Digital Privacy

Categories Blog, Technology

This tweet provoked a really interesting and helpful debate about digital privacy. https://twitter.com/athole/status/720345548780244992 I have been acutely aware of the many school Twitter feeds publishing names and images of pupils together. And this left me uneasy. I have experience of using blogs and blogging with classes since 2007. My class even won a competition way back in 2010. http://godzillasden.blogspot.co.uk Currently at my school all classes are using ClassDojo and the Class Story very effectively. I pull a snapshot from each Class Story to share on…Continue Reading “Digital Privacy” →

I saw the wild geese flee

Categories Blog, Outdoor Learning

This post started life as part of my own reflections of how better to tell stories and ‘capture’ and ‘record’ the spontaneity of outdoor learning. On Easter weekend the family was up north staying with my folks in the wee Angus village of Edzell. On the Monday we visited St Cyrus beach and nature reserve, a serene stretch of white sands home to Peregrine Falcons and one of my favourite places in the universe. The North Esk river completes its journey and spills out into the…Continue Reading “I saw the wild geese flee” →

A Whole Lotta Roses

Categories Blog, Professional Learning

On Saturday I awoke with the birds at 4.30 to catch the 5.40 Manchester train to attend Primary Rocks LIVE. A teaching conference. In Manchester. On your day off. Are you mental? Maybe a little bit. But it was worth it. There was free ice-cream and everything. I started following @primaryrocks1 on Twitter about a year a go. The weekly Monday night chat became an essential lurker and then participatory event. Enthusiastic, knowledgable, engaged primary teachers all sharing practice and being funny with it too. I’ve…Continue Reading “A Whole Lotta Roses” →

To Kill A Mockingbird

Categories Blog, Reading

Reading To Kill A Mockingbird as a teenager was a seminal moment and awakening for me as a young man. It was the book that helped bridge the gap between teen and adult fiction. I was still pulp reading the likes of James Herbert and Stephen King but discovering Harper Lee led me to discover new authors like John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, James Joyce and Alisdair Gray. The tension and segregation of the American south depicted in To Kill A Mockingbird was completely alien to…Continue Reading “To Kill A Mockingbird” →

Tell Me Questions

Categories Blog, Literacy

One of my ‘go to’ thinking skills and discussion tools is a PPSS grid. Puzzles, Patterns, Similarities and Surprises. It is adapted from ‘Tell Me’, the seminal book about reading and book talk written by Aidan Chambers. The original analysis grid has Likes, Dislikes, Puzzles and Patterns. I find it a simple yet powerful way in engaging the pupils in dialogue about books, short films, writing, self / peer assessment and why they pushed Jamie into the plant pot at lunchtime. Anything at all, really….Continue Reading “Tell Me Questions” →