they’re in the catchment of one place (or maybe 1 or 2 who are similar), so no matter what the Ofsted report says, it’s dictated by where the placement of their house.

If you're not following any of these people or @psalisbury.bsky.social ,you should be.

Absolutely agree Phil - a great read!

@adamboxereducation.bsky.social @suchmo83.bsky.social @emmaturner75.bsky.social @teacherhead.bsky.social @pepsmccrea.bsky.social (amongst many other greats) have all inspired our T& L, SDP priorities, curriculum development, CPD or our own blogging.

We're not perfect, and the work is never done, but we were proud to share our journey, thinking, and school, with others.

If you're interested in learning more about lots of these aspects, check out our substack.
lnkd.in/ewGzhKcz

There was a lot of love for:
- visualisers
- review and respond sheets
- mini whiteboards with squares on them & the @STABILO pencils we use
- our neutral (but not cold) classrooms
- consistency of books, book covers, storage, labelling of display boards
- pencil caddies
-tidy teacher desks

As we went from class to class, the agreed consistencies sparked numerous conversations and questions about practices in our collective schools.

and shared how we have worked on Agreed Consistencies and alignment in our school.

We shared our documentation of this that we record on trello and then we walked the school (which is always the best part of any networking opportunity.)

We were lucky enough to welcome a select, but wonderful, few HT's & DHT's to our school today as part of Linking Local Leaders run by Schools Alliance for Excellence.

We kick started the session by watching @PepsMcrea's Alignment: The Secret Sauce of Effective Schooling? lnkd.in/eZnvC26a

We are feeling over the moon after receiving this acknowledgement from Bridget Phillipson.
What a credit to our team here at Lingfield and their on-going hard work. 🥳
Well done to you too @strickomaster.bsky.social and everyone at Duston School. Happy Friday everyone! 🎉

There was a real buzz in the room as teams discussed the curriculum, shared best practice and built on their collective knowledge. Such a brilliant team to work with.
@emmaturner75.bsky.social @earlyexcellence.bsky.social @mrbeeteach.bsky.social

🌧️ Rain gauges outside
🔟 Tens frames for names and water bottles
🪙 Voting with coins to choose the class reader
📊 Tallies when answering questions
🎂 Birthday months on the wall
🔟 Numicon sorted into odds and evens when stored
…and so much more!

At Lingfield, we use continuous provision throughout KS1, and @kkenning shared how the environment acts as the children’s third teacher from Nursery to Year 2. Maths is embedded everywhere:

We also looked at our maths working walls, including:
🧠 Backward fading
✏️ Partially worked examples
We discussed the importance of these approaches in supporting thinking, reducing cognitive load and building independence, outlined in @walkthrus and Just Tell Them by @mrzachg.bsky.social

The focus was number – a key strand of our Bread and Butter SDP. Together, teams explored:
🔢 Which parts of the curriculum our children need to spend more time on
📚 Which concepts are new to each year group
➡️ Which aspects are extensions of learning introduced previously

The Bread and Butter of our Maths Curriculum

A brilliant twilight session tonight led by our KS1 and KS2 maths leaders, Hayley and Karina. Their deep knowledge of our school, our maths curriculum, @whiterosemaths and how children learn underpinned everything they shared with staff.

So here they my favourite 40 picturebooks of 2025 (actually there are 42). Merry Christmas!

#FavePicturebooks25 #PicturebookPage

Early Work: Making the Morning Count A Slice of Everyday Primary Leadership

Finally, despite my interest being primarily in primary, I rarely do niche content from there. However, this is a great post from the @theeducakers.bsky.social on making the most out of "early work" or "morning work" - a staple of most UK primaries. Enjoy!

substack.com/inbox/post/1...

Thanks for sharing our blog Mark!

@katejonesteach.bsky.social @adamboxereducation.bsky.social @teachertapp.bsky.social @greeborunner.bsky.social @clairestoneman.bsky.social @psalisbury.bsky.social @ohlottie.bsky.social

Early Work: Making the Morning Count A Slice of Everyday Primary Leadership

How do you use the first 20 minutes of the day?

In our school, Early Work is purposeful: catch-up, retrieval, review, pre-teaching & checking in with children.

Have a read of our latest blog below
open.substack.com/pub/theeduca...

All shares and retweets gratefully received.

Baroness Estelle Morris kicked off the Surrey Education Partnership today. A really engaging speaker outlining some of the history of the education system and promoting the importance of school partnerships.
“your experiences, if they don’t affect your practice they affect your approach”

We then moved on to discussing feedback—its purposes and the importance of feedback in moving children’s learning forward. We use live marking & whole class feedback so it was great to hear that Kate had shared these too..

We love getting together as a staff to talk teaching and learning!

We revisited our agreed consistencies for whiteboard routines to ensure these are still remembered and embedded.
@adamboxereducation.bsky.social.

As a school, we apply @marymyatt.bsky.social 's principle of “doing less better”, so our focus is on refining, polishing and aligning our agreed consistencies across the school, ensuring we are as consistent as possible with the things that matter most.

Tonight’s staff meeting was brilliantly led by Alex and
Elliot who shared key takeaways from their Retrieval and Feedback training with @katejonesteach.bsky.social
last term.

We're excited to be hosting two more training sessions with @earlyexcellence.bsky.social
If you're interested in effective KS1 provision or writing outcomes in EYFS, then have a look at what's on offer.

We loved talking to you and we're really excited about what we can hopefully do together!

The Databusters are getting the band back together and going on the road with a new one-day course:

AM: external data: IDSR, ASP, performance measures
PM: internal data: TA, tests, SEND, reporting to parents/govs

@insighthq.bsky.social schools, get in touch if you’re interested

Relationships with parents Establishing good relationships with parents is essential for many reasons, and children benefit more when there is a strong relationship and good communication between the two. Working with parent…

Right I've written a blog. At least I think I have as this may not work:

philsalisbury.wordpress.com/2026/01/09/r...

It's pretty dull.

Whilst we're learning great things, sharing best practice and continuing our CPD, those of our staff who want to, are also enjoying a little mid-week treat!