Mrs Markendale 🙋🏻‍♀️

Enjoyment is not the same as engagement. Marking is not the same as feedback. Managing is not the same as leading. And drawing pictures is not the same as dual coding.

🌟 New blogpost: 8 Tips for SENDCOs to Drive Teaching and Learning for Pupils with SEND Comments and reposts appreciated sendmatters.co.uk/2026/04/12/8-t…

New blog post…Inclusion cannot mean tolerating behaviour that harms the education, safety, or dignity of others. open.substack.com/pub/lynseywhit…

Reading education blogs changed my practice, so I always want to try take the opportunity to share the love. Here are a few free blogs I've read recently that I thought were super, please share if you can! I work at a school that doesn't have merit points or rewards or anything like that, so this piece by @msrebeccabirch on intrinsic motivation really appealed to me: rebeccabirch.substack.com/p/on-chasing-t… We are in the midst of an SEND crisis, and part of the problem is outlined by @head_teach: that some schools have astonishingly higher numbers of students with SEND than others: matthewevanseducation.substack.com/p/magnetic-sch… @joel120193 is smashing out hit after hit on his blog, and this piece on the sheer amount of things teachers have to do resonated: joel120193.substack.com/p/the-60-minut… @mpershan wrote a typically scholarly, wide-ranging and sophisticated piece on implicit vs explicit learning, the memorisation of maths facts and much more. pershmail.substack.com/p/understandin… Next up are two posts on AI: @alex_crossman has written an excellent piece on the risks of AI to education. Our job is to get students' thinking hard, and AI's job is to get people thinking less hard. These aren't compatible, and we need to pull the brakes hard. powerfulknowledge.substack.com/p/its-time-to-… Whilst not strictly about education, Gary Marcus's entry here about the security risks of OpenClaw and other weird things is vital if we are to take internet and AI security seriously. garymarcus.substack.com/p/openclaw-aka… Of course, I've been blogging too, and you can check out my entries here: carouselteachlearnlead.substack.com As stated at the outset, please share if you can!

Here’s a talk discussing behaviour & why systems built on endless chances don’t work… youtu.be/UI65kIIa4dU?si…

My @Strickomaster account has been hacked & cannot be salvaged. I’m having to essentially start again. Retweets appreciated @teacherhead @RogersHistory @tombennett71 @BarryNSmith79 @m_chiles @MrChrisPassey @Counsell_C @MaryMyatt @DrSarahMullin

An intriguing collection of essays on the idea of ‘knowledge rich’ curricula, teaching & learning. Essays include Naomi Pilling’s brilliant argument for ‘knowledge rich’ art curricula & @bennewmark on ‘knowledge rich’ for children who can struggle most. civitas.org.uk/content/files/…

Everyone agrees - a love of reading is a good thing. Reading plenty of fiction and non-fiction is a great foundation for learning. But what’s the best way to evidence this? Being a good reader doesn’t equal a love of reading. A love of reading is epistemic curiosity in action; its depth is a qualitative question, not a quantifiable score.

#LivingWithPoTS This will resonate with many of you. It is so important to remember it's the little things that count💜 #PoTSAwarenessMonth #PoTS

Do you know if you have symptomatic hypermobility you are more likely to have POTS (Postural Tachycardia Syndrome) It's Dysautonomia awareness month and POTS is one of the common diagnoses our members have particularly after infections or illness too. This was evident in the latest studies about long Covid and connective tissue differences and neurodivergent people. See more below. There are similar conditions too like orthostatic intolerance or Hypotension intolerance plus hypovolemia . Read more about it in the blog by our adviser C Harris here : sedsconnective.org/post/pots-and-… We are the community led charity SEDS Connective for all these conditions and neurodivergence sedsconnective.org #EDS #HSD #POTS #Dysautonomia #hEDS #connective

Dysautonomia is sometimes minimized, as if it's just lightheadedness and fainting, but the autonomic nervous system regulates almost everything. When it isn't working properly, people can develop a very long list of symptoms and organ complications. #DysautonomiaAwarenessMonth

Today we are sharing the @ITVCentral news interview with Emily as she talks about her experience of living with #PoTS. We hope to share as many regions as possible to keep raising awareness 📽️💜 Thank you @sivanmanoj for your insight. #MedTwitter @long_covid @LongCovidKids

💡 "The vocabulary is more rare, the sentence structures more complex, the patterns of imagery more elaborately constructed." 'Why teaching academic vocabulary matters' alexquigley.co.uk/why-teaching-a…

In too many schools, "support" has become a quiet permission to step away from learning. Side rooms. Exit cards. Safe spaces. Extra adults. Somewhere along the way, we stopped asking the obvious question: why are we removing children from the very place where they’re meant to belong? Answering the 10 Toughest Questions About Inclusion open.substack.com/pub/lynseywhit…

Adrenaline dumps happen when your body suddenly floods with adrenaline. This is the hormone that fuels fight or flight. It’s the nervous systems way of helping one “survive” when there is real stress or danger. With POTS, the nervous system misfires. Adrenaline can surge from the smallest trigger. Loud sound, bright light, a nightmare, dehydration, sometimes for no reason at all. These dumps can strike during the day or even jolt you awake at night, leaving you with a racing heart, sweating and an overwhelming wave of panic. They often mimic POTS symptoms but turned up to 100. It’s like we are stuck in survival mode even though we are safe. These surges can be exhausting, disruptive, and hard to predict. They’re essentially the body’s survival instinct gone haywire due to nervous system dysfunction. For those who experience this, I’m sure they can agree, this is not a fun feeling.