Mrs S.

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

Databusting Surrey with The Educakers A practical one-day workshop for primary and MAT senior leaders on making assessment and data work in practice, without adding to workload.

We're really excited to announce that @insighthq.bsky.social @jpembroke.bsky.social @richardselfridge.bsky.social will be running their 'Databusting Surrey with the Educakers' event with us in June.

Have a look at the link below for more information.

We'd love to meet so many of you in person!

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

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!

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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.

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! 🎉

🤪 presentation to board
🤪 more pupil progress meetings
🤪 3 back-to-back school discos
🤪refreshment prep for 3 back-to-back school discos
🤪 restore classroom following 40 member LA board meeting
🤪 lots of smiling, cup washing & table wiping!
Another day, another slice of every day school leadership!

A little bit of Christmas cheer for our staff room as we head into the craziness that is the end of Autumn Term.
Sometimes it’s scrabble, sometimes a jigsaw puzzle and there’s rarely not food on the table.
It’s the little things that bring the extra glimmers of joy when the job is hard and busy.

A really useful read & something we've been grappling with recently as the number of children with SEND increases in our school.
We want to be able to accurately reflect & celebrate the achievements & progress of all of our children &, as @jpembroke.bsky.social says, labelled bands don't do this.

You gotta love a GoPro day!
🤪 staff absence
🤪 parent emails
🤪 Y6 maths tutoring
🤪 pupil progress meetings
🤪 room set-up for a 40 member LA board meeting
🤪 school tour
🤪 meet and greet
🤪 usual corridor duties

And the love letter for mini whiteboards continues. A thread....
As described in the blog, we still needed to iron out our consistent routines for how to use and show mini-whiteboards in the classroom and this week, as a staff, we agreed that.

Visualisers: The Classroom Tool I Can’t Teach Without A Slice of Everyday Primary Leadership

Why I Can’t Teach Without a Visualiser... this week I’m talking all things visualisers — the perfect partner to my previous mini whiteboards post.

Like I said a fortnight ago, I genuinely couldn’t teach without either.

open.substack.com/pub/theeduca...

Some Halloween fun with friends today.

📚 Just Read Mondays 📚
Every Monday, our whole-school assembly is a Just Read moment — sharing a beautiful picture book that connects to our learning concepts, key events, or our Personal Best values. This week's book was Once Upon an Atom by James Carr & William Santiago.

School improvement isn’t always about big, shiny new initiatives. It’s often about the smaller steps—the quiet, deliberate tweaks that build momentum over time.
In this evening’s staff meeting, we began by revisiting our Culture Deck—a shared foundation that guides how we work together.

This term in DT, Year 6 took on the challenge of designing, making and evaluating a security alarm system to help Lance and his friends protect themselves in the office at Crater Lake by Jennifer Killick. @mrboothy6.bsky.social

Happy Halloween 🎃 👻
Over the past couple of weeks, my 5 year old & I have enjoyed our collection of Halloween books.

Each year we add to the collection and this year’s gems 💎 were from @flaviazdrago.bsky.social and Rebecca Green. Such beautiful stories and illustrations.

The Weight, the Wonder, and the Why The Weight We Carry After years in headship, I find myself asking questions I never expected. Not about pedagogy, vision, or curriculum but about myself. Do I still have the energy, the resilience,…

"Somewhere between the chaos and the calm, the rage and the laughter… there’s still so much wonder in working in a school."

Love this. Fuel for the leadership soul as we head into another week. Thanks for putting it into words.

oldprimaryhead.com/2025/10/17/t...

A productive afternoon with my little one, I’d say! #cake

This is a great read @strickomaster . Especially love the part about hope being a strategy, not just a fluffy feeling. I think it really hits home for anyone working in schools right now.

🧠 Brilliant start to the day with @jpembroke.bsky.social 10 Things I’ve Learned About Data. @insighthq.bsky.social
So much resonating. Schools = complex, “like a bowl of spaghetti”
“Less is more” aligns with our do less better mindset.
Let’s ask: Is the data we’re collecting improving outcomes?

Fed and watered and ready for a great day @insighthq.bsky.social at the Gtech stadium. Brilliant line up. What a way to finish the week! @daisychristo.bsky.social @richardselfridge.bsky.social @jpembroke.bsky.social @joshuaperry.bsky.social

Following the great success of our first session on rethinking practice in KS1, we are launching another opportunity. If you fancy coming along to see learning in action and talk deeply about all things EYFS/KS1, you are most welcome. Please book following the link below.

Each week we share a Monday briefing (thanks to @mrallington.bsky.social ) with staff, designed to keep our SDP priorities high profile, purposeful and connected to CPD. This week’s briefing linked directly to last week’s twilight so that the messages remain clear and connected.

I would have forgotten I sent it and been surprised I received one when it eventually arrived 😂

Ha! I’ve just posted practically the same thing. I think we can as we both want to… or your friend and I do 😉

Can I put the heating on yet?

Another lovely text which is both beautiful and quality when teaching about Darwin and Evolution. Pop it on your ‘to buy’ list for your curriculum offer. #edutwitter #lovereading

It’s our first of 2 INSET days tomorrow. The tables are set, the pastries are being bought 🥐🥐 and the SDP messages are ready. We’ll be sharing some of our key messages & staff training on here. We’d love to hear what others are sharing with staff at the start of this academic year. #CPD #primary

Sorry to be THAT person but I have one who doesn’t like it… it’s green 🙄