D J Murphy

Husband 🧎🏻‍♂️ Father 👩‍❤️‍👨 Teacher 📖 Coach 📈 Part-time Soldier 🇮🇪

[D J Murphy @DJMurph1989]

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[Maurice Brosnan @m_brosnan]

I've referenced this clip so many times in print/podcasts over the last few weeks. Last November, Mayo organised workshops just for local coaches. Andy Moran took the attacking session. This is him in his essence.

[D J Murphy @DJMurph1989]

@TolentinoTeach Scrivel (verb): to behave in a meek and cowed manner

After the teacher chastised the student he scrivelled into his chair.

He began to scrivel as he approached the home of his domineering mother-in-law.

[D J Murphy @DJMurph1989]

2026 McKenna Cup to commence on Friday evening - HoganStand https://t.co/P4Bhx8aggY

[D J Murphy @DJMurph1989]

😲

[Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt]

"Early data on the effects of school phone bans confirm what teachers and administrators have long suspected—that phones in the classroom were the primary culprit behind bad behavior and low engagement."
From @juliejargon at @WSJ

https://t.co/LigL4Jd0ns

[Ryan Holiday @RyanHoliday]

A lot of people will spend 2026 fixated on trends, fads, and momentary crises. I’m focusing on what will still matter in five, ten, fifty years. Character. Discipline. Patience. Wisdom. Hard work. These are constants, no matter the headlines.

[Óglaigh na hÉireann @defenceforces]

“Be at the Bursting Doors of Doom and in the Dark Deliver Us!”

Members of the 2nd Regiment gathered last Thursday, the 4th of December, to celebrate Saint Barbara’s Day.

The 4th December marks the celebration of Saint Barbara’s Day. The patron saint of Artillery. On that day in the year 267 she was condemned to death with her own father planning to carry out her execution after she acknowledged herself to be Christian.
As punishment by God, he was struck down by lightning and consumed by flame akin to that of the shock and awe delivered by artillery fire on the Battlefield.

[D J Murphy @DJMurph1989]

Interesting... 🤔

[Adam Boxer @adamboxer1]

I think a lot of leadership teams really don't understand the role and function of Heads of Department (HoDs).

In many schools, HoDs are purely technocratic. Their job is to deal with things like timetables, set changes, data deadlines, detention systems and cover. Occasionally they venture into the realms of more "curriculum" type issues, but often these are still things like ordering textbooks, setting homework centrally, making sure there are clubs and extra-curricular activities and the like. Come summer, they project manage curriculum improvement work, which again is often bureaucratic and mostly focused around "why haven't my colleagues hit their deadlines?"

Rarely is the HoD considered the driver and champion of Teaching and Learning in their subject. But that's what they should be. A true leader or teaching and curriculum, helping their colleagues develop their practice and skills in the classroom, and coordinating the team to ensure that the curriculum and resources are effective and supportive.

The important bit is that a lot of leaders *tell* me that actually their HoDs do fulfil this vision. Unfortunately, as I've written before, ideality rarely matches reality, and when I speak to the HoD they tell me they have no time to go observe lessons, no autonomy over policies, no meeting time to discuss T&L, and are drowning in the implementation of other people's priorities.

If you want your HoDs to be able to do this job, you need to actively make it happen, rather than just hope it does.

You need to

- Give them free periods to go and observe
- Reduce the number of tasks they need to do that are unrelated
- Allow them the autonomy they need to make disciplinary changes and developments
- Ring fence meeting time for T&L

and, above all, trust them!

[D J Murphy @DJMurph1989]

Good to see some effort but do we really need a pilot to prove that if we take smart phones off our teens their grades and mental health will improve? https://t.co/PnPVANCn8Y

[D J Murphy @DJMurph1989]

SLANT WORKS!

[Thomas James @ebiThomasJ]

🚨 First blog post in about 5 years. Link below.

[D J Murphy @DJMurph1989]

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[Carl Hendrick @C_Hendrick]

Learning is a compounding game. It’s about steady growth over time not momentary performance.

