28 May 2022 My late Grandad had some great phrases; one of his most famous amongst our family has to be ‘LOOK UP’!  This was frequently used when visiting churches, inside museums and pretty much anywhere that warranted an ‘open your eyes and take it all in’ moment. He was a fantastic campaigner and stood up for everything he felt strongly about including the political environment and climate change. When I moved to the Netherlands he frequently reminded me that I needed to be careful as it won’t be there for much longer! He would say ‘look up’, which as I’ve grown older I’ve begun to int ..read more

12 April 2021 I have wanted to do a Master’s in Education ever since I completed my PGCE. I decided to wait a few years, get some teaching experience behind me and establish myself. However, like many great plans, it got pushed aside. After four years of teaching in the UK, I decided it was time to venture into international teaching. With a new syllabus to learn, a new school to get used to and of course a whole new culture to explore… not the right time to start an MA.  Since then I have moved a few more times, travelled a lot, met some amazing people and eaten a lot of different foo ..read more

19 December 2020 My husband and I started the year thinking we would be moving to a new country in August, and then, like for many people, 2020 happened! We have always talked about the possibility of taking a year or 6 months out to travel and have adventures, but we always assumed it would be on our terms. Now going into our 3rd lockdown of the year in our 3rd country of the year, I’m starting to reflect on what has happened, how I got here and what I have learned along the way.  It has definitely been a rough ride. As someone who is known for being organised and planning ahead, this y ..read more

7 September 2020 Continued professional learning, ongoing professional development, whatever your school calls it, it is vital and as a self confessed ‘pedagogy geek’ I urge you to grab it with both hands immediately! As you may have noticed, teaching is a profession that does not stand still! There is always a new pedagogy, a new piece of research, a new activity, a new lesson structure... It does not mean that you have to try all of these and it definitely does not mean that all will work for you in your classroom and in your context, however, I think it is vital to stay up to date.  B ..read more

10 June 2020 Without doubt one of my favourite times of the week since going into lockdown has been, every Tuesday at 3.30pm when I meet with three colleagues to share our feedback and reflect on our weekly learning tasks. I leave these virtual meetings with so much energy, the want to just keep talking and the eagerness to start planning a lesson immediately (which I have done more than a few times!).  We have been doing this as part of the Harvard Zero online course, ‘Creating Cultures of Thinking’. This is something we began as a group in February, when we could trial things in our cl ..read more

29 May 2020 If you have been lucky enough to have some spare time between the online teaching, zoom meetings, rewriting schemes of work..., you may have seen all of the fantastic online CPD that has become available in the last couple of months. I have been totally geeking out on the recent ResearchEd daily talks, Tom Sherrington’s YouTube videos about Rosenshine’s Principles and a Google Educators course. But not everyone has the time and these are not your only options. Let me start by taking you back a few months... Last term, after having visited a colleague’s lesson and seeing how he use ..read more