Jonathan Mountstevens @MrMountstevens Twitter profile | Pikagi

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Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

8,985

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570

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1,309

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Deputy Head, History Teacher and #CTeach Programme Lead. Mostly here to discuss curriculum, assessment, school leadership and history. Views my own.

Hertfordshire

https://t.co/Z5MEku8cMp

Joined April 2018

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

New blog post On what it means to know a subject, how we want a curriculum to change a learner, why I think I got some things wrong and what we should do about it. Warning: contains metaphors.

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Knowing, richly

When I first led CPD on curriculum in my school, I was mindful of the need to counter the suspicion that a knowledge-rich approach is just about rote learning of facts. I did this by talking about …

occamshairdryer.wordpress.com

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

Is it ok for me to teach students about the fundamental British value of the rule of law or would that now put me in breach of the requirement for political impartiality in the classroom?

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Exams cancelled - 4th Jan. Guidance promised from exam boards - 25th Feb. 11 weeks since the cancellation and nearly a month since the promise and we are still waiting. Imagine schools had taken that long to provide remote learning.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

I played a good April Fool joke on our HoDs this morning. I sent them an email telling them they they would have to come up with GCSE and A Level grades using recycled question papers the kids had already seen and using grade descriptors which make no sense. Oh, wait...

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

I do so enjoy a lecture on young people's wellbeing from the good folks who brought us Sure Start closures, CAMHS cuts, reduced post-16 education funding, failure to build affordable housing, increased need for food banks, the Education Secretary revolving door, hard Brexit etc.

@GillianKeegan

Gillian Keegan

2 years

It will be deeply disappointing for children and parents that the NEU (National Education Union) has voted in favour of strike action. Strikes will have a direct impact on children's education and wellbeing, particularly following disruption caused by the pandemic. 1/2

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

I would like to request that as soon as the England fans start booing the Italian national anthem on Sunday, they stop and insist that everyone leaves the stadium, comes back in and listens respectfully. They should keep practising that until they can do it properly.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

I guess Yr 13 decorating the common room with your tweets is one of the perils of having a high social media profile.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

Taught my Yr 9s live for first time today. One student contacted me in advance to say she finds it very stressful and another to say his WiFi wouldn't be up to it. In our haste to please parents who want 100% live lessons like private schools, let's not forget kids like this.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

As a kid from a council estate who got lucky enough to attend @wmarybeard 's lectures (before she was famous) and found that they opened up a new world I had never encountered or dreamed I would have access to, this makes me very happy.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I don't think working class white kids are underperforming because schools are systematically telling them they are the beneficiaries of white privilege and that suggesting otherwise does a disservice to an extremely important issue.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

Any half-decent Head of Year would have him sobbing and blurting the whole thing out in minutes. 'Now Gav, I've got Matt in another room and he's telling me a different story, which makes me think you knew a bit more about this new variant than you're letting on.'

@SchoolsWeek

Schools Week

4 years

Gavin Williamson has claimed he did not know about the new strain of coronavirus before ordering a council to keep its schools open, despite one of his colleagues having warned of the dangers of the variant over an hour before the direction was issued

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

@mrwbw Great idea. I might use that graph style when I report exam results to Trustees in the autumn.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

I have just experienced a very high degree of satisfaction from emailing Ofsted with positive feedback about the hard work of the staff at my daughter's primary school to make online provision, copying in Gavin Williamson, of course. Strongly recommended.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

Somehow we managed to say goodbye to colleagues who left the school without breaking the rules. The students didn't get their leaving events either.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

Thread: Totally fed up with control-freakery from @educationgovuk . It feels like govt measures towards schools have been ever-more authoritarian this term and there is an increasing reliance on a big stick to ensure compliance, rather than attempting to work with profession.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

It's going to be a beautiful catch-up programme. A beautiful, beautiful catch-up programme. You know, I think it's going to be the greatest catch-up programme ever. We're going to do more to catch up disadvantaged kids than anyone else in history.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

I've seen students on a residential visit do a much better job of covering up the fact that they were holding a secret midnight feast right when you knocked on their door.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

Have postponed Twitter break because am angry that for second afternoon on trot am making phone calls to tell students to self-isolate after positive case. @educationgovuk please remind me why it's school leaders' job to give up their Christmas holidays to ruin other people's.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