This is why retrieval practice, daily review, and spacing are so powerful. They convert momentary effort into lasting advantage.

We often judge students by where they are now. Their test scores, their reading level, their grade placement etc. But often we are testing the illusory gains of cramming not learning. What really matters is the trajectory: the rate at which they are learning.

And learning is not additive, it’s synergistic. Knowledge doesn’t simply stack piece upon piece; it interacts. Vocabulary unlocks comprehension, comprehension fuels background knowledge, and background knowledge accelerates the acquisition of more vocabulary. The cycle feeds itself.

Changing long term outcomes means designing for growth rates, not snapshots. That means prioritizing daily reading, retrieval practice, cumulative review, and structured vocabulary instruction. activities that produce small but steady gains but often don’t feel like it.

It also means intervening early, because once a compounding gap opens, it is brutally hard to close. Interventions often fail when they treat outcomes, not growth rates.

Daily reading habits exemplify the Matthew Effect in education where small behavioral differences compound into dramatic learning disparities. Students who read consistently encounter vastly more words than sporadic readers, creating cascading benefits in vocabulary, comprehension, and cognitive processing that extend far beyond the reading itself.

Like compound interest, these modest daily choices accumulate into substantial gaps in academic achievement, transforming seemingly minor habits into powerful predictors of lifelong educational success.

[Louis Everett @LouisEverett1]

Week one done and never felt so lucky to be a teacher.

I wrote about why in the summer holiday.

Teaching: The Greatest Privilege.

https://t.co/xRfgWZzEI4

[Adam Boxer @adamboxer1]

Me, circulating during independent practice and maintaining my eye contact with the rest of the room

#herdlikeachampion

[D J Murphy @DJMurph1989]

Who would have thought it?!

[Lawrence Tynes @lt4kicks]

Fascinating insight from a school teacher on in school phone bans.

[Lawrence Tynes @lt4kicks]

Fascinating insight from a school teacher on in school phone bans.

[Carl Hendrick @C_Hendrick]

- Classroom phone bans reduced academic inequality: lower-performing students gained most, whilst high achievers showed minimal change.
- Classroom spot checks showed fewer disruptions, more engaged teachers, and fewer off-task behaviours.
- Interestingly, while students felt a slight increase in FOMO, this did not translate into poorer well-being or reduced motivation.
- Students who experienced phone bans in classrooms became significantly more supportive of such policies.

https://t.co/Rp792apby6

[D J Murphy @DJMurph1989]

‘Cognitive Science,’ All the Rage in British Schools, Fails to Register in U.S. @The74 https://t.co/rxoC0HKUfp

[Joe Kirby @joe__kirby]

Hornets, Slugs, Bees and Butterflies: the workload relief revolution

https://t.co/T5LQKCrudN

🐌a let-go-of list of 20 slugs
💥a not-to-do list of 18 hornets
🐝a keep-doing list of 10 honeybees
🦋a start-doing-list of 12 butterflies

✊ join the revolution

[D J Murphy @DJMurph1989]

Interesting 🤔

[Peps @PepsMccrea]

Distractions eat attention and their appetite is BIG (over 33% of lesson time).

BUT... our efforts to tackle them should be in proportion to their effect:

↓

[D J Murphy @DJMurph1989]

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[Stephen McCourt @smccourt1992]

Lots of talk about 'equality for soccer' after the latest decision on Casement Pk. However, here are the facts in Belfast:

- Against peak demand there are +43 soccer pitches.

- There is a shortfall of -64 Gaelic games pitches if only council facilities are considered.

[D J Murphy @DJMurph1989]

🇮🇪

[Óglaigh na hÉireann @defenceforces]

This week, the Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Rossa Mulcahy introduced himself to serving members on our internal communications app, Connect.

Here, we have a small excerpt of that introduction, where Lt Gen Mulcahy outlines the privilege it is to lead and represent the women and men of Óglaigh na hÉireann and what areas he will focus on, over the course of his time as Chief of Staff.

Serving members can see the full video on the Connect App.