Primary Huh 2: Primary curriculum leadership conversations

Primary Huh 2: Primary curriculum leadership conversations
Author: John Tomsett
Publisher: John Catt
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2022-07-27
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1915361486

Huh is the Egyptian god of endlessness, creativity, fertility and regeneration. He is the deity Mary Myatt and John Tomsett have adopted as their god of the school curriculum. Their first book in the Huh series focused upon how school practitioners design the Key Stage 3 curriculum. Its popularity prompted calls from many quarters for a similar book on the primary curriculum. Supported by their primary colleagues, Rachel Higginson, Lekha Sharma & Emma Turner, Mary and John interviewed over 30 primary practitioners about how they design the primary curriculum. Considering the diverse nature of primary schools in this country, it’s not surprising that they were soon confronted with numerous context-dependent curriculum complexities. Designing the curriculum for small primary schools, for instance, means solving the conundrum of teaching the same subject at the same time to three different year groups in one class. The conversations confirmed that shaping a primary school curriculum is a tricky business! The wisdom gleaned from the genuine experts Mary and John interviewed was limitless. The material was so important it meant that they had too much for a single volume. Twenty-one of those thirty-plus conversations comprise the book Primary Huh, which focused upon the curriculum of each individual subject from EYFS to Year 6. In this companion book, Primary Huh 2, Mary and John give a platform to practitioners who lead on the broader issues of primary curriculum design, including, amongst other things: shaping the curriculum for mixed-age classes; designing and implementing a cross-MAT curriculum; building the “cradle to career” curriculum; timetabling; assessment; transition, and diversity. Primary Huh 2 is riven through with authentic voices grappling with the endless challenge of providing our children with a rich, challenging, ambitious, beautiful curriculum.

Huh

Huh
Author: Mary Myatt
Publisher: John Catt Educational
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2021-09-18
Genre:
ISBN: 9781913622732

Mary Myatt and John Tomsett discuss each of the national curriculum subjects with a subject leader, providing an insight into how they go about ensuring that knowledge, understanding and skills are developed over time, how they talk about the quality of the schemes in their departments and the support they would welcome from senior leaders.

Back on Track: Fewer things, greater depth

Back on Track: Fewer things, greater depth
Author: Mary Myatt
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2020-09-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1913808289

There are a lot of redundant processes in schools. We need to take a hard look at these and consider whether they are adding value to the core purpose of schools. We need to apply Greg McKeown's 'disciplined pursuit of less' in order to create the time and space to do deep, satisfying work on the curriculum. This means that there will be some hard choices and recognise that if we cannot do everything, we need to move to a space which acknowledges there will be trade offs. This is more than a workload issue, it is about focusing our efforts on the most important agenda item in schools today - the development of an ambitious curriculum for every child, in every school.

This Much I Know About Love Over Fear ...

This Much I Know About Love Over Fear ...
Author: John Tomsett
Publisher: Crown House Publishing
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2015-06-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1845909844

This Much I Know about Love Over Fear is a compelling account of leading a values-driven school where people matter above all else. Weaving autobiography with an account of his experience of headship, John Tomsett explains how, in an increasingly pressurised education system, he creates the conditions in which staff and students can thrive. Too many of our state schools have become scared, soulless places. John Tomsett draws on his extensive experience and knowledge and calls for all those involved in education to find the courage to develop a leadership-wisdom which emphasises love over fear. Creating a truly great school takes patience. Ultimately, truly great schools don't suddenly exist. You grow great teachers first, who, in turn, grow a truly great school. There is a huge fork in the road for head teachers: one route leads to executive headship across a number of schools and the other takes head teachers back into the classroom to be the head teacher. John strongly believes that if the head teacher is not teaching, or engaged in helping others to improve their teaching, in their school, then they are missing the point. The only thing head teachers need obsess themselves with is improving the quality of teaching, both their colleagues' and their own. This Much I Know about Love Over Fear is an authentic personal narrative of teaching, leadership and discovering what really matters. It gets to the heart of what is valuable in education and offers advice for those working in schools.

