Colleen

Primary school teacher, life-long learner, passionate about equity and inclusivity in education. All views are my own.

[Christopher Such @Suchmo83]

It's the summer holidays, which means that I have **two copies** of Primary Reading Simplified to give away.

Simply **retweet** this tweet for your chance to win a copy.

I will pick two winners on Sunday 17th August.

Good luck!

[Colleen @ColleenSantilli]

@MccreaEmma Hi Emma, is this for Secondary school maths teachers as opposed to primary school? I am a primary teacher in Australia. Thanks

[Steplab @Steplab_co]

(Yet another) great video from @PepsMccrea on alignment and codification. 📽️

Give it a watch - you won't regret it! 👇

[Colleen @ColleenSantilli]

@abcnews There is a school swim scheme for Year 2 students. Can we stop saying this has to be an in school issue please? It is a parent responsibility.

[Mike Downes (NPQLTD) @MrDownesteach]

NEW!! A questioning Teaching and Learning Map to make research accessible to busy teachers. It summarises the ideas of @EvidenceInEdu
@teacherhead @WALKTHRUs_5 @Doug_Lemov @TeacherToolkit @voice21oracy @ProjectZeroHGSE @HFletcherWood @m_chiles Please RT if you would like a copy.

[Colleen @ColleenSantilli]

@theprojecttv when my elderly mother locked herself out of her account, her bank made her go to a branch. Where do the Blue Mtns residents go if this happens?

[Anna Stokke @rastokke]

Quote is exactly right & why it's easy to get behind. We have to get it right at every step. "Math is a hierarchical subject. You need to know one layer of the hierarchy to be able to know the one above. Just as knowledge grows exponentially so do gaps"
https://t.co/bIGzP9qanj

[Colleen @ColleenSantilli]

@abcnews ask the housing minister about the percentage of empty units and homes. Where’s their plan to use these before building?

[Helen Reynolds MBE @helenrey]

@TeachLikeAChamp Ooo... and a summary might come in handy of the fabulous Teach Like A Champion 3.0
@Doug_Lemov
's 63 wonderful strategies

https://t.co/dxKZGvLeYl

[✨Rachael Lehr✨ @rachaellehr]

If you want to lead, you can’t be a jellyfish. You need to stand for something… and hold strong to it.

[✨Rachael Lehr✨ @rachaellehr]

Excellence is NEVER an accident… We need to be intentional in what we do to ensure our students are successful.

[Colleen @ColleenSantilli]

@mjrowland68 love news breakfast but what is with all the different colours on the screen? Too many! Get rid of the pale blue - you had navy last week. This morning there is royal blue logo, orange emergency, red breaking news and the pale blue - too much

[patrick ellis @ellis_patrick]

So, our final dinner together for the @KnowledgeScty London Study Tour. What a full on week, lots to see, learn and do.
🎯The Top Ten Takeaways 🎯
1️⃣
Where we are placed with Catalyst at our schools, I’m often saying to leaders and teachers, keep doing what you are doing, nothing new, but keep refining and getting better. My key takeaway from this trip ‘Doing less, better’. We have to be really disciplined, and hold the line, to stop doing things at school that have little impact, or evolve aspects to tighten to have greater impact.
2️⃣
We often focus on the practice or change we want leaders and teachers to implement/refine and are specific with what it looks like, however we often aren’t as clear to detail what it isn’t, or being aware of what to do when it is going wrong.
3️⃣
Attention, attention, attention - so critical. Students learn what they attend to and it is up to the teacher to gain the student’s attention.
4️⃣
Urgency of what we do - limited time. Always thinking, what is the shortest path to the desired outcome (efficiency).
5️⃣
Not to overcomplicate observations, feedback and coaching. Ideal state is where it is part of the culture of the school, where feedback is occurring all the time and welcomed by all teachers - streamline and achievable with your context, not a one off event.
6️⃣
We need to get better with being really clear what do we want students to know and do as result of what we teach, in every lesson, every day. Be ambitious and cut out the fluff.
7️⃣
Details matter - leaders need to be across the detail and sweat the small stuff when it comes to curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and behaviour. It matters!
8️⃣
Consistency is key - timetables, instructional routines, curriculum materials, behavioural expectations, planning time etc etc - reduce variation, think economy of scale and how to reduce teacher workload so they focus on high impact teaching.
9️⃣
Quality first wave teaching must be our first focus when planning - what is required for ALL students in the classroom, then what specific scaffolds and supports are required for individual students at point of need.
🔟
For longer term sustainability, leaders (school and system) need to continuously reflect upon and prioritise ‘creating the conditions’ - for us that is creating the conditions for all things Catalyst to be embedded and sustained (all of the above as a starting point).

[Rebecca Birch @msrebeccabirch]

Just as I don't want a Romantic dentist who follows their own vibes-based tooth drilling, I don't want to be part of a profession where so many wilfully fight against what works. Knowledge is why we are professionals. You want the professional pay? Do the professional learning.

[Jamie Clark @XpatEducator]

***BOOK GIVEAWAY ALERT***

📣 To celebrate the release of ‘Teaching One-Pagers’, I am giving away THREE copies of the book and access to this exclusive poster on Learning & Memory.

To enter, simply REPOST this post. Winners will be picked at random and announced on Monday 27th May.

If you can’t wait, it’s available on Friday via @JohnCattEd Order here: https://t.co/4QnSstcocR

[Amy Haywood @Amy_L_Haywood]

Australia’s Catch-22 curriculum challenge - Australian teachers teach by day and write curriculum by night.

Quality-assuring curriculum materials can help remedy this.

Lucy Yongbloed and my new op-ed outlines how this works overseas.

@EducationHQ_AU

https://t.co/RlI0QAruQW

[Adam Boxer @adamboxer1]

During the Great Marking Era, exercise books became disproportionately valued as a record of teacher performance. With that era ending, we must radically evaluate the purpose of exercise books and what we expect to see in them.

In our dept, what we expect to see from books is:

Titles/LO
Basically no notes at all
Lots of work
90%+ of work self assessed in purple
Additions, emendations and corrections, not just ticks or crosses
No teacher marking
No full sentences
Broadly consistency in the quantity of work across a class
Do Nows in the back
Limited doodling
No random bits of paper floating around
Very very limited bits of paper stuck in (we use booklets or textbooks for the questions [not writing answers], to limit the faf of cutting and sticking)

Everything else (like notes) is provided to students separately. Their book is just an extension of their working memory. It's not a revision guide.

[Tom Bennett OBE @tombennett71]

In today’s @smh some of my thoughts on behaviour, teacher prep, and Australia. TL; DR: Australia is magic, behaviour is a problem. https://t.co/ai5bBMGwiS

[Brendan Lee @learnwithmrlee]

Great day with @tombennett71! We need schools that are safe, calm, predictable & everyone is treated with dignity. We want children to behave because we want them to be successful.
Thank you @manisha_gazula @TVtheTeacher for hosting.