Sats results: 40% of pupils fail to meet target despite rise in attainment Figures reveal 61% of 10- and 11-year-olds reached government standard in reading, writing and maths, up from 53% in 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jul/04/sats-results-show-39-of-primary-pupils-failed-to-meet...

Teachers at school in Walsall strike over fears for safety from pupils Industrial action at Willenhall comes as staff tell of running battles with students and Ofsted officials being pelted with food https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jun/28/teachers-strike-school-walsall-safety-pupils-wille...

Schools teach chess to help ‘difficult’ pupils concentrate The year 3 pupils at Park End Primary School in Middlesbrough are a bit of a rowdy bunch. Headteacher Julia Rodwell describes them as “a complex and difficult group”. Put them in front of a chess set though, and silence descends. “The first ...

Overemphasizing Reading as a Skill ' I’ve grown deeply concerned about a shift that has taken place in reading instruction in recent years and the impact I think that shift has had on students of poverty. Specifically, I believe that an over-emphasis on reading as a skill has caused schools to negle...

Thanks Jenny for your analysis of these figures, very heartening.

Children who enjoy reading over three years ahead in the classroom

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/researc ... urvey_2016

Dyslexia revisited
It’s time to take a fresh look at some of the commonly held beliefs about dyslexia, writes Sarah Driver

https://senmagazine.co.uk/home/articles ... -revisited

What Doesn’t Work: Literacy Practices We Should Abandon The number one concern that I hear from educators is lack of time, particularly lack of instructional time with students. It’s not surprising that we feel a press for time. Our expectations for students have increased dramatically, but our actu...

Is Your Child Ready for Kindergarten? In his 2008 blockbuster, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell makes the case that a person’s age relative to his or her cohort is a key predictor of success. That is, the older you are in relation to your peers, the more likely you are to perform at an elite level in spor...

Most school support staff have been assaulted by pupils

One in five is attacked at least once a week, survey for the GMB union reveals, as police report 50% rise in incident

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... ion-survey

Good schools are full of good pupils or to put it another way good schools are full of more advantaged children and there are too many schools in the UK with unacceptably high concentrations of poverty and it is these concentrations of poverty that are doing untold damage to so many children. Mark L...

Grammar schools dominated by the wealthy, DfE's own data shows Analysts say data released to show benefits for ‘ordinary working families’ just confirms advantage of higher earners Grammar schools are dominated by children from well-off and middle class families, according to figures released by the...

'Staggeringly high' numbers of teachers threatening to quit the classroom Teachers are stuck in roles they can no longer cope with but can't leave because of their financial circumstances, says Education Datalab head http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/staggeringly-high-teache...

Secret Teacher: we're not reading – so why do we assume children will? English teachers at my school don’t have time to read whole books, and are told to rely on extracts in class. This is no way to inspire a love of literature https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2017/may/20/secret-teacher-w...

Play is essential, but it takes work for children to succeed in the real world Tom Bennett It’s not a bad idea for Cambridge to have a professor of play, but learning is taxing and requires a teacher’s skills https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/27/play-learning-work-lego-professor-cam...