Hey there Tappers!
The final half term of 2025/26 academic year has begun!
This is the half-term when there are transition days, sports day, and external exams, and end-of-term dinners, and goodbye speeches, and new starter inductions, and one million other important events to cram in.
But despite that, we have good news – more people are feeling optimistic about the upcoming term compared to this time last year (57% UP from 52% last year). More on this later…
Winner of the prize draw
Congratulations to Ms T, our May prize draw winner – she will receive a £100 Amazon gift card! And her colleague, Ms H, who has also been tapping in May, has also won a £100 Amazon gift card!
New giveaway coming – keep your eyes peeled 👀.
Primary TLR responsibilities
Last week, our deep digging into TLRs continued, and we asked about what activities primary subject leaders had undertaken this year – and then checked to see the difference between those subject leaders paid for a TLR vs those who are not.
Whether or not you were paid a TLR made very little difference to tasks like planning or updating schemes of work (68% paid for a TLR vs 62% not paid for a TLR), but delivering CPD had the biggest gap (74% vs 51%), followed by analysing pupil data (65% vs 45%).
What does this tell us about subject leadership expectations? Well, firstly, yes, those being paid TLRs are expected to do more (which is exactly what we expected to find) but the high numbers still expected to undertaken tasks like organising CPD (51%) and analysing and reporting data (45% analysing, 51% reporting) reveals a significant number who have all of the accountability but none of the financial recompense.
With shrinking pupil numbers and pressures on budgets, cuts to TLRs might be a choice school leaders have to make – but are there ways to reduce the expectations for subject leadership without compromising on quality of learning? If you’re a school leader who has found a solution, or a teacher in a school who feels your system for dealing with subject leadership works well, we would love to hear from you! Please write in 📧 England@teachertapp.co.uk.
Running revision sessions in half term
Over half-term, many secondary teachers were in school, running revision sessions for their students. But how common is it to run a session? And how does it compare to previous years?
7% of teachers ran sessions they weren’t paid for, and 5% ran sessions that they were paid for. This is in line with previous years (6% and 5% in 2025, and 7% and 6% in 2022).
- Maths teachers are the most likely to be running sessions (9% unpaid and 8% paid).
- Arts and DT teachers are the least likely to be running sessions (4% and 2%).
- Teachers in schools with the highest number of students on Free School Meals (FSM) were more likely to be running sessions, compared to teachers with the lowest number of students on FSM (8% and 9% in schools with the highest number of students on FSM vs 6% and 3% in schools with the lowest number of students on FSM).
Earlier in the year, we asked about the perceived effectiveness of these booster sessions and found secondary teachers were mostly ambivalent: 6% thought it made a significant positive difference, 51% a slight positive difference, and a huge 42% didn’t think it made a difference. You can read more about the findings here.
Exactly who is more optimistic?
So, as we mentioned at the start of today’s blog, there has been a little uptick in the number of teachers reporting they feel optimistic about the upcoming term (woohoo!).
But exactly where has the increase come from? We took a closer look at the results…
Across both primary and secondary phases, the combined “very” and “somewhat optimistic” figures rose:
- Primary Teaching Staff: 48% → 53%
- Primary Senior Leadership: 54% → 57%
- Secondary Teaching Staff: 52% → 58%
- Secondary Senior Leadership: 59% → 62%
Proportionally, it is secondary teachers who have had the biggest increase (six percentage points, 11% increase) and primary AND secondary leaders with the smallest increase (three percentage points, 5% increase).
This last half term we will be probing into the sources of pressure for leaders in schools – so if you have a question suggestion, do get in touch! You can send a message directly to us in the app using “contact us”.
Teacher Tapp favourite reads
For some teachers, reading aloud to students can be the best bit of the day. We have been asking questions about reading in schools for a special ‘Teacher Tapp looks at Reading’ blog, but for now, here is a sneak peek at the favourite books for reading aloud to a class:
EYFS and KS1 teachers voted for:
- The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak
- The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
- We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen
- Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson
- The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
KS2 teachers voted for:
- Holes by Louis Sachar
- The Final Year by Matt Goodfellow
- The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Raúf
- The Twits by Roald Dahl
- The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
In secondary schools, English teachers voted for:
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Macbeth by William Shakespeare
- An Inspector Calls by J B Priestley
Spot your favourite on the list? Or maybe you’ve been inspired to try a new book with your class! Do write in and let us know england@teachertapp.co.uk.
Daily Reads
The top blog this week was a special one by Craig Barton about AI and diagrams for our maths teachers, with over a quarter of maths-Tappers tapping! Read it here.
There are so many great blogs out there and we love featuring them on Teacher Tapp. If you have a blog you think we should feature, then please email us at england@teachertapp.co.uk and we will check it out!
