Back in February 2020 there was a parliamentary debate on ‘Education and Attainment of White Working-Class Boys’. Part of the expert evidence stated that  ‘We know that on average boys consistently underperform against girls, and white boys from disadvantaged backgrounds underperform against boys of all other races and ethnicities.’ The issues around boys’ underperformance have rattled around in schools for years and evidently still persist. Evidence shows the differences between boys and girls can emerge from birth. According to some research it’s possible that sex-related genes or horm ..read more

This one slipped under the radar a little bit when it was first mentioned in Ofsted’s ‘Overview of Research’ (ref. 180045) back in 2019. This was the document that summarized the findings from worldwide research that underpinned the Education Inspection Framework (EIF). And it included one short paragraph when comparing adaptive teaching to differentiation by task: “…On the other hand, adapting teaching in a responsive way, for example by providing focused support to pupils who are not making progress, is likely to improve outcomes (Deunk et al., 2018; Education Endowment Foundation, 2018e ..read more

I broke my ankle once. It was late November, 2013, in Cuerden Valley, Lancashire. I was out with my running club on a Thursday night. I’d sprinted down a hill, trying to out-run one of my faster team mates. At the bottom of the hill, I pulled up too quickly in front of a stile. The ground was uneven. I lost my balance. My foot twisted beneath me. The pain was excruciating. I fell immediately, hit my head on the ground and smashed my head torch in the process. It was pitch black, freezing cold and we were several kilometers from civilisation. I came round to the sound of pounding feet and conc ..read more

We are now aware that children ‘doing more, knowing more and remembering more’ is something that is continually referred to in the Education Inspection Framework and Handbook. Most of us have made many moves, including creating several resources, to help with children’s retrieval or ‘ability to remember key knowledge’.   Igniting Children’s Prior Knowledge One of the important strategies is igniting children’s prior knowledge. To this end, we have activities such as linking children to their prior knowledge at the beginning of lessons being used regularly. For mathematics lessons, I regu ..read more

Most of us have an online presence these days, whether it’s to share our life celebrations, just surf the web for ideas, or follow what our favourite celebrities are up to – most of us have an account with a large social media company. For some of us, our toes are dipped further in, with participation in professional groups, posting events linked to our professional lives or sourcing resources and guidance online from the incredible community that is out there in education.   At my age, I remember being told our children would be ‘digital natives’ and that their world would be underpinne ..read more

In most of the training courses, geography or otherwise, I deliver on specific aspects of subjects, I make a point of referring to how children learn. Metacognition, by definition, is the understanding of one’s own thought processes, and in order to help children understand how they learn, we need to have an understanding ourselves of how they learn too. As educators, we are continuously putting together curriculum maps and learning progressions to ensure that children learn in manageable steps and that prior learning is continuously built upon by making appropriate links. This is a really im ..read more

Hello and welcome to our Autumn Term Newsletter.  The purpose of these new e-newsletters is to inform you about the latest things happening at Focus and also point you in the direction of important documents that you might find useful.   READ Our most recent blogs: Teaching Art in the Curriculum Why has book scrutiny become an integral part of monitoring standards in school? The Curriculum Jigsaw Curriculum Development: Substantive Concepts in History Top Tips for Subject Leaders before an Inspection Time flies when you’re teaching History Changes to the co ..read more

When I first came into the profession more than half a century ago, art was a focal part of the primary curriculum. It is not surprising, with a very large proportion of the curriculum dedicated to art, that standards were often high and sometimes quite remarkable.   Since the focus has now swung back towards a broader curriculum, it is not remarkable that the quality of children’s ability in art is very much back in focus. However, the last few decades have not required primary teachers to hone their art skills, leaving quite a number of teachers lacking confidence and experience in tea ..read more

Over the past three or four years, many headteachers have used book scrutiny as a central feature of evaluating the quality of education in their schools. Clearly, book scrutiny has been important well before this. However, more recently it has grown in importance.   In part, this could be down to the continued debate about the unreliability of SATs as an effective measure of school effectiveness. Amanada Spielman also made the point that she wants leaders to have a clear picture of what they want their children to know by different points in their life and crucially what the school need ..read more

‘Things always seem to go round in a circle in education.’ These are the words that I heard so many times when I was an NQT (or ECT now), from more experienced staff members or when I went on courses. To some extent, this is true. There are things that come up and then disappear, but I think with the development of social media and how much more interconnected teachers are, the sharing of research and development has improved so much that we are hopefully seeing fewer of these ‘fads’ coming and going and then returning again.   One of the aspects of teaching that I think has come and gon ..read more