Marking & Assessment

Here I am, at it again, writing about the same thing. But this time a little different. I am a forever marking grid convert thanks to Mr.ThorntonTeach on twitter, who introduced these to me back in my ITT year. Since then I have used, forgotten about them at my old job, then come back to

Marking Grids

I have written and presented about one of these things before. Marking grids (MrThorntonTeach). Honestly they began, for me, as a way to record down who deserved praise and who needed actioning in lessons- as I was awful at rewarding but also keeping track of those who needed me the most. Since training year, I

“We can be sheroes forever and ever!”

Inspired by similar blog posts on twitter, I thought it time I jump on the #shero bandwagon to celebrate some truly awesome females. I have been privileged to work with these women in education so time to celebrate their awesomeness. I am not an original Star Wars nerd. It was 1996, I was 3, and

Happy History

I was teaching Russian History today and I am not going to lie, not much of it is what one would call ‘happy’. Russian History is mostly studying about the downfall of a royal family who had ruled the country for three centuries, starvation, cold and just general mess ups in government. A year 12

Modelling

“Miss?” “Yes?” “Do you want to know something?” “Depends…” “You look like sadness from Inside Out.” That might have been the defining moment in my career. Bottom set Year 10, with some very tricky individuals and I was trying to teach them about Hitlers’ grip on power in pre-Nazi Germany. I am not sadness. I

Form Tutor

I have my days with this. Some days I love having a form, a group of students I can get to know really well and try and guide them in their life at school. It is a really rewarding aspect of the job. Other days they wind me up and drive me up the wall.

5 a Day

To live a good life we have to eat five fruits or vegetables a day. In truth, this isn’t enough. In Japan it is said that 10 a day is needed to live a long and healthy life, and it is doing Japan well considering life expectancy is approximately 83 years of age! Sadly, 10

Wellbeing Week

This week has been Wellbeing Week at school. A whole week where staff are told to focus on their well being. It is a fantastic idea. There have been no after school meetings this week, which has meant I could spend some time with my visiting Dad, shopping (pay day!), chasing my cats around to

Teacher Training

One of the best perks of the new job is helping guide a new teacher into their career. The best thing about it isn’t having them take some of my lessons (even though that is nice) it is watching our trainee this year grow as a confident and excellent practitioner. In history we have a

Structure Strips

These bad boys are taking the Twitter sphere by storm. First created by @mrlockyer and retweeted and used by @MrCrawfordEng and many others, everyone is raving about them. And for a good reason. It can be difficult to guide students in their exam answers which require precise knowledge and detailed analysis about 1000 years of history in