mevans2727 on Threads l Headteacher I Coauthor of #TheNextBigThing and author of #LeadersWithSubstance I Blogger
Jun 22 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
When it comes to school turnaround, one size doesn’t fit all!
A recent paper by Arora-Jonsson et al (2024), ‘Beyond the silver bullet: unveiling multiple pathways to school turnaround’ suggests that there are ‘several distinct combinations of factors’ that lead to success.
A 🧵
2/ This Swedish study looked at 77 schools over 12 years to find out what is necessary and sufficient to turn an underperforming school around.
Their findings may help school trusts in England to identify the ‘models’ that provide the best chance of success.
Read on ⬇️
Oct 10, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
🌍🏂🧗🎪🎭🚎✈️🎢🧬🖼️♥️
I am a BIG fan of school trips. The benefits are intangible, but significant.
But they come at a cost - financial, workload, missed lessons. I understand why schools cut back, but in my view they should think twice.
Here’s why…
Trips bring the curriculum alive!
Whether it is visiting the battlefields of WW1, being blown away by Shakespeare, feeling the spirituality of a place of worship, competing in sport at the highest level, or gaining insights into the great minds of Bletchley codebreakers…
Sep 9, 2023 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
A🧵of my blog and talk at #rED23 today - super condensed.
“Motivating students through testing”
When students work hard - or don’t work hard - we attribute this to a characteristic of the student or their circumstance.
These ‘folk theories’ are unhelpful.
Teachers have more influence than they think over students’ volition to study.
Feb 23, 2023 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
Yesterday I spent the morning visiting primary schools for my own professional development.
Today I am reflecting on what I saw.
Here are my takeaways… 🧵
I visited three very different schools.
1. A small village school with four mixed- age classes 2. A large town centre school with a broad intake 3. A new-build school in the process of expanding.
They were all lovely places staffed by caring and dedicated adults.
Nov 10, 2022 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
ATTENTION PART II
I’m still thinking hard about how we get students to think hard in lessons. 🤔
I started by thinking about how we can encourage students to pay attention.
Since then, I’ve been thinking about what we want students to pay attention *to*.
Whilst we want students to pay attention to us 👨🏫and to pay attention to their work 📖, these are just vehicles for the thing we *really* want them to pay attention to:
The curriculum!
Nov 6, 2022 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
I’ve been thinking hard about how we get students to think hard in lessons. 🤔
Thinking hard is important if students are to understand and remember what we want them to learn.
But students can only think about what they *pay attention* to.
A 🧵about attention.
So, paying attention is important because you will only think about what you pay attention to. Inattention is therefore a threat to learning.
But how do teachers get students to pay attention: to the work… to the curriculum… to them?!!!
Here are 7 things teachers can do.
Jun 7, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
How to improve the impact of teaching:
1. Improve attendance - teaching has no impact on pupils who are not at school.
2. Improve safeguarding - pupils can’t benefit from teaching if they feel physically or psychologically unsafe.
3. Improve behaviour - so teachers can teach…
4. Improve ethos - teaching pupils who value learning and value school is so much more impactful.
5. Improve the curriculum - because rubbish in, rubbish out.
6. Improve assessment - it provides the feedback needed to continuously improve…
Dec 23, 2021 • 19 tweets • 6 min read
The British mountains are amazing, and more accessible than you might think. I have walked in them as much as possible over the last 12 years. They have helped me survive a stressful job and various threats to my mental health.
This is what 3 days of bliss looks like… 1/
We leave early and get to the Lakes mid morning. Straight onto the hill. This is Borrowdale, our home for the next 3 days. 2/
Sep 29, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
THREAD: If you want to know how utterly ridiculous and frustrating it is to run a school during a pandemic, consider this…
The latest South West Public Health flow chart for schools says that if a member of staff tests positive, we must report the in-work, adult close contacts to the ‘Self-Isolation Support Service’, who will then report these names to NHS Test and Trace… (2/9)
Jul 23, 2020 • 23 tweets • 3 min read
What does 25 years of teaching look like?
On the first day of my first teaching placement (St Wilfrid’s in Crawley) the other trainee was using the internet to make worksheets. I couldn’t believe this was something you could even do.
May 2, 2020 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Here are seven erroneous assumptions in calling for universal all-day synchronous online teaching:
Assumption 1: That all aspects of normal classroom learning are optimal and should be replicated.
There are things forced upon us by being in school, such as timetables, cramming 25 kids in a room together, and minimising off task time, that we might want to avoid copying.
Nov 26, 2019 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
*THREAD* based around an excellent paper by Professor Viviane Robinson on leading school improvement. research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewconten…
The paper sets out VRs contention that school leaders should focus less on *change* and more on *improvement*. Change often does not lead to improvement. To lead improvement, leaders require capability in..
1. Leadership is an ill-defined concept which makes it difficult to establish an evidence base for its efficacy. It is a popular construct, but may not actually be a thing.
