Detention Diaries
Exploring Education, building a community
recent posts
- Questions and more questions. The white paper after some digestion… or lack thereof.
- Every Child Achieving and Thriving – Vision, Reality, and the Gap Between the Two
- Thank You So Much for the 8 Weeks. Truly.
- 🎙️ New Podcast: Progressive Masculinity, Modern Manhood & The Messy Middle
- Behaviour Headlines: Everyone’s Fault, No One’s Solution
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If you’re reading this and you’ve just finished Placement A of your PGCE, take a moment. A real one. Because learning to teach is fucking hard — and you’ve just survived the first half of it. There are very few jobs where “training” involves standing in a room with 30 other people’s children, trying to…
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This one is a bit different, I’ve been helping a trainee these last few weeks and it has reminded me just how difficult it is for all of us. I’ve also been reading a lot about the new £200m pot for teacher training in SEND. Nice one! Let’s start at the beginning. The PGCE. Also…
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I used to get the kids. I used to feel that magical teacher-student connection where you could read the room, laugh at the jokes, understand the references, and genuinely feel like you were part of their world. Now?I’m pretty sure they live in some kind of alternate TikTok dimension that runs on likes, filters, and…
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Well. It’s happening. Netflix is giving you that “Are you sure?” look. The booze has to go back in the cupboard. You’re brushing your teeth like a Victorian chimney sweep because no child needs to smell Baileys and regret on a Tuesday morning. The fairy lights are coming down (if they’re not already a permanent…
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Merry F*ing Christmas This is your annual festive reminder that work is not your personality, and your inbox is not a Tamagotchi that will die if you stop checking it. It’s Christmas. Or at least Christmas-adjacent. The point in December where everyone pretends things are winding down while secretly scheduling emails for January like absolute…
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This week on the podcast, I had the absolute privilege of speaking with Dr. Shelley Moore — educator, researcher, consultant, inclusion specialist, and all-round force of nature in the world of SEND. I knew the conversation would be good… but I wasn’t prepared for just how eye-opening it would be. If you’ve ever felt frustrated,…
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It’s the 1st of December tomorrow, which means two things:1️⃣ Teachers everywhere are about to start pretending they love Christmas jumper day, and2️⃣ SLT are about to roll out the annual “festive CPD” — which is the same as normal CPD, but with a mince pie and a slightly more patronising PowerPoint theme. And speaking…
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This week I had the absolute pleasure (read: emotional exhaustion wrapped in admin) of attending my daughter’s EHCP meeting.As any parent of a SEND child knows, these meetings are more stressful than OFSTED, job interviews, or trying to teach Year 9 last period on a windy Friday. Enter the SALT team — “Speech and Language…
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Every Monday morning in briefing, it happens.Our deputy stands at the front, coffee in hand, PowerPoint glowing, and says the same thing: “Attendance is a whole-school target. We need to drive attendance. We all need to push attendance to bring up the numbers.” Cue the staffroom nodding. The silent agreement that yes, attendance is indeed…
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If you spend any amount of time in a school, you’ll hear phrases like “We’re a reading school,” “Reading is at the heart of everything we do,” and “Don’t forget to Drop Everything And Read.” Lovely stuff.Very wholesome.Children surrounded by books like tiny, chaotic librarians. But here’s something we don’t talk about nearly enough:How on…
