School-to-school improvement: Peer review with a purpose Following the nine principles of effective school-to-school peer review, two south London primary schools have embarked on a new collaboration focused on behaviour. Laura McPhee reports
Welcoming and supporting Ukrainian refugees in your school Of the more than 126,500 Ukrainian refugees who have arrived in the UK since the war began, a third are children. How can schools welcome and support them? Sheila Hopkins advises and signposts to resources to help
Cost of living crisis: Conversations with pupils The cost of living crisis is biting hard. Pupils, families, and school staff are all suffering. In two articles, Sean Harris considers how to support both pupils and school staff. He begins by focusing on how we might respond with our pupils and their families
School libraries and reading development Recreational reading. Reading for learning. Reading for life. The school library and school librarian has a vital role to play in supporting pupils to read. Clare Brumpton and Elizabeth Hutchinson look at how they can do this
Twenty books to diversify your school library stock It is crucial that the books we stock in our schools represent our pupils and the world they are growing up in. Sarah Wordlaw offers 20 titles to consider for your primary school library
Closing the Digital Divide: What can schools do? A recent SecEd and Stone Group webinar discussed what schools can do, practically and realistically, to support those families on the wrong side of the digital divide. Panellists Bukky Yusuf and Fiona Aubrey-Smith pick up the conversation...
Beating the teaching plateau: Professional Inquiry Programme New teachers often make rapid improvements in their practice before hitting a ‘performance plateau’. Alex Beauchamp explains how a professional inquiry programme has helped overcome this challenge
Sharing lesson planning with your teaching assistant Good lesson outcomes can be supported by teachers sharing their planning with teaching assistants. Sara Alston offers three key questions to help facilitate this important process
A school policy checklist Statutory, non-statutory, school-specific – how many official policies does your school have, and how do you keep on top of them, ensuring they are reviewed and updated as required? Craig McKee advises
Teacher appraisal: What targets should we set this year? Are your school’s teacher appraisal targets full of well-meaning but poorly thought out statements and objectives. Nick Hart considers how we can give meaning and purpose to appraisal
The changing shape of performance management Decoupling performance and pay does not mean a less robust appraisal system, in fact it can mean quite the opposite. Pay specialist Louise Hatswell advises
Working together on school attendance Attendance still isn’t back on track for many schools and new guidance is kicking in this term, putting this issue firmly at the top of the agenda. Suzanne O'Connell asks what school leaders and attendance leads should be focused on this year.
Are they bothered? Using the curriculum to help ‘level up’ We want our pupils to be ‘bothered’ about where they live. Warrington headteacher Chris Jones explains how the primary schools in his trust have developed a curriculum designed to stem the drain of talent
Literacy: Top tips for instilling a love of reading Summer reading learning loss is a common issue that primary schools face every autumn term, exacerbated this year in the wake of Covid. Dr Sarah McGeown shares some tips to help teachers instil a love of reading this academic year
How governors can support whole-school wellbeing Mental health and wellbeing must be at heart of school governance, but how? In an article adapted from her contribution to a new book on effective governance, Dr Pooky Knightsmith offers some pointers and ideas
Effective whole-school mental health interventions The unprecedented challenges for young people’s mental health constitute a public health crisis and schools find themselves on the front-line. Dr Michelle Jayman considers the barriers and facilitators to effective whole-school mental health interventions
School leadership: Starting afresh in 2022/23? With summer over and batteries hopefully recharged after a gruelling two years, how are schools and their leaders approaching the academic year ahead? Suzanne O’Connell spoke to four headteachers to find out
Keeping Children Safe in Education: Key changes and actions for schools The updated Keeping Children Safe in Education statutory safeguarding guidance has come into force. Elizabeth Rose looks at what has changed and what we should be doing about it in schools
Governors & trustees: Overcoming the barriers to recruitment Governor recruitment seems to be getting tougher and tougher. Al Kingsley considers why governance is a great role, the barriers that exist to recruitment, and how we might start to overcome them
Inclusion: How does your school ‘feel’? The real sign of greatness is not exam results or other measurable outcomes, but how your school makes people feel, what your values are, and how they are woven into everything you do. Daniel Sobel reflects
'The feeling in the classroom is calm and purposeful' More schools are signing up to transform their classrooms into therapeutic teaching spaces. Shahana Knight looks at the approaches she has helped implement at St Charles Primary School
Teaching emotional literacy in reception year The reception year comes in the middle of two key transition points when anxiety and other emotions can threaten to overwhelm some children. Neil Henty discusses the importance of promoting emotional literacy in the reception year
Working relationships: Dealing with difference If we want to build better relationships with colleagues, it ultimately starts with us. But dealing with differences and building workplace relationships is not always easy. Leonie Hurrell advises
'If you do that, you’ll be much happier in the job you do' Primary school professionals – and brothers – Lee and Adam Parkinson’s podcast has been listened to more than five million times. Emma Lee-Potter caught up with them to talk staff wellbeing, advice for new teachers, online safety and more
Using positive language to support Autistic children The language we use when working with Autistic students is important and is one of the most common areas of practice with which speech and language therapist Emily Lees supports teaching staff...
