Here's the story behind my upcoming video, which I've spent 100+ hours working on over the last 8 months.
Back in March, whilst helping my Year 11 son revise for his exams, he asked me a simple yet challenging question: "Can you pick 3 key references for each 'Power and Conflict' poem?" Armed with a pen, I sat down and began the task. It took a lot of time and effort to narrow each poem down to just 3 key references.
After the exams, I realised I had gathered something valuable. So, I started turning my notes into fully developed paragraphs—by the end, I’d written 8,000 words of analysis!
In September, I decided to turn all that work into one epic video, covering all 15 poems. But what followed was a series of disasters. First, I recorded everything only to find out my microphone was off—no audio at all. Then the camera battery died halfway through recording. And that was just the beginning! The editing was a nightmare—crashes, lost files, not enough storage space, you name it. If something could go wrong, it did.
Eight months later, with over 100 hours spent on one video, it’s finally done. It’ll go out on my channel this Tuesday at 6:30pm at https://t.co/ki0HGRHXd0 and will hopefully be useful! I do not want to think about 'Power & Conflict' poetry for a while now :/
🚨Nervous Joe Klaxon🚨
Every year exam time rolls around and teachers and Heads of MFL scrabble to find native speakers to support Oral Exams in less commonly spoken languages. My friend, school improvement bod and all round good egg @MissBowersMFL and I wanted to solve this.
NEW - Retrieval Practice is one of the most well replicated learning strategies from research. BUT, which type of quizzing is best for which level of expertise?
Check out our sketchnote to see our suggestions. For teacher professional learning informed by research, contact us [email protected]
🚨NEW VID🚨
The Power of Drop-ins (Unscheduled Visits from Peers) for Improving Teaching & Staff Culture, inc:
KEY MOMENTS
1:10 → Deconstructing a typical teacher growth curve
2:43 → Interview @DrSamSims on coaching effects
7:04 → Interview @MrsBallAP on implementing drop-ins
RELATED PAPERS
• Study on the impact of drop-ins in England https://t.co/UG153L2DWM
• Working paper on the effects of drop-ins in US schools https://t.co/ATZHn8Pf5j
👊
Have you visited the Teacher Fast Feedback website yet?
It’s an invaluable resource for simplifying your lesson marking, and creating do now and recall labels – all quick and easy! https://t.co/9veGpLFZOy #TeacherTwitter#ad#Teacher
✍️NEW THIS WEEK
Collaborative planning meetings
Including an attempt at mental models for both planning lessons for others to teach as well as what it means to prepare lessons planned by others.
https://t.co/tC885CtCV5
🛎️ CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT! This new A3 poster highlights the key principles and top routines from highly practical The Classroom Management Handbook by @coachdowley and @ollie_lovell. Grab your copy of the book via @JohnCattEd - these ideas have helped me personally create calmer, more focused classrooms!
☝️REPOST first and download a FREE HQ copy here: https://t.co/Xj2XpPGvnu
One of my favourite strategies to live model in the classroom is extending the margin and teaching students to capture the 'Thought Process' as the expert models the response under the visualiser! A superb routine to have in any classroom 👨🏫💭