Ben Rodgers

@ThePEUmbrella @WannaTeachPE Go with pickle ball or short tennis. Adapted games Use hands, instead of rackets We should be prioritising declarative and procedural knowledge The activity is just the ‘vehicle’ to deliver it

You're back after Easter and look into your [insert PE scheme] scheme of work. You see your year 3 class have a half term of Tennis. Yay or nay? Positives? Negatives? Anybody actually have this lined up?

@EvidenceInEdu We Couid give it a go…..??!! @DrAlex_T Although, Dylan Rietdyk wouldn’t need it!!! @DRietdyk 😂😂😂 Formative assessment wizardry 🧙

You are invited to join us for a Great Teaching Challenge with the mission to improve your questioning practice in six weeks. A small group of teachers from each school will focus on improving their questioning, trial techniques in their classroom, and see what impact it has, all in around 15 minutes a week. Not available to participate? Share this with others. Deadline to apply is April 17th. More info here hubs.la/Q0485PVg0 Apply here hubs.la/Q0485JLg0

@XpatEducator Jamie Clark on fire! 🔥 Thank you for all these! They look great, as always!

⚠️ POOR PROXIES FOR LEARNING! A new 6-part ⚗️DistillED series kicks off this week. Based on Professor Rob Coe's research, this series examines the classroom signals that look like evidence of learning — but don't guarantee it: busy students, engaged students, calm rooms, feedback given, a few hands up with the right answer. 📘 To go alongside the series I've put together this NEW Poor Proxies for Learning Playbook — a printed booklet bringing all six chapters together in one place. Six proxies. Six editions. Subscribe for free to stay updated: 👉 newsletter.jamieleeclark.com

🔒 SECURING ATTENTION! Students remember what they attend to. This one-page guide summarises strategies that secure attention, ensuring students remain attentive and cognitively engaged throughout the lesson. 🌱 Support my work by tapping REPOST and grab a FREE high-quality copy here: jamieleeclark.com/graphics

We don't have posters and displays in our classrooms for this reason. They increase distraction and cognitive load. Asking teachers to spend time making displays is time they could be creating lessons and feedback. Displays making is an utter waste of time.

@m_chiles How do you make all of these so aesthetic!!!? What software do you/your staff use?

Interesting to read the article in Schools Week @SchoolsWeek about the requirement for an inclusion strategy. At Longdendale, we’ve spent the last 12 months developing a clear and purposeful approach, proud to be ahead of the curve. #TheLongdendaleLegacy

@adamboxer1 It’s a good one 👌 Cheers, you two! @amymayforrester

Saturday night is podcast night! Tune in and share!

A curriculum that builds cognitive architecture is easy to spot. You ask the teacher 'why are you teaching them this?' and they say 'because it builds on that, and it takes them there'. (This, that, and there are all clearly defined and known by ALL concerned).

When assessing the quality of teaching, it is important to identify whether any problems are pedagogical or structural. Are the issues due to teaching, or what is being taught? Are the problems in delivery, or the curriculum? Or are they as a result of previous SLT requirements?

“A knowledge-rich curriculum is therefore not just a curriculum with a lot in it. It’s a curriculum whose contents have been deliberately chosen and connected – both horizontally and vertically coherent - so that learning accumulates over time.”

✨ A full day of powerful PD Join the Steplab Conference 2026 “INSPIRING… the coolest people in education in one place!” - Isla Iago (Reach Academy Feltham) 📅 19 June 2026 | London 🎟️ Tickets: events.steplab.co/SteplabConfere…

@researchEDWarr @m_chiles Can’t wait!!!

Only 5 more weeks until researchEd Warrington 2026! We've got an incredible line up of speakers from a wide range of expertise and we're so excited to see what leanings this year will bring. Full speaker schedule will be shared very soon 👀 📍Kings Leadership Academy Warrington 📅 Saturday 25th April 🎫 Get your tickets here: bit.ly/3JN9fUi

Delighted that our trust is hosting @teacherhead in Liverpool. Join us for the Big Classroom event — an opportunity to see expert teaching, practical strategies, and high-impact classroom practice in action. Secure your place: eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-big-clas…

Lovely example of the application of hinge questions to coaching in rugby: bit.ly/41fqnXF. Thank you @Mr_Titley!

@PepsMccrea Hi Peps! We’re a big fan of this. We have been using assemblies and form time to develop alignment of our core pedagogies These have since been filmed and shared on our website for parents. Would love your thoughts…. 🧠 childwallssa.org/study-at-child…

Habit Assemblies: Accelerating culture for learning The more complex a school, the more attention and effort is required just to maintain it… attention and effort that could (should) be going into improving learning. Ruthless simplicity (doing fewer things) and collective alignment (doing those things the same way) are two powerful levers for reducing this complexity. Most schools pursue collective alignment by focussing on teachers... practising agreed routines and norms together, then implementing them back in classrooms. This is great... BUT, the schools that do it best go one step further. They also practise with students. All together. At once. A kind of *habit assembly* Imagine 200 year 7s in the hall, all practising how to turn-and-talk. How to answer questions. How to treat others with respect. How to sit and act in ways that optimise attention. Without this, we have to build culture from scratch, in isolation, 30 students at a time. With habit assemblies, students arrive in our classrooms already primed. We just need to stick to the plan. The rationale for this is social norms. Our behaviour is shaped less by what we're told to do and more by what we see others doing. In a habit assembly, every student sees every other student doing the same thing. They don't just learn the routine... they internalise the norm… this is how we do things around here. And culture compounds: once routines are internalised, each lesson reinforces the norm, which makes the next assembly even stronger. Most schools already have the time for this. Existing assembly slots or collapsed tutor/form time can be repurposed without adding to the timetable. Of course, this only works if it's done with students, not to them. Roll it out heavy-handedly or without buy-in and things'll backfire fast. The more we build habits together, the stronger the culture we end up with. PS. Video of habit assemblies in action coming soon...

The STICKIEST things I've ever taught my Ss is from Graham Nuthall's Hidden Lives of Learners. ‘Rule of Three’ – need to encounter learning material in at least 3 significant ways in order to learn it Thanks Bennie Kara @teacherhead! Summary here: itsalearningcurve.education/cogsci-book-su…

💡 What does effective PD look like in practice? Rachel Ball (@MrsBallAP) explores how group PD + lesson drop-ins can activate the EEF’s 14 mechanisms and drive real improvement. Instructional coaching is powerful - but this is a scalable alternative any school can use. 👉 bit.ly/group_PD_and_d…

My fourth blog in a series exploring professional learning and literacy and oracy. open.substack.com/pub/alexfairla…