Concerned about misconceptions being routinely perpetuated by journalists and politicians when talking about educational impact of lockdown (unintentionally, no doubt). This obscures the issue and hinders effective planning. Have noticed the following unhelpful errors.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

🧵We hear about the knowing-doing gap, but there's also a saying-wanting gap which often causes a lot of problems in school leadership. Here are some examples, including some undesirable consequences when the gap opens up.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Pro-tip for senior leaders at the moment: if you're asking heads of dept to do anything in the next few weeks, ask yourself whether you really need to. If you do, set a long deadline and don't ask for unnecessary evidence. It's going to be a tough enough term already.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Thread on contradictions in the JCQ guidance published on Friday. To be clear, I think JCQ was given a hospital pass by the DfE with no way of ensuring consistency between centres, but they have made it impossible even to have consistency within a centre.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

Better dig out my email from last year on why we are not providing wall to wall live lessons, with the link to the EEF report and the explanation that there is no evidence that synchronous teaching is any more effective. My inbox suggests I'm going to be needing it quite a bit.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

So if we're not setting remote learning for non-exam year groups, what are we supposed to do with the key worker kids in school? Bunny hops?

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

🧵 Got bored on coach on way back from a school visit so wrote some tips for visit leaders, based on my experience. Visits can be amazing learning experiences, but grim when they go wrong. No idea if anyone will want to read, but hopefully this might help, esp with behaviour.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

There's a debate to be had about whether Larkin, Owen etc should be on the English curriculum, but surely the key issue is whether you're happy with any Ed Sec, regardless of viewpoint, telling exam boards what should be on the spec on the basis of what they liked at school.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Feeling pretty sad about having to go back to work today, but excited to find out how many kids broke into school over half term to use the textbooks and suchlike for a spot of independent learning.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

🧵I led inset on assessment with some colleagues last week. Here are the key ideas. My focus was 'How do we decide what to assess?' The point was to build on curriculum development work of last few years and take it further, ensuring assessment is aligned with curriculum.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Am I allowed to dislike mobile phones in schools and still be irritated by Gavin Williamson's lecturing on the subject and his implication that this is the biggest issue in education?

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

This is a classic example of an educational idea which sounds instinctively appealing and is very hard to argue against without sounding like you do not care about poor kids, but which is over-simplistic and fails to address any number of issues.

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Organise catch-up summer schools to help disadvantaged pupils, UK told

Children’s commissioner concerned that by September millions of students will have missed six months of school

www.theguardian.com

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

You know what's good? Reading aloud to students from an actual book. Not a photocopy, but a real book where you get to show it to students, leaf through the pages to find the extract and brandish it during discussion afterwards. I like that. Should have been an English teacher.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

1 year

Bit of a low moment today when I showed Yr 12 a clip from an old Soviet movie on YouTube and it was immediately followed by an advert about trimming your balls.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Thread. I'm delivering a short CPD session on diversity and representation in the curriculum at the start of next term. This is a tricky thing to get right and a political hot potato. I certainly don't have the answers, but here are a few key points I plan to make. (1/16)

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

1 year

@drlindalouise I agree with plenty of the content of your thread, but I can't go along with your opening tweet. Are you really saying adjustments are never necessary? Does that include not increasing the font size for a VI child? Not taking time to talk individually to a confused student?

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

I think senior leaders have got a lot wrong for a long time (and we still do and probably always will), but in my experience senior leaders... - don't deliberately make things worse; - don't try to harm staff; - do care; - do try to make schools better. - do work very hard.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

Not sure what to make of a small boy shouting 'FBI' at me while I walked down the road just now. Is it the coat?

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

One of the most useful aids in a school day would be a marauder's map. No more looking up timetables, no more ringing to see if she's in her office, no more radio appeals to ask if anyone has seen him, no more meandering the corridors in a vain search. Could somebody get on it?

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

I wonder what teachers are guilty of today. Is it stifling the creativity of young people with a diet of rote learning stuck in the Victorian era or radicalising them with cultural Marxism and turning them into political activists? It's so hard to keep track of our crimes.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

To cheer myself up every time I'm feeling overwhelmed and like this term is the toughest ever.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

Ranty thread about why the culture war stuff about history is bugging me more than I know it should. I'm not interested in demonstrating my woke credentials or promoting the BLM organisation. I'm interested in teaching good history and I don't like threats to it. This is one.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

I want to work with colleagues on the curriculum as the progression model, a representative curriculum and assessment design to educate kids better. Instead we've spent over a year on remote learning, CAGs, catch-up, more remote learning and now TAGs. Covid needs to do one.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

New blog post Why might school leaders be better off not quality assuring, or at least making radical changes to how they quality assure? This is the first post in what I intend to be a short series exploring the issue.

