Rebecca Lee

UNBELIEVABLY EXCITING RESOURCE DROP: Principles of Effective CPD, by me and @BenRiceTeach We've been working on this guide for months, and it's a concrete + nitty gritty manual to actually delivering CPD effectively. Get your copy at the link 👇 carousel-learning.com/resources/down…

Why am I against screen-based assessments? This change will warp teaching practice for the worse. I guarantee it. More & more lesson time will be devoted to putting classes in front of screens. School leaders will feel pressure to prepare pupils which 1/

The activity fallacy: an obsession with instructional novelty has produced a strange inversion of priorities. Teachers are sent on courses to acquire new “strategies,” to diversify their repertoire of techniques. Meanwhile, the curriculum they are teaching may be completely incoherent, the sequence arbitrary, the assessment disconnected from both. This is what @Counsell_C calls an “intransitive pedagogy”; a pedagogy without an object.

Natural learning is brutal. Evolution's method: those who fail to learn, perish. The knowledge we transmit in a single sentence ("don't eat that berry") took generations of fatal errors to acquire. Schools exist precisely because natural learning is slow, cruel, and inefficient. The artificial classroom isn’t a falling away from a natural ideal; it’s an improvement on natural indifference.

Very proud of our school today. The only school in Cumbria in the top 10 of the entire North West of England 🙌🏼

'Schools should be low tech, high text.' 🎯

This should be how we begin our conversations about school behaviour. It's not the entirety of the subject, but it's where we begin. Support, consequences, responses, third spaces, incentives, disincentives etc all need to be framed within this idea: *children deserve a safe, calm space where they can learn in dignity*. This is the Prime Directive of public education.

This is bang on. Inclusion doesn’t mean lowering standards- and when it does mean that, it’s a mistake, and it’s not authentically inclusive. Children with SEND are not a separate group; they’re children with circumstances that may need adjustments and exceptions, but children that also need high standards, high regard, and boundaries with consequences- like everyone.

The best teachers I've seen don't use a wide range of activities. They do a few things, and they do them well. They hone them, practise them, and know exactly when each one should be used and why. The students become habituated to them, and learning goes through the roof.

I am blogging again!!! Like many others, I've moved over to Substack for a bit of a refresh. First entry is on school improvement - where to start, and what things matter. Link is in the first reply, I'm weirdly a bit nervous about it it's been so long 😭😭

*NEW* We think the teacher crisis is about recruitment. It’s not. We train thousands every year then watch a third leave within 5 years. Almost half of trained teachers are not teaching. The real crisis is retention. And we’re losing many who could have become great. Link in reply ⬇

@KateJones_teach @stoneman_claire I think you’ve read that through a very particular lens, Kate - one where you take offence where none was intended and where none was very easy to find! Nobody can make you feel anything but maybe take a beat before taking offence?

You're entitled to your views Claire & you say it's great when classroom teachers are successful as authors, speakers etc but that (imo) is followed by judgement & mocking (at least the jealousy comment is honest) but you think it's ok for a teacher to leave the classroom full time to be a headteacher but not to work across a MAT in a role? Are you teaching a full time table Claire? This constant message you share hits women in education hardest, mothers who are juggling a lot but still smashing glass ceilings finding a flexible way for them to stay in the profession/field. I speak as a mother in education with the books, at the conferences etc & I won't let you make me feel bad or guilty about my success or choices.

From my first S*bstack post on the importance of hearing teacher voices - and wishing ex-teachers hadn’t left (I’m really sorry I’m a stuck record! We miss you 😢) Link below

I've been blown away by the response to Carousel Teaching, and am honoured that from September schools are going to be using our resources for whole-school CPD 🙏🙏🙏 Check out our new video below, and you can book a demo here: calendly.com/d/crtg-zw8-q7k…

This is one of the great graphics of education policy, and is worthy of deep study. Phones are a scourge, and if you're running a school that allows them *in any way* you are increasing the chances of disruption massively. Control the controllables. @TeacherTapp

IT'S FINALLY HERE We know CPD doesn't work. Teachers don't enjoy it, and say they don't learn from it. NO LONGER ...because CAROUSEL TEACHING is now officially here 🥳🥳 ...bringing you CPD that works and helps you get better at teaching. Read on 👇👇

Call and response: Nice strategy, growing in popularity. What do I use it for and why? >

🚨🚨 NEW TODAY About that viral teaching clip of Pritesh... It's from a top secret documentary I've been working on for the last 18 mths to capture & deconstruct some of best teaching in UK. Why We Made It & How To Access It (For Free): ↓

Direct instruction is joyful & leads pupils to success. Here is a *clip* where I use high frequency & high participation questioning in 3 phases: 1. Check for listening 2. Rehearsal 3. Check for understanding Established routines: all hands up, turn & talk, SLANT & ruler reading

When multiple teachers within a school all use the same routines, special things happen. A short thread on collective acceleration: ↓

OPINION The major advantage of using booklets isn't curricular, it's that you eliminate all the goddamn cutting and sticking of worksheets that plagues secondary classrooms The number of minutes of learning lost to cutting and sticking is off the charts