educators

"Despite many challenges and pressures facing the teaching profession, taking a moment to step back an appreciate some of the positives can make you appreciate the joys to behold within the classroom. As part of a #UKEdChat discussion, teachers from around the UK shared the best perks of the job, which we have summarised here to help other colleagues reflect upon. We're not really in it for the perks, are we?"

"Children from disadvantaged backgrounds and certain ethnic minority backgrounds, including from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds, have lower levels of vigorous physical activity, according to researchers at the University of Cambridge. The patterns mirror inequalities seen in levels of childhood obesity, suggesting a need for a greater focus on the promotion of vigorous physical activity, particularly for those children from more disadvantaged backgrounds."

"My teenage years were brilliant, and one of the reasons for this is that I was involved in so many active clubs and hobbies. I was an army cadet, I did karate and I even tried hockey and acting for a short while. The Extra-Curricular Activities (ECAs) I did as a kid shaped my character more than my lessons in school. I can say that with conviction. In my ECAs, I made new and lasting friendships and learnt cool skills (such as how to start a fire with potassium permanganate, and how to disarm an attacker with a pistol)."

"Children of similar cognitive ability have very different chances of educational success; it still depends on their parents' economic, socio-cultural and educational resources. This contradicts a commonly held view that these days that our education system has developed enough to give everyone a fighting chance. The researchers, led by Dr. Erzsébet Bukodi from Oxford's Department of Social Policy and Intervention, looked at data from cohorts of children born in three decades: 1950s, 1970s and 1990s. They found significant evidence of a wastage of talent. Individuals with high levels of cognitive ability but who are disadvantaged in their social origins are persistently unable to translate their ability into educational attainment to the same extent as their more advantaged counterparts."

"Children who regularly walk or cycle to school are less likely to be overweight or obese than those who travel by car or public transport, a new study suggests. Based on results from more than 2000 primary-age schoolchildren from across London, the researchers found that walking or cycling to school is a strong predictor of obesity levels, a result which was consistent across neighbourhoods, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. The results are reported in the journal BMC Public Health."

"From September 2019, Ofsted will refocus inspections of schools in England, early years settings and further education and skills providers, to make sure that learners are receiving a high-quality education that puts them on a path to future success. Ofsted inspectors will spend less time looking at exam results and test data, and more time considering how a nursery, school, college or other education provider has achieved their results. That is, whether they are the outcome of a broad, rich curriculum and real learning, or of teaching to the test and exam cramming."

"A set of fun games and resources which explore digital privacy and e-safety issues."

"Making Every Maths Lesson Count is underpinned by six pedagogical principles - challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning - and presents 52 high-impact strategies designed to streamline teacher workload and ramp up the level of challenge in the maths classroom. Throughout this book, Emma McCrea (through extensive research and practice) explores how to manage mathematical misconceptions with practical ideas on many areas of the required curriculum. The six pedagogical principles mentioned above form the heart of the book, with metacognitive questioning given space in developing cognitive strategies with pupils. "

"Despite our best efforts, teachers inevitability bring school work home with them at least occasionally, which can impact on family life and make a mockery of our work/life balance. Yet, are there advantages to completing school work at home, as well as the obvious disadvantages? Once we decide to complete work at home, are we doing so most effectively and in an appropriate environment, or are we trying to juggle marking spelling books while binge-watching a box-set?"

"The practice of excluding students from schools is set to be placed under scrutiny with plans announced that the number of exclusions is set to be reported publicly in school league table data. The intention is to stop so-called "off-rolling", where schools remove difficult or low-achieving pupils. On average about 2,000 pupils are excluded from school each day - with 40 being permanently excluded."

Track physical activity and earn points for you and your class.

"Name-calling, hair pulling or cyberbullying: About a tenth of adolescents across the globe have been the victim of psychological or physical violence from classmates at least once in their lives. A new study carried out by researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) has shown that victims and their perpetrators both suffer as a result of these attacks: They are more inclined to consume alcohol and tobacco, are more likely to complain of psychosomatic problems and their chances of having problems with their social environment increase, too. In the scientific journal "Children and Youth Services Review", the researchers plead for prevention programmes to place more emphasis on cohesion within the classroom."

"A recent study revealed students at an international school in Finland significantly outperformed U.S. students on tasks which measure digital literacy in social media and online news. The researchers suggest this may be due to the Finnish and International Baccalaureate curricula's different way of facilitating students' critical thinking skills compared to the US system and curriculum. The results of this study were published in the Journal of Research in International Education in April. Critical thinking is a 21st century skill considered essential for today's students to navigate the Information Age and for their future work life."

"I often sit on a Thursday evening about 2000hrs and watch the ukedchat hashtag. This week it was about physical education. Although this is not one of my strong subjects in teaching (or even in real life) I was interested in the first question which asked how physical education could be related to literacy and/or mathematics. Just like a GSCE multiple choice essay question I chose to answer how it could be related to mathematics. You can see the full tweet chat conversation here - but I thought I would expand my response in this week's waffle."

"Despite the vast array of options when it comes to EdTech, walking around exhibitions you can't help but notice that the technology is converging, and that one black screen looks like all the other black screens, the 'solutions' are solving the same things and the high prices, alas, are also ubiquitous. But what impact is this having on learning? Few educators truly use the full capabilities of the tech available to them, due to a lack of time, training, or ideas for how it can be deployed, and some teachers can allow the technology to take precedence over pedagogy and learning."

"Building a rich vocabulary, across the curriculum, is one of the main aims for most teachers. Not only does a rich vocabulary help to create strong writing skills, but also can help with improving access to all areas of the curriculum. In his book, Andrew Jennings explains why vocabulary should be a focus in your classroom, providing resources and inspiration to help optimise vocabulary learning. Resources include a focus on SPaG facts, key vocab words that support various popular primary topics, an etymology section to inspire pupils, and looking at various grammatical features that can help build a repertoire of rich vocabulary. Throughout, the book provides other resources that can be copied for classroom use, or be used to take home to help build vocabulary skills away from the school setting."

"Towards the end of the academic year, it is time for many students to hand in their long-awaited assignments, signalling the end of another semester of inspiring teaching and learning. For their teachers, being faced with a collection of essays can seem overwhelming and being able to check the originality and authenticity of each one could take a considerable amount of time."