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When Quality Assurance Goes Wrong

In this post I hope to diagnose some of the common reasons why school quality assurance fails in its aims. Before I get to that, however, what do I mean by quality assurance? I am thinking of activ…

occamshairdryer.wordpress.com

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Head and fellow deputy out of school today. Something's going to happen, isn't it? My money's on snow.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

Dear @educationgovuk , I have a few questions about your leaked guidance, as reported here. Would find some answers super helpful when the real thing gets published!

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Revealed: What Schools Must Do In September So All Pupils Can Return

Full detailed guidance to English councils and headteachers covers everything from revised curriculum to PPE for outbreaks.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

Busy day with my comrades today. Indoctrinating young minds sure is hard work, but it will all be worthwhile when the revolution comes.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

So if we're not supposed to provide remote learning for Years 7-10 and 12 next week, what happens if we do. Will we get sued by DfE?

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

A rebate would be great, but the real cost of TAGs is sunk. That's the stratospheric amount of time teachers were forced to spend doing a job they are not equipped to do (reliable grading) at a time when children desperately needed them at their very best.

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Headteachers call for 75% examination fee rebate in England

School leaders say move would reflect workload of teachers after A-level and GCSE exams are cancelled

www.theguardian.com

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

This would be a disaster!

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

I find the idea of being indispensable as intoxicating as the next teacher, but it strikes me that the panic arising from most kids being out of school for a while, over social justice, life chances lost, mental health etc, reveals a worrying lack of safety nets in society...

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

New blog post. The title says it all.

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Why we have stopped using target grades

A couple of years ago I received a letter of complaint from the father of one of the students at my school. His concern was that the target grades we had issued were demotivating his son. The fathe…

occamshairdryer.wordpress.com

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

Just had to stop Yr 7s from playing blind man's buff using a shared mask as the blindfold. Sometimes I think the world is doomed.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

5 years

THREAD on target grades. What makes us so confident they're a good thing? Virtually every secondary school I know uses them, but it seems to me that this is based on an assumption that they raise aspirations and lead to better results. Is this true? I'm not convinced...

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

'The record number of people taking up science and engineering demonstrates that many are already starting to pivot away from dead-end courses that leave young people with nothing but debt.' Great to see @GavinWilliamson thinks highly of my history degree.

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Gavin Williamson: Skills, jobs and freedom. My priorities for this week's Queen's Speech - and the...

Our new Lifelong Loan Entitlement will give everyone the equivalent of four years of post-18 education to use over their lifetime.

conservativehome.com

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

Hard to express just how much harm is caused in schools by rumours of 'what Ofsted want'.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

Been feeling anxious all morning because 6yo daughter had her first ever ballet exam. I'm not even fussed about whether she can do ballet. Just didn't want her to be disappointed with herself. She did fine, but this is basically my life for at least the next ten years, isn't it?

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

1 year

🧵10 things that often stop meetings from working well (at least in my experience). I mostly have SLT meeting in mind but some points probably apply to other meetings too. No silver bullets but interested to hear about things people have done to overcome these or other obstacles.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

We're a strange society. If you go into a job seen as caring and compassionate you are expected to be altruistic. Woe betide you for trying to get better pay. Yet we don't expect others to do the same and we even admire those who achieve success by putting self-interest first.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

@HughJRichards @MrsBallAP We expect subject leaders to be curriculum designers, team builders, CPD leaders, behaviour managers and administrators on top of being expert teachers, and we expect them to do it on paltry extra time and for not a lot of extra pay. Our system doesn't invest as it should.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

A colleague challenged me yesterday about something which we haven't organised very well in an area I'm leading on. It stung a bit because she's right and I hadn't been taking it seriously enough, but I'm grateful to her and I need to think hard about how we can do better.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

You can call me vain, but I'm going to be honest and say that if schools insist on staff wearing lanyards I think they should provide a range of colours on request so you can match them to what you are wearing. This has been quite a source of unhappiness to me in the past.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Got to admire the lad who just walked past me at the school gate and said, 'Good morning Sir, and how are we today?' for all the world as if I was the student and he was Deputy Head. Oh for that confidence when I was his age!

