Todd Nathan

@C_Hendrick I should also have acknowledged Phil Schlechty's line that schools should not be places where children go to watch teachers work...

If the teacher is working harder than the students then something's not right. Passage from 'Embedding Formative Assessment' by @dylanwiliam

Terrible experience flying with @flysrilankan. Can you please locate my luggage? Awful customer service. @BIA_SriLanka

Having announced that it will scrap subject deep dives, Ofsted has now admitted that its inspectors found it more ‘challenging’ to carry them out in small primary schools tes.com/magazine/news/…

@MrZachG And even then you might not know until a couple of years after that teacher has stopped teaching those students. The teacher who gets the best results this year might not be the teacher who is best at preparing students for future learning...

'The curriculum has become a bit too crowded, and teachers and students would welcome updated and slimmed-down content,' says @AQA chief, responding the government's review of curriculum and assessment tes.com/magazine/news/…

I would quite happily say to any Ofsted inspector, I’ve been a teacher for 17 years - you cannot give me a grade based on a 30 minute lesson observation.

If I had to stamp every time I gave my class or an individual verbal feedback I’d quite literally need to use the stamp 150+ times per 50 minute lesson. High-frequency questioning & feedback *is* effective teaching. Fads like this prevent excellent teaching. Just get on with it!

@jonnyjohnno @greg_ashman The best formative assessment processes often leave no written evidence; just a smarter decision by the teacher about what to do next...

My mind genuinely can't handle the fact that we used to formally "judge" quality of teaching from lesson observations and book scrutinies. I just can't even begin to imagine how such a thing would be possible.

@ProfCoe even if it were possible to judge quality based on observation, I wouldn't *want* to! giving a judgment makes the observation about the judgment. avoiding making judgments makes the observation about feedback and development. that's way more important to my mind. /end

Great point here. Getting teachers high quality curriculum that someone else writes so they can spend their time internalizing how they'll teach it instead of writing plans is another key way to manage teacher WM.

Sent this to some ECTs. Things that have always helped me: Recognising that teaching is like riding a bike - you think you’ve forgotten how to do it, you anticipate a disaster, then after a few days it’s like you’ve never been away. The kids forget good and bad lessons way quicker than you do. In fact, those ‘disaster lessons’ I had that I perceived to be career ending, the kids were already laughing and joking with each other in the corridor completely oblivious to anything I was stressing about. They forget - very fast. YOU are the best resource - haven’t got a glitzy curriculum plan or a tonne of spectacular original resources? You’ve got the best one - you!

Should our GCSE exam system be changed? @dylanwiliam says combining teacher assessment and external assessment would be the 'best option' going forward tes.com/magazine/teach…

SLT need to own this and lead with a strong centralised behaviour policy, consistent routines, centralised detentions and a behaviour curriculum. SLT should have staff's backs with behaviour and also expect all staff to consistently use the policy for the benefit of all.