Some of my finest blackboard art today. I never want to rub it off. #OnTheBlackboard I love my blackboard 😍

A strong physics start to the day - injecting myself with "radioactive Iodine" and looking at my veins with a gamma camera. 🤫 #iteachphysics #ChatPhysics Don't tell the kids that it is only fluorescein.

Was reflecting on going into my 14th year of teaching and remembered a curious incident, in my last school, when I didn't go through pay progression. All the result of a series of curious events... First thing you need to know is I struggle if things are unclean. I need my classroom chairs all to be lined up and brought to the same height after each lesson. After my room is cleaned, I give it a quick clean myself. And people know this.

Guess where I am today. That's right folks, I am at @bletchleypark

Today's project. #ClimbingTeacher These white V3s. A problem because one of the left hand holds is too far to reach when you are already pulled in on the right hand. 🤔 I will crack this. Just got to think outside of the box. And here lies the problem. That hold is just too far away. There must be a different way of solving this.

If I finish all of the physics a lesson or two before the end of term, I like to use those spare lessons to do something fun. For the last 12 years I have done a boys vs girls engineering challenge and the girls nearly always win. Here is why... So, my experience of this is normally allowing 5 or so classes do this activity in any given year, always with the same set up and always with me observing just how it goes. In total I must now have observed the experiment about 60 times.

Happy Winter Solstice people. 10.02 am marks the darkest point in the year. The point where the nights are longest and the days are shortest. Tonight as the Sun sets through the stones of stonehenge the new astronomical year will begin. The old celebration of this day is called Yule, and is the origin of much of our merriment at this time of year. The wreath on the door, the yule log, yuletide and Father Christmas - all a nod to our pagan history. But what is actually significant about the day?

For people in the UK, looking at the weather, tonight looks to be the best night to observe the #GreatConjunction. Jupiter and Saturn, both visible to the naked eye and so close together they appear as a single object (depending on eyesight!). Here is how to see it...

https://twitter.com/GP_O11/status/1340526782366306305

Time - you have a narrow window. From about 4.40 to 5.30. Too early and it isn't dark enough to see them. Too late and they will have set, just likes the Sun sets as the Earth turns.

12 years ago when I did teacher training you were encouraged to lay different activities around the room. The children would hunt for their next task. Once found they would accidentally but deliberately learn the thing by recalling the learning objective. They would then work their way up blooms taxonomy and congratulate each other on creating things of value to other kinesthetic learners in the room. We would praise them for this. The affirmation would feed into a centralised reward system that resulted in a shout out in assembly