Sometimes you get slightly emotional about the weirdest things in teaching - so many of my year 10 students remembered the limits on ABMs in SALT 1 in their assessments and I realised that they did take on board my explanation of working smarter when picking factual detail to revise

I find it hard to find the time to chase incomplete homework - especially for classes I don’t see frequently. Students then take an approach of “I’ll just take the sanction”.

Managed to argue for air conditioning in my department (classrooms would routinely hit >31°c). It’s been a game changer this year - pupil focus and work has been maintained and I don’t have to keep sending kids to the office because they feel sick

I definitely notice with A Level politics the girls tend to grasp the core concepts much faster due to lived experience - quite interested to see how teaching goes this year considering we have a majority female class for the first time ever

I’ve also seen many US teachers discuss how they don’t receive the results of state testing at all or until much later - so there is little ability to use this to aid progression. New teachers will potentially find the same gaps every year with no time in the curriculum to address them.

I find both have misconceptions but those with “more knowledge” often have embedded misconceptions which are “harder” to tackle as you have to identify a random out of curriculum origin. Whereas other students you’re planning in advance for misconceptions - which requires mastery of taught content

I put myself as neutral because I have never experienced them as either a student or a teacher. I certainly like the concept of the AS to A Level transition point but again I have no idea of the reality on the ground 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’ve had colleagues say they use it to summarise a topic before they teach it. I’ve never understood that since to me the textbook is the simple summary which you need to have engaged with to support student understanding?

A really excellent way to help with marking workload! I’ve never experienced OCR but I definitely find in my experience examiners reports don’t provide clear enough guidance for the wide range of responses students can produce

We teach over a 3 year KS4 and finish just in time for students to sit mocks in January. I just can’t comprehend how I would be able to shrink the Edexcel course into two years without losing opportunities for essential recap and practice.

As we go - building up the “intensity” in terms of length of question/number of marks in each assessment. For year 9 (Edexcel paper 3) we start with source inference and a 12 marker before moving to 8 mark source analysis and a 12 marker then to the section B interpretations.

Please allow this humble brag about my students but prepping kids for university interviews is the most enjoyable experience. Basically given free reign to research new topics and have engaging and challenging discussions

I can barely keep track of my good marking pen - let alone multiple colours!

Experiencing this same issue in secondary - luckily due to the narrow scope of GCSE history I can at least comment on them not utilising specification content (harder at A level) Still frustrating to have to put effort in to mark something they clearly couldn’t put effort into writing!

Very similar experience! I was really unwell that day and one of the other trainees seemed to think I was playing a role and kept trying to prompt me to do the worksheet - and I just lost all confidence to tell them that I was actually sick

I’m teaching the source paper for the first time at KS5 and I’ve found that having guided reading questions in the margins of sources have really helped with student comprehension of tricky sources - pushing them beyond just describing and into linking to knowledge

This month’s read is both lighthearted in tone yet deeply resonant (especially in recent years)

Key aspect of seating plans many teachers forget: making sure that you put the one student who chuckles at your bad jokes within hearing range - got to feed the ego

No worries! Bromcom is frustratingly mysterious at times - I only worked out how to do it because I like to click into things to see what happens

Go to the little setting cog on the bottom left hand side (config if I recall) -> administration -> classroom layouts -> find your room on the list -> edit -> move the tables as desired -> save

All from memory so apologies if unclear!

Me, creating seating plans for all of year 8 last year: I am a master of systems management, I have incredible insight into the dynamics of this form

Me, now having to deal with mixed GCSE classes for year 9: Will I Cause An International Incident On Day One

😳 I shall take whatever I’m given with grace over these next two days

Last year they provided pastries and coffee on day one but no pastries on day two. If that repeats this year we may have a revolt on our hands…

The success of this academic year will hinge entirely on what SLT provides as “refreshments” for the next two days

It’s the curse of line managers who aren’t subject specialists and don’t recognise the difference between what works for their circumstances and what works in yours

If you haven’t read it yet I would also recommend Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe - provides a good overview of the Troubles whilst also having the same engaging style

I’ll admit I’m a fair weather MWB user but I always ask the maths department about how they organise theirs. Recently found out they use little squares of JRoll instead of buying erasers - reduced students picking apart the foam/doodling on them.

Tackling A Level student apathy/disengagement - big class size and many taking history/politics as their only option due to GCSEs has given me an uphill battle for engagement

Moving into a new classroom is exciting until you’re playing Tetris trying to organise the desks to your liking

Completely banned (with a very joking tone) - I find my most able would use it and explain further but my less confident students were saying a source was biased and then leaving it there. Removing that immediate leap to bias has helped them analyse further.