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

I don't like phone calls. Once I would have considered resigning if asked to phone a parent. I've got used to it over the years, but still not easy. Cleared up a misunderstanding in a call today in 5 mins which had dragged on for weeks by email. Sometimes a call is worth it.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Just having one of those moments of despair when you think about how much more sensible and fair it would be if we could be preparing students to do their best in their exams right now rather than all this nonsense.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

Every time I observe an A Level Psychology lesson they seem to be teaching the working memory model and I wonder why they kept this from us for so long. Were psych teachers sitting through every inset session laughing behind their hands at the rest of us?

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

Moving to a new school in any position is v hard, but doing it to become a HoD must be one of the toughest starts. I've never made that particular move, but respect to anyone who does and good luck if that's you this September. Hard to overstate how much schools depend on HoDs.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

1 year

The road in schools from 'this is a helpful thing' via 'everyone should know about this thing' and 'I need to check if everyone is doing this thing' to 'I am using this thing as a way to judge whether everyone is doing their job properly' is broad and leads to destruction.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Earlier in the pandemic school closures meant children made big sacrifices to protect older people. What do they get in return? You'd think a mask on the bus was a small price to pay to help keep transmission low and kids in school, but no, because 'personal choice'.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

Another morning of contact tracing and phone calls after a positive case beckons. Great! I wonder how many senior teams are doing this up and down the country.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

5 years

**NEW BLOG POST** What questions should (and shouldn't) senior leaders ask of heads of department? #SLTChat #edutwitter

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Leading Questions

Few of us would dispute the importance of questioning in the classroom, but it is less well explored as a leadership tool. I would argue that a well-chosen question is of great value when posed by …

occamshairdryer.wordpress.com

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Keep hearing of good people leaving teaching. This is in no way to criticise, because they should do what's right for them, but it worries me for the profession. For all the talk of workload and wellbeing the job still seems to chew bright, committed people up and spit them out.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

🧵We talk a lot about low stakes assessments, and I was mulling over some of the practical things we can do to lower the stakes. Here are a few ideas I came up with. Not intended to be remotely exhaustive.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

Before you teach students any sort of formula for answering history exam questions, it would be a good exercise to look at the top band sample answers in examiners' reports and see how many of them adhere to your formula.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

1 year

My own personal version of the buttered toast phenomenon is that the badge on my lanyard always seems to want to face towards me, regardless of how it starts when I put it on.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Questions for @educationgovuk . After attending your webinar on teacher-assessed grades I have some issues which need urgent clarification. Please could you provide answers asap? It can't wait for guidance from exam boards because schools have to plan and communicate now.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

1 year

Term's over so I'm gonna go the wrong way on the staircase and I don't care who knows it.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

I swear I do not mean this as a judgement, but I am baffled at how a quarter of teachers managed not to plan at the weekend. I do very little teaching because I'm DHT, but I spent around 3 hours planning. I admire and envy people who manage to work so efficiently.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Frustrating to have to choose between doing as @educationgovuk says and making the best decisions for learning, but that's the outcome of this shift of position in Sunday's email. As far as I know this is unsupported by research and contradicts what Ofsted has said previously.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

To my mind these tiers of restrictions just aren't precise enough. I think we could do with a system of sub-tiers. Suggest we call them a, b and c. It would help us to see whether regions are making progress towards better health if we assigned a new sub-tier every few weeks.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

I will always look back at this year's washing of hands over TAGs by @educationgovuk as a model of what weak leadership looks like. Schools have been sent over the top to take all the flak and the system has been skewed in favour of the well-off at every turn. Spineless.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

5 years

THREAD about balancing teacher autonomy with school consistency. Most of us would agree that autonomy is a good thing, but that there should be limits. So where do we draw the line? I don't think there is a formula, but here are ten guiding principles which I think will help.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

He was made to look poorly-informed, but it's still dangerous. Here was an MP claiming that researching history more fully is not acceptable because it doesn't suit his patriotic view of the past. That should ring alarm bells for anyone who cares about the credibility of history.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

Unsupported assumption that live lessons are more effective. This almost certainly depends on student, teacher and content, and there are good arguments for 'on demand' approach. Overall, @EducEndowFoundn report finds 'no clear difference' between the two.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

New blog post An intro to the curriculum theory which I have found most helpful in developing my understanding and guiding my leadership. There's no new or advanced thinking from me here, just my attempt to condense the ideas of some very clever people.

