Hey there Tappsters!
If you’re still on break, hooray! But maybe don’t cheer too loudly…the summer holidays are a distant memory for some of you already! 😳 Where did July and August go?!
Fortunately, we have just the thing to make your return a little more exciting…
August competition! Ultimate survival kit
This month’s prize draw is The Ultimate Back to School Survival Kit 💪.
Inside their kit, the lucky winner will find personalised stationery, a water bottle, a tote bag, a whistle, a mug, glue sticks, cereal bars and MORE.
To take part, answer questions four days in a row on Teacher Tapp. You will earn a ticket visible in your app under prize draw. Collect as many as you can between 12th – 31st August. After 3:30pm on 1st of September, we’ll draw a winning ticket. 🎉 Note: there’s no need to do anything with your tickets – they are automatically entered into the prize draw. BUT we’ll share the winning ticket code on our socials, and email the winner too. Full terms and conditions here.
Teachers using AI
The internet is full of AI tools – but how many Tappers are tapping into them as resources?
We’ve been keeping track on this for some time and the numbers are nudging up…
More than half (57%) are using tools like Chat GPT for school work, and more than one in ten (11%) have used an AI tool in a lesson. Only 31% haven’t used AI at all.
All of this is lot more than last year when 50% hadn’t used AI and only 35% had used it for school work.
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So, which teachers *are* using AI tools?
A similar amount of primary and secondary teachers use AI for school work (56% and 57%, respectively). However, among secondary school staff, senior leaders and heads are more likely to use AI for work purposes than classroom teachers (60% vs. 52%).
In primary, those working with younger pupils are less likely to use AI for school work (46% of EYFS/KS1 to 64% of KS2).
Interested to find out more about AI in schools? Teacher Tapp’s founder Prof Becky Allen has written this blog about using Large Language Models in education PLUS you can hear her on the Ed-technical podcast.
What has been the best use of AI tools in your school? Share your handy tips and best prompts either over socials or through the app 📲.
Abolishing Exclusions?
In November, the Department for Education reported that 3,104 pupils were excluded from schools in England during autumn 2022-23—a 50% increase compared to the same period in 2021-22 (though, of course, this was during Covid).
Some organisations are campaigning to reduce or eliminate school exclusions altogether.
But how much support do zero-exclusion policies actually have among those working in schools?
On the whole, teachers overwhelmingly disagree with the idea of never excluding pupils in any circumstances.
More than half (56%) of middle, senior and headteachers strongly disagree with abolishing exclusions, as do 49% of classroom teachers.
Secondary school teachers are also far more likely to strongly disagree compared to primary school teachers (65% vs 40%).
Ofsted grading also makes a difference, with teachers in schools graded Requires Improvement more likely to strongly disagree than teachers in schools graded Outstanding (58% vs 48%).
Attitudes towards school exclusions also haven’t changed over time. The last time this question was answered in 2018, the results were almost identical.
You can read more about our exclusions data from previous years in this blog here from the organisation ‘Finding Common Ground’.
Left-handed chisel tippers
Last week a Teacher Tapper got in touch to ask if being left or right-handed changed the preference on bullet tip or chisel tip board markers…
Fortunately, we have the data to find that out!
And the answer is…it makes no difference!
Left-handed, right-handed or even ambidextrous – bullet tip comes out on top 👑! (Sorry chisel folks!)
Schools working on workload
Balancing teacher workload with maintaining a high-quality student experience is a key challenge for school leaders.
But when schools have tried to cut workload in the past 12 months, which areas have been stripped back?
The answer is phase-dependent.
In primary schools, the most common workload reductions strategies were cutting back on purchasing resources (31%) and revising feedback policies (30%).
In secondary schools top approaches were reducing meetings (29%), altering feedback and marking policies (23%) and centralised detentions (23%).
By far the LEAST common option in both phases was flexible working (3% and 5%).
Primary schools were less likely than secondary schools to centralise behaviour systems (9% vs. 23%) but more inclined to focus on planning adjustments (31% vs. 8%).
More than a third (38%) haven’t done anything at all in the last 12 months to reduce workload (although that could be because cuts were made in previous years).
What is better than your own room?
DILEMMA TIME! If you had to choose between 100% of your timetable all in the same room OR 80% of your timetable but in a different room every lesson, a whopping 77% picked the fuller timetable in a consistent room.
However, what about those teachers we wrote about last week who have been teaching in inappropriate classrooms this year?
Teachers who already taught in inappropriate classrooms during the last academic year would be slightly more likely to choose having their teaching load cut even if it meant teaching in a different classroom every lesson (24% vs 20%).
🧐 Is this because they’re already used to the upheaval? Tell us your theories! 💬
Top events
This week’s top event is ResearchEd National Conference taking place in September.
This is an in-person event – and what is more, Teacher Tapp will be there too! 🤩 (Come to our stand and grab a lip balm)
If you want to know what edu-events are coming up then check the app and filter for your phase and subject.
Ups and Downs
On the rise 📈
Stressful work emails – More teachers opened an upsetting work email this summer break compared to last year (23% up from 20%).
Heading down 📉
The popularity of teaching cursive writing in EYFS – Compared to 2022, fewer classroom teachers would want to teach reception children cursive or pre-cursive handwriting (19% down from 22%).
Daily Reads
This week Alex Quigley’s blog on the Pygmalion effect was our most-read blog of the week 🙌.
If you would like to read the rest you can find them here 👇
