Hey there, Teacher Tappers!
Although the weather doesn’t seem to have received the memo – it is very much the summer term now. We’re sure the sun will come out soon…☀️ and then it’ll rain again in time for sports day.
We hope you’ve been enjoying our new prize draw. :Looking at the numbers, lots of you have been hitting that three day run to earn tickets 🎟️! And we hope you’re hungry, as the prize is a £500 restaurant voucher so you can take your favourite teacher friends out to celebrate.
Taking part is simple: you’re already entered! Answer questions for three days in a row on Teacher Tapp to earn a ticket. At the end of the month we’ll announce the winning ticket and you can check your app to see if you’ve won. The hard part will be picking what sort of food to go for! 🍔🌮🍜.
Cover, cover everywhere…
It’s always your busiest day when you get the notification that you’re down to cover for absent colleagues 😣.
Given how much absence is worrying leaders, how much cover is going on this year?
We asked if you’d been put on cover (1) during your PPA 🚫, (2) when an absence had been planned 📝, or (3) more than once in the same week 😵💫.
In secondary schools 48% of you had PPA taken for cover and 56% had been used for a planned absence. Eve worse: 44% had been taken for cover more than once in the same week.
Primary reported slightly smaller percentages, thankfully: 32% losing a PPA, 23% covering planned absence, and just 14% being hit with cover twice or more in a week.
What has cover been like for you this year? Let us know how your school is managing it via the Teacher Tapp app or through the socials📱.
How do secondary schools use KS2 results?
As primary school teachers shift up a gear as KS2 assessments approach, over in secondary – will those results be used to inform target grades, setting or planning for interventions?
The answer is…not as much as they used to be. 📉
56% of schools do still use KS2 tests to set target grades, but only 28% for class ability settings, and just 3% use them to analyse where specific weaknesses are.
Back in 2019, far more of you were using the year 6 Sats for those purposes – so what’s changed?
Is it a change to assessment generally in secondary schools? Are more testing year 7 pupils on entry? (Is it because they’ve read Teacher Tapp data about the level of, um, helping that goes on?
Let us know what you think is behind these changes on socials or on the app…💬
Flexi-schooling
Students learning in a school AND at home isn’t a new set up. Hence, we’ve asked since 2019 about how many of your pupils have ‘flexi-schooling’ arrangements – and each time we do slightly more of you say ‘yes’.
This week, once again, the number has gone up.
28% of you have one or more pupils on a flexi timetable, up from 17% in 2019.
What age are the pupils on these timetables?
In primary, far more (18% vs 10%) reported ‘one or two pupils’ on flexi timetables, whereas secondaries were more likely to report multiple children – this is likely to be explained by the size of secondary versus primary.
However, the number of you telling us you don’t allow flexi-schooling has also risen (15% today vs 12% in 2019).
At first, this might seem counter-intuitive. However, back in 2019, far more of you said you hadn’t been asked for flexi-schooling (55% vs 41%) so it’s possible schools simply didn’t have a policy on it as it had never been requested.
How does flexi-schooling work in your setting? Have you pupils in your classes who are there part time – or have you declined requests from families asking for a flexi approach? Let us know on socials or through the app 📱.
Top events
This week’s top event is…
Primary Quiz and their ‘Low Stakes Quizzing and Retrieval Practice’ remote event – again! 🤩
You can find this event and lots of others in the events tab on the Teacher Tapp app – check it out!
Ups and Downs
On the rise 📈
The number of you working in schools where it’s okay to speak about mental health: 12% of you say you strongly agree that your school encourages you to speak openly about your mental wellbeing – up from 4% in 2018.
Heading down 📉
The number of teachers who want their heads to change marking and assessment: 21% of you say you would change marking or assessment if you suddenly became headteacher of your school compared to 27% in 2022.
Daily Reads
Our most read daily read this week was the blog: Creating a culture of teaching and learning
If you would like to read the rest you can find them here 👇
