Sammy Wright

Exam Nation School should equip children for adulthood. In reality, it means one thing: exams. Exam Nation sets out a better way – and, crucially, shows us how we might get there. Educationalist and Head of Scho...

Going on holiday tomorrow. By the time I’m back, this will be out in paperback! Reviewed in every single broadsheet, the mail, new statesman when it was published last year - “brilliant”, “entertaining”, “insightful”, “essential” - please pre-order!

www.penguin.co.uk/books/454163...

Why attendance and anxiety are complicated This is a conversation I had three years ago with 16 year old Clark from Warrington. I don't post it to draw a particular conclusion. I just find it desperately sad.

Clark’s hands are together in his lap. “Me brother was born when I was 10. But he lived with me mam years before that.” He looks up. His eyes are wide, and he has that faint smile still. “Actually, I thought them having a child it might change, but it didn’t.”

open.substack.com/pub/sammywri...

First look at the paperback - and I’m just blown away by seeing al the amazing quotes on the cover

It could follow the pattern of Just William - lots of iterations vainly clutching for relevance in a changing world. Ending with ‘Gatsby and the Rock Band’ - in which our hero seeks to recapture the elusive freedom of the summer of love, only to realise, yet again, that you can’t repeat the past.

Benny As we go into the summer holidays, here's an interview with a parent from Exam Nation. Home is pretty hard, sometimes.

Paperback soon out… open.substack.com/pub/sammywri...

Thank you to @sammywright.bsky.social for this brilliant review of @johntomsett.bsky.social’s new book! 🌟

Learn all about the attributes and behaviours that make an outstanding teacher in This Much I Know About Truly Great Secondary Teachers. Out now! 📘: buff.ly/Vkizg1O

Sammy Wright on Substack

substack.com/@sammywright...

#FridayFive
1. Atmosphere - Joy Division
2. Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel
3. Call me Al - Paul Simon
4. Praise me - Fatboy Slim
5. All the Single Ladies - Beyoncé

Or move to Newcastle.

I agree with your opinion of the speech, and the policies, and American history. But I’m glad he said publicly the speech was wrong. It is a good thing to acknowledge a mistake. There’s plenty other stuff he’s doing I could criticise. But that apology, in and of itself, was good.

Apologise

Would you rather he didn’t? I don’t quite get that.

I’m just glad he has said it. It pisses me off more when people don’t acknowledge their mistakes.

Keir Starmer says he ‘deeply regrets’ island of strangers speech Immigration speech was criticised for echoing Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ rhetoric

Good. I’m glad to see this.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

As with so much, it’s all in the detail, and the way things are operationalised. ‘Basing schooling on individualism’ is not inevitably what an attention to neurodiversity necessarily means. It might go that far, but it doesn’t need to.

Oh, I believe in growth mindset. I just think a lot of the ways we ended up talking about it encouraged exactly the opposite.

Your problem is you just don’t have growth mindset.

Prom season GCSEs are finally done, and around the country, we're gearing up for Prom season. Some people find it uncomfortable -but I think it's kind of amazing.

We said goodbye to year 11 yesterday. It involved a guard of honour, photos of their schooldays, lots of firm handshakes and teary hugs, and a choreographed song by five staff involving photo masks of SLT. This post says why the soppy stuff can be pretty important.
open.substack.com/pub/sammywri...

#FridayFive
1.Man’s not hot - big shaq
2. Play with fire - Rolling Stones
3. Solar power - lorde
4. White light/white heat - velvet underground
5. Summertime - Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

Prom season GCSEs are finally done, and around the country, we're gearing up for Prom season. Some people find it uncomfortable -but I think it's kind of amazing.

We said goodbye to year 11 yesterday. It involved a guard of honour, photos of their schooldays, lots of firm handshakes and teary hugs, and a choreographed song by five staff involving photo masks of SLT. This post says why the soppy stuff can be pretty important.
open.substack.com/pub/sammywri...

Does assessment fail the test? Are we prepared to stop pretending we can weigh the pig into plumpness?

Does assessment fail the test? @trivium21c.bsky.social & I discuss the current state of assessment. Apologies for my helpless paroxysms at about 3.30 mins open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

Prom season GCSEs are finally done, and around the country, we're gearing up for Prom season. Some people find it uncomfortable -but I think it's kind of amazing.

Farewell assembly for year 11 today - seems like a good moment to post this about thr importance of community rituals open.substack.com/pub/sammywri...

#ThankATeacherDay

Thanks
@historylecturer.bsky.social
(And Kim Needle, Graeme Trotter and the much missed Henry Marsh)

Optimistic! It’s better than it was and there are levers left to pull…

“Can we go on a tangent, sir?” Research and writing on schools, children, disadvantage and English teaching

Here’s something that didn’t make it into the final edit of Exam Nation…

open.substack.com/pub/sammywri...

“Can we go on a tangent, sir?” Research and writing on schools, children, disadvantage and English teaching

Here’s something that didn’t make it into the final edit of Exam Nation…

open.substack.com/pub/sammywri...

I think I was more inclined to obsessively read all the works of a particular author when I was younger.

#FridayFive
1. Vegetables
2. God only knows
3. Wouldn’t it be nice
4. Good vibrations
5. Sloop John B

Something for the weekend open.substack.com/pub/sammywri...

Dickens
Agatha Christie
Terry Pratchett
RK Narayan
CS Forster
PD James
Iain Banks (and M)
Michael Chabon
George Eliot
Thomas Hardy