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An Introduction to Knowledge-Rich Curriculum Theory and Thinkers

This post is based on a Q and A webinar which I did with Niall Alcock for the We Are In Beta Secondary Curriculum Thinkers Community in March 2021. I have put some more information about this commu…

occamshairdryer.wordpress.com

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

I hear there's an opening for somebody to carry out an investigation and I'd like to offer my services. I once tracked down the culprit who planted a bunsen burner in somebody else's bag and cracked open a tricky case involving some fireworks being bought on a residential visit.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

Amused this morning at how annoyed I used to get about a dept colleague years ago. I followed all the inset, took part in the T&L group, regularly had visitors sent to my lessons etc. He didn't bother with any of it. But every year his students got better GCSE results than mine.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

I try to use this account for stuff that is at least tangentially related to education/history, although don't always succeed, but I feel quite shaken by this week's announcement about deporting asylum seekers. I'm struggling to think of a UK policy which has sickened me more...

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

So they trust teachers to do what teachers can't do (award grades) but when it comes to their decisions about educating students, there's a recommendation to shop them to Ofsted.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

NEW BLOG POST. I've tried to answer some of the questions which will inevitably be asked about TAGs and bust a few myths which we are likely to see in the media. I hope it's of use in the coming week.

Busting the Myths of TAGs

GCSE, A Level and other results are issued this week. Of course, because public exams were cancelled, the grades were awarded by teacher assessment. This is likely to lead to higher results than us…

occamshairdryer.wordpress.com

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

One of the problems of the uncertainty about next term, constant flip-flopping, and extra work responding to changes, is that it's been so hard to get any normal work done over Christmas. I rely on holiday work to make term manageable. The backlog this time round is scarily huge.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Thread on TAGs. This is a summary of what we are planning and why. It's far from perfect but it's intended to be a worked example to support worried colleagues. I'm not looking for a debate, so if you are all sorted with your plans and don't find it helpful, please move on.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

2 years

The most sensible, diligent 6th Form class fell to pieces this afternoon when I asked them to do a task involving scissors and glue. Whatever possessed me to think that was a good idea?

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

👏👏👏 Love this from @Ruth_Ashbee ! Schools absolutely should celebrate intellectualism, but far too often they apologise for and even suppress it. Mind you, I could have picked virtually every paragraph I've read so far to tweet with approval!

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

Update to my blog. I've been keeping and updating this list of reading on curriculum which has influenced me for ages and avoiding sharing it because it's always incomplete. But that seems silly, because it might be of use to somebody else, so here it is.

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Reading about Curriculum

I have spent a lot of time reading about curriculum over the last few years and it has radically changed the way I think about my job. I have kept a list of the books, articles and blogs which have…

occamshairdryer.wordpress.com

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

Attending @educationgovuk webinar on teacher-assessed grades. Far too often the answer is 'there will be further information on this in the guidance from exam boards.' It's way too late and just not good enough. We needed this guidance weeks ago.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

The end of school holiday sadness is strong with this one.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

@mikercameron Let's add better funding for CAMHS and other support services too. Funny how the right wing press wasn't up in arms when all this stuff was being taken away, but now they're all on a righteous crusade.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

New blog post What are the dangers of quality assuring the curriculum and what might help us to do a better job of it? Second post in my short series on quality assurance.

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Quality Assurance of the Curriculum

This post is based on a talk I gave for ASCL’s Leading On series of webinars, and explores the challenges and possibilities of quality assuring the curriculum. I have discussed what I mean by quali…

occamshairdryer.wordpress.com

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

4 years

I am mostly teaching live because it takes less time to plan and volume of other work makes pre-recording impossible. But live lessons mean I can't get on top of other work in school day, so I have to do it in evenings, leaving no planning time. Can I call it a Catch-21?

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

3 years

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again, but nothing takes the gloss off an otherwise happy and successful day of interviews quite like making the phone calls to the unsuccessful candidates.

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@MrMountstevens

Jonathan Mountstevens

@MrMountstevens

5 years

THREAD on the arts within a school curriculum. One of my bugbears is when teachers of art, music, drama etc feel compelled to justify the existence of their subjects by claiming that they develop generic skills or support other subjects e.g. music makes you better at maths...

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