Aidan Severs

What Should You Do To Get Your New Classroom Ready? Summer's nearly here and you might be itching to get into your new classroom to spruce it up. But what should you spend your time on?

Send this to a teacher who loves spending their summer in school: www.aidansevers.com/post/what-sh...

Case Study: Continuous Provision and EYFS-Inspired Practice in KS2 Bringing an early years approach into KS1 isn’t unheard of – there are plenty of Year 1 classrooms where continuous provision has been effectively established. But, at my previous school the vision wa...

the perfect sequel to hits such as www.aidansevers.com/post/case-st... and www.aidansevers.com/post/case-st... and of course www.aidansevers.com/post/ks2-con...

KS2 Continuous Provision: Gradual Release of Responsibility No two weeks are quite the same when you're implementing continuous provision in key stage 2... Crucially there is a gradual release of responsbility which provides the necessary support for pupils to...

Hot off the press, end-of-term reading:

KS2 Continuous Provision: Gradual Release of Responsibility

The next part of my series on how schools might implement continuous provision in key stage 2, based on my experience of having done it.

www.aidansevers.com/post/ks2-con...

Assessment

Schools are thinking around their current assessment processes and looking towards what might be next and better...

Here's a few ideas:

www.aidansevers.com/blog/categor...

absolutely belting top 3

It’s KS2 results day tomorrow. If anyone has any questions about accountability measures, which pupils are included and which ones aren’t, and how things are calculated, please do ask. I’ll be around all day.

KS2 Continuous Provision: Ensuring Curriculum Coverage One of the key challenges when designing and delivering continuous provision to any age group, but particularly in KS2, is ensuring that there is curriculum coverage. By delivering masterclasses, sett...

New blog post!

One of the key challenges when designing and delivering continuous provision to any age group, but particularly in KS2, is ensuring that there is curriculum coverage.

Here I explain how this can be managed:

www.aidansevers.com/post/ks2-con...

Replacing Onerous Primary Assessment with Better Monitoring and Evaluation (Part 2) In the first blog post in this series, I posed the following question:"What can subject leaders and school leaders do to replace onerous primary assessment practices with better monitoring and evaluat...

Haven't even shared last week's blog post either.

Here I am, writing stuff and just hoping that people happen to google that thing...

www.aidansevers.com/post/replaci...

Continuous Provision in KS2: FAQs I've written previously about how, in the school where I was a deputy head, we developed a way of providing a KS2 version of continuous provision. If you'd like to find out more about what we did, rea...

My website stats are telling me to make more effort to share my blog posts on social media.

So here I am, sharing my new blog post on social media.

Click, and make my stats happy:

www.aidansevers.com/post/continu...

it's shocking really isn't it? All of those support networks gone. And we wonder why we are in crisis.

Point in case, I have an autistic daughter (obviously classed as SEND) who is working at greater depth and will get SATs scores this month of 110+ for each subject!

completely agree - my real focus is about working to meet all needs, inclusive design principles but I also know what people are googling and have to write with that in mind!

definitely agree - and lots of my work would back that up.

This was more just an attempt to catch the way that school leaders might be thinking in terms of things they are working on.

Definitely get that it might come across wrongly though.

Wondering What To Do About Greater Depth? Your curriculum is great. You meet the needs of your pupils with SEND. But you know you could be doing more for those working at Greater Depth. But what? I have the answers.

New blog post - lots of schools interested in this stuff at the moment.

This one contains some great feedback from one of the schools I've worked with.

"There was a general sense that this approach is not extra work, just a different way of thinking."

www.aidansevers.com/post/wonder-...

Thankfully in my case the courage wasn't mine, but those who went before me and who were above me. I did have to have the determination to try to get it all to work though! Wasn't always easy but I did believe in it!

Not heard of that one - will add to my mental list!

Case Study: Revolutionising Curriculum Delivery in KS2 Explore how a UK primary school transformed its KS2 curriculum delivery, emphasizing open-ended challenges, same-day interventions, and creative learning.

Really looking forward to getting back to this concept with a school down South.

Continuous provision beyond EYFS and into KS2.

Was never my idea, but I had to make it work, & I loved the challenge & believe in the outcome.

www.aidansevers.com/post/case-st...

www.aidansevers.com/post/case-st...

🤣 my dad did extensive calculations in those early days to find out the most likely numbers to pick. To my knowledge, he has never ever bought a ticket.

What's the beer?

We managed free flow in EY and KS1 but some of our KS2 classrooms were upstairs so it was trickier. We had to have it more timetabled. TBH, the demands of the curriculum and staff expertise also had an impact on that decision.

It's probably no coincidence that my (quite monotropic) brain was on board with this and helped to create the structures that made it work!

Well, personally I'm not because my other two children were off for an extra week at Easter (which of course is when my youngest daughter had a week less).

I just end up with an extra week where I can't work as much because of childcare! Not really complaining though!

Hey, yes we had additional adults, but all very much timetabled for particular things and particular children at particular times - not just general support. One interesting role I created was 'outdoor learning mentor' - like a learning mentor but doing outdoorsy stuff!

Anyone else got another week off?

My youngest has and therefore I have!

I find it difficult as a parent to remember my daughter's class name - all birds at her school. But I do think it gives the children in the classes a sense of joint identity when the class is named after something.

Read it: www.aidansevers.com/post/curricu...

Read it: www.aidansevers.com/post/curricu...

Link to the blog post: www.aidansevers.com/post/curricu...

Go ahead and identify exactly what you are going to teach (really, make sure you do that) but before you do, make sure you have a clear rationale for why you've chosen that content.

It's that rationale that will give you the reason to teach what you've decided to teach - that's what needs to stick.

Icky name aside, the idea of identifying sticky knowledge on behalf of pupils is a tricky one.

Yes we should be precise about what we intend to teach, but can we really presume to be able to identify what will stick? And is that really as ambitious as we can be?

I think we can do better.