Leadership: Being, Knowing, Doing

Leadership: Being, Knowing, Doing
Author: Stephen Tierney
Publisher: John Catt
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2021-12-13
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1914351878

In an increasingly frenetic world too many leaders have lost sight of the simple yet profound wisdom associated with practical action, otherwise known as phronesis. Phronesis is an ancient Greek word associated with good judgement and good character. At its core, it is about the ability to discern how best to act. Practical wisdom involves acting thoughtfully and virtuously and encouraging others to do the same. Stephen Tierney describes virtue, thought and action – which coalesce in effective leadership – as the Way of Being, Way of Knowing and Way of Doing. Each of the three Ways consist of a number of elements termed the Basics. The Ways of Being: Purpose & Introspection The Ways of Knowing: Specialism & Strategy The Ways of Doing: Implementation, Networking, Guardianship & Expertise Structuring the book around these eight Basics, readers will be challenged and supported to explore each of the Basics from a theoretical perspective and then provided with real world examples of how they were applied by Stephen in his own career in educational leadership. In writing Leadership: Being, Knowing, Doing, Stephen seeks to help leaders explore their own capabilities and potential. Leadership can be learnt. The three Ways with their constituent Basics represent a mirror to help leaders reflect upon and improve their practice. In turn, current leaders are called upon to accept the responsibility to grow the leaders of the future.

The Primary Curriculum Leader's Handbook

The Primary Curriculum Leader's Handbook
Author: Roy Blatchford
Publisher: John Catt
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2019-05-22
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1914351649

At a time of renewed focus on the schools curriculum, Roy Blatchford has brought together some of the sharpest thinkers in education in a brilliant mixture of both practical and conceptual essays about what makes for a positive primary curriculum, 4-11. Perfectly timed to reflect the new Ofsted framework, the contributions reflect a range of thinking, planning and delivery, as schools do it now and will for the future. It is a compendium of proven practice, offering tips to less experienced/adventurous middle and senior leaders. Featuring contributions from: Katherine Benson; Kate Dethridge; Koulla Anslow; Mary Myatt; Aidan Severs; Marc Rowland; Siobhan Horisk; Claire Lotriet; Kate Atkins; Tim Coulson; David Ingham; Lilian Bell; Sean O'Regan; Colin Lofthouse; Janine Ryan; Simon Knight; Penny Slater.

Putting Staff First

Putting Staff First
Author: John Tomsett
Publisher: John Catt Educational
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2020-04-21
Genre:
ISBN: 9781912906840

If we don't ensure that our teachers are physically and mentally well, they cannot be their best for their students.If we do not ensure, first and foremost, that our teachers are feeling physically and mentally well, they cannot be their best for their students. Consequently, a school which does not prioritize staff wellbeing is disadvantaging its own students. �Students first' is a misplaced sentiment: the best thing for students is a happy, healthy, motivated, well-trained, expert staff. By putting staff first you are providing for students the one thing which will help them make good progress in their learning: truly great teaching. Whilst it is easy to say that schools would not exist if it were not for the students, the glib converse is that without truly great school staff, the students would not be taught. What we need - as recruiting subject specialist teachers, school leaders and specialist support staff becomes increasingly difficult - is a revolution in how we treat our school staff. We have to put our staff before our students because it is the only hope we have of securing what our students need most: a world class education. The longer our schools are populated with hypoxic adults, we imperial all our futures.

The Sense of an Ending

The Sense of an Ending
Author: Julian Barnes
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2011-10-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307957330

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

Collins Et Al's Cognitive Apprenticeship in Action

Collins Et Al's Cognitive Apprenticeship in Action
Author: John Tomsett
Publisher: In Action Series
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2021-02-26
Genre:
ISBN: 9781913622435

In 1991 Allan Collins, John Seely Brown and Ann Holum published 'Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible'. Nearly a quarter of a century later John Tomsett encountered their paper and since then, it has influenced his teaching immeasurably. Collins et al. believed that 'domain (subject) knowledge ... provides insufficient clues for many students about how to actually go about solving problems and carrying out tasks in a domain'. They believed that you had to make expert subject thinking visible to students. Consequently, Tomsett developed a number of techniques which made his expert subject thinking visible to his students, to great effect. Beyond his own practice, the principles behind Collins et al's paper have been woven throughout Huntington School in York, where Tomsett is headteacher, a research school whose teachers are committed to developing evidence-informed classroom practice. In this book, the latest in the 'In Action' series, a number of Huntington School teachers discuss what they consider to be the expert thought processes specific to their individual subject domains. They explain in detail how they use cognitive apprenticeship techniques 'in action' to make their disciplinary thinking visible and help their students learn those same expert thought processes. This book is a priceless contribution to the current debate about the curriculum and how it is taught in our schools.

Other People's Children

Other People's Children
Author: Lisa D. Delpit
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2006
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1595580743

An updated edition of the award-winning analysis of the role of race in the classroom features a new author introduction and framing essays by Herbert Kohl and Charles Payne, in an account that shares ideas about how teachers can function as "cultural transmitters" in contemporary schools and communicate more effectively to overcome race-related academic challenges. Original.