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What History is Being Taught in Primary?

What History is Being Taught in Schools? One of the commonly repeated, yet little evidenced, ideas is that little to no diverse history is taught in English schools. Many of these claims are based on individual experiences of the education system pre-National Curriculum and even when they are made based on the current curriculum, there is no verification of these claims. Large scale research is…

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The Education System that Lost its Purpose

Many people, including me, would have found watching Channel 4’s The School that Tried to End Racism distressing and disturbing.

The documentary exposes what still remains utterly rotten within the comprehensive education system as fashioned by the middle class left radicals in England. Despite a decade of Conservative reforms, Gove’s optimistic vision for an education system that gives all…

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Teacher Political Neutrality and Other Relevant Matters

This is a rough beginners guide for teachers to know and understand their professional duties with regard to teaching partisan political content. I am concerned that few of my fellow professionals have had training on recognising or teaching political materials without breaching their political neutrality clause.

Please make sure to refer to any guidance from the DfE and Ofsted. This blog…

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Unseen Extracts: The Last Barrier to Reading Comprehension?

This is the fifth and final blog in the series – the first covers the overall issues with the KS2 Reading SAT, the second whether it tests reading, the third how it embeds the teaching of generic comprehension reading skills, the fourth on why the reading strands are meaningless and what the test actually measures.

In this blog I examine the use of unseen extracts in the KS2 Reading SAT and what…

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Reading Strands are Meaningless

This is the fourth blog in the series – the first covers the overall issues with the KS2 Reading SAT, the second whether it tests reading and the third how it embeds the teaching of generic comprehension reading skills.

In this blog, I will examine what the KS2 Reading SAT is testing and whether this is useful to support the teaching of reading.

The Reading Strands

Here’s a short quiz to begin…

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The Holy Grail of Spelling

These are the slides for my researchED Home Presentation (03/06/2010) on spelling.

[embeddoc url=”http://www.teach-well.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/The-Holy-Grail-of-Spelling-1.pptx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft”]

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Perverse Incentives: The KS2 Reading SAT and the Myth of Generic Reading Comprehension Skills

This is the third blog in the series on the Key Stage 2 Reading SAT. The first one outlining the series is here and the second on whether the KS2 Reading SAT is testing reading is here.

The Reading SAT and Generic Reading Comprehension Skills

Reading comprehension is ultimately making meaning of what is being read.

For most of my teaching career, reading was synonymous with teaching generic…

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#Deduction #Generic Reading Comprehension Skills #Inference #KS2 Reading SAT #Myth #Prediction #Question Types #Reading #Reading Comprehension

Reforming the Key Stage 2 Reading SAT - Why it's Needed and Possible.

What is the point of the Key Stage 2 Reading SAT?

In its current state, there isn’t one.

My experience of teaching in primary including Year 6, developing and teaching a knowledge-rich English curriculum and greater understanding of what reading comprehension is and isn’t, leads me to the conclusion that the Key Stage 2 Reading SAT is not testing what it’s supposed to be testing.

Before…

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From Guided to Independent Writing

Like many teachers (especially primary) I still find it hard to know precisely how to move the children from guided to independent writing.

I’ve certainly been guilty of ‘all or nothing’ in terms of support.

I wanted to put something concrete together that would show what slow release might look like.

It’s still very much a working document. Please do send me any suggestions, additions and/or…

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#rED2019 - Primary English

#rED2019 – Primary English

This is my talk from #rED2019

[embeddoc url=”http://www.teach-well.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Knowledge-Rich-Primary-Curriculum-Annual-rED-2019.pptx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft”]

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Writing Revolution Activities in Primary Science

This blog is part 4 of the #WritingInScience symposium curated by Pritesh Raichura. Read Pritesh’s introduction here , part 2 from Ben Rogers here and part 3 from Ruth Walker here.

The Writing Revolution by Hochmann and Wexler focuses on the need to improve writing at sentence level. In my opinion, primary writing has had too great a focus on writing as self-expression, communication and an…

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Comparing KS2 English Writing Exemplifications

I’m currently trying to get my head around the writing objectives and requirements for Years 5 and 6 (mostly the latter).

I created the following document and it includes a comparison of similar pieces of writing included in the DfE’s writing exemplification materials e.g. Description, Recount, to ascertain some of the differences at different levels.

While I appreciate the issues with the…

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#KS2 Writing Exemplifications

Expressive Writing Mapped

Expressive Writing is a scripted Direct Instruction program created by Engelmann for pupils who have not mastered foundational writing skills.

Below is my first attempt to map it out both books against the 2014 NC objectives for reading and writing:

[embeddoc url=”http://www.teach-well.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Expressive-Writing-Mapped-Out-1.xlsx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft”]

I…

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#Direct Instruction #Engelmann #Expressive Writing

The Writing Revolution Mapped

Having gorged on The Writing Revolution and loved every page of it (where has it been all my teaching life?), I was still left wondering how this would fit in with the National Curriculum requirements for writing in primary schools in this country. A quick note about the excel file. I fine-grained many objectives for my own diagnostic purposes as a class teacher and as someone who has not taught…

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#The Writing Revolution

In Defence of British Values

For a while now I have been meaning to write about British values and its teaching in schools. We are human and we have the capacity to do things in good faith or bad. What I am taking aim at here is the bad faith arguments against teaching British values not the genuine concerns that some may have. The fundamental British values are listed as: democracy; the rule of law; individual liberty;…

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#British Values

Accountability Measures?

This blog by Stephen Tierney (Headteachers’ Roundtable) proposes an accountability measure based on inclusion to be used alongside performance measures to tackle the “long tail of underachievement”. It elides all disadvantaged children, looked after children and SEN together under the umbrella of inclusion without explanation. The author then moves onto the issue of exclusions, without evidencing…

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#Disadvantage #SEN #Social Class

Statues Must Fall - Erasing History or Righting Wrongs?

Statues Must Fall – Erasing History or Righting Wrongs?

It was a pleasure and privilege to be invited by Claire Fox to take part in the debate on statues alongside Patrick Vernon OBE (@ppvernon), Dr Cheryl Hudson (@HudsCheryl) and Dr Nicholas Draper. The link to the debate and initial readings is here: https://www.battleofideas.org.uk/session/statues-must-fall-erasing-history-or-righting-wrongs/ Here is my 5 minute introduction speech that I made (the…

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#critical race theory #history #Racism #sjw&039;s